Empyre »

“Raw kinetic energy and blistering pace . . . a thriller for the new millennium.”
–James Rollins, author of Map of Bones and The Judas Strain

“Empyre is edgy, entertaining, and frightening. We can only hope the scary technology Conviser proposes is the purest fiction!”
–Kevin J. Anderson, co-author of Hunters of Dune

For decades, Echelon forced peace on the world. Freedom was a sham: Echelon wielded total, if secret, control. In the end, two bioengineered Echelon agents, Ryan Laing and Sarah Peters, brought the conspiracy down.

But there is no happily ever after for the liberators, or for humanity. With Echelon’s fall, a power vacuum is opened–and all hell breaks loose.

Now an outsider in the world he created, Ryan retreats into the wastelands of Antarctica and a life of isolation. But when Sarah is blamed for a series of terrorist attacks, Ryan must return to a world he wanted to forget. Could Sarah be responsible for these atrocities, or is she a pawn in a much larger game?

The answer lies with EMPYRE, a shadow organization at the center of the chaos gripping the globe. Ryan’s only hope is to uncover EMPYRE’s devastating secrets. The battle will drive Ryan and Sarah to the dark corners of the earth, to a floating, guarded city where the ultimate evil–and the ultimate plot against humanity–await.

“Josh Conviser’s near future is fascinating to imagine–and terrifying, because we might just be heading for it.”
–John Scalzi, author of The Ghost Brigades


Praise for Josh Conviser’s Echelon

“Imaginative and intuitive . . . Conviser mines and mints a nonstop stream of visual images.”
–Chris Carter, creator of The X-Files

“Bond level action.”
–SFRevu

Publishers Weekly

Robert Ludlum meets William Gibson in this dystopian spy thriller, the sequel to 2006's Echelon. Five years after taking down the corrupt, world-controlling cabal known as Echelon, former intelligence agent Ryan Laing is faced with an even bigger task: stopping Alfred Krueger, a vengeance-obsessed bioterrorist who has turned Laing's ex-girlfriend, Sarah Peters, into an asymptomatic carrier of a deadly retrovirus that has killed thousands of innocents. Laing, a bioengineered marvel augmented with several eye-popping nanotech enhancements, is reluctantly drawn back into the clandestine world of operatives and assassins as he tracks down Krueger and tries to figure out whether Peters is a victim or a co-conspirator. Even worse, he finally has to confront the wreckage of his personal life. While the cyberpunk elements are somewhat formulaic and certain high-tech components a little far-fetched (antiproton guns, etc.), the Orwellian atmosphere, intricate plot lines and breakneck pacing make this cyberpunk/espionage hybrid a highly entertaining read. (Oct.)