J. D. Brink was not a private detective in the 1940s, but he’d liked to have been. Instead he was born in the 1970s, was a kid at the best time ever to be a kid (the ‘80s), went to college in the ‘90s, and has since been a sailor, teacher, nurse, and father. Today (Halloween, 2012) he and his family live in Texas, where there aren’t enough cheating husbands, missing persons, practicing witches, or hard-boiled mysteries to keep him occupied.

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• The Digital Sea on Dec. 17, 2012
  
  An easy and enjoyable read, as thorough in its world-building and characterization as those produced by the czars of mainstream publishing--and in some cases, even better. Score one for the indie authors! The Digital Sea is one part Neuromancer, one part Matrix, and three parts pure Carpenter. The narration follows various characters all over the globe in a futuristic world that could one day very much become our reality. The Digital Sea is a virtual veneer that covers our world, received through cyberspace links that most people cannot do without anymore. It very much echoes our growing reliance on the constant distractions of cell phones, one-thousand cable TV channels, and riding the endless surf of the Internet. Carpenter’s world also realistically mimics our own in its global problems. The nations of the world are desperate to reduce their populations, some even manufacturing wars to get it done. But an underworld warlord (for motives that, I admit, were not quite clear to me) hires/blackmails Zel Aurora to sabotage the Digital Sea in order to prevent the manipulation that is working toward nuclear war. Zel is a refreshing action hero in that she is motivated by the love her daughter rather than money or adrenaline, and that she has a unique mental handicap that puts her at a distance from the rest of humanity (though I think Carpenter might have been better off inventing a condition than stretching the one he used to fit her). Carpenter takes on a big challenge with this novel, following various developed characters at international and cross-cultural levels, and then deftly brings them all together as the book reaches its climax. While splitting my attention and affection for so many characters was a problem for me at times, it did weave a more complex and convincing tapestry, and seeing it all come together at the end made it well worth it. This first novel of his series is a great achievement, however one drawback to self-publishing a book of this length is finding an editor to double check your work: there were some mistakes and inconsistencies scattered around the 350+ pages, but they were easily forgivable. Carpenter’s novel is as well-developed and fast-paced as any globe-trotting cyberpunk adventure out there and well worth the read for any fans of the genre. I give it 3.5 - 4 stars. J. D. Brink author of A Long Walk Down a Dark Alley