The Logoharp

Named Finalist in the American Fiction Awards 2024 (category Science Fiction: Cyberpunk), The Logoharp describes the extaordinary journey of a young American journalist who chooses to work as an AI-driven propagandist for China in the 22nd century. Naomi is surgically transplanted, giving her extraordinary powers of foresight and physical strength. She hears voices of the future in her Logoharp, a universal translator of all world languages, allowing her to predict and broadcast events will surely come to pass. But Naom hears voices she can't identify. Strange, faint, and contradictory voices that sing to her with discordant messages. When she's tasked with finding a flaw in a State system that balances births and deaths -a system devised by a Chinese architect, Naomi's lover who abandoned her in youth-she experiences "unintentional contradiction." Suppressed human memories and emotions resurface, compelling her to act. and women she loves. unexpected love affairs with a biophysicist who has surgically enhanced her, and another Chinese journalist who treads a fine line between independent documentary and spying on behalf of the State. From the novel cover: She reports the future. And then it happens. Naomi, half-human, half cyborg, is beyond prescient. She's a Reverse Journalist, working for China in the 22nd century. Naomi's job is to foresee and report the events and personalities of the future. Unlike conventional journalists who frame contemporary events, Naomi extrudes the "truth of probable outcomes" to ensure the smooth progression of history. Driven by voices she hears in her Logoharp, a universal translator of instructions and signals from sources she can't identify, Naomi listens, speaks and broadcasts in all world languages, ensuring citizen compliance. But an encounter with a leading architect, Naomi's former lover who abandoned her in youth, forces recollections of her human inheritance and the role that chance, culture and racism played in her early life. Naomi is tasked with finding a flaw in the architect's system that "balances" births and deaths on behalf of the State. But she grows uncomfortable, then furious. Guided by immortals and the dissonant Logoharp, Naomi experiences "unintentional contradiction." The rest isn't silence. She acts.