Re-post review #3:

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David J. Williams’ The Mirrored Heavens is 21st century, next-gen cyberpunk, a grim imagining of a possible future our current international climate could easily produce. Four separate but inter-reliant plotlines fire like lasers, closing and eventually colliding in a breathtaking finale. Twists and turns are matched with breakneck pacing as Williams catapults the reader ever forward, ever onward with the tale of US counter-intelligence agents Jason Marlowe and Claire Haskell, who are stuck in the middle of the most monumental events since the end of the second Cold War. The Phoenix Space Elevator is humanity’s greatest technological achievement, a display of unified American and Eurasian power. It also goes down in flames before the end of Act One, setting the whole novel (and the series) into motion as various special forces try to hunt down Autumn Rain, the mysterious terrorist cell which executed the seemingly impossible strike.

Williams’ Razors are the 22nd century descendants of the original cyberpunk hackers and netrunners, who operate in a completely realized second world, the Zone. Their counterparts and teammates are Mechs, cyberware-enhanced soldiers who use awesome battlesuits to play out explosive choreagraphies that would have Michael Bay and John Woo exchanging high-fives.

The first novel ends at a turning point that positions the reader ready to plummet headlong into the next chapter of the story, satisfied but yearning for more.

The Mirrored Heavens shows how the cyberpunk genre is a still-valid mode of speculation about our future, a potent warning against global proliferation of arms and consolidation of control. Most of all, it shows the disastrous possibilities which could spin out of a 21st-century Cold War, with the US set against superpowers in both Europe and Asia.

Disclaimer: David J. Williams was a classmate of mine at the 2007 Clarion West Writers Workshop. I consider him a good friend, which of course colors my opinion, though the book’s merits stand on their own.