Rise of the Water Margin

De: Christopher Bates

Narrado por: Christopher Bates

Framed, disgraced and on the run, what would China's top cyber-warrior do for revenge? And what can the NSA's Dr. Mili Parekh do to track him?

Rise of the Water Margin immerses the listener in a near-future world grounded in American and Chinese cultural and political landscapes bickering over climate responsibility, wherein technology challenges humanity to redefine its relationship with the Earth. Superpowers seek to leverage and subvert technology to further political ambitions while losing sight of human elements beyond their control.

In the background is the tangled whorl of the Jianghu–the rivers and lakes of China’s wuxia demimonde–ever seeking to evade the surveillance state, ever seeking justice in an unjust world.

Chinese People’s Liberation Army Major Lin Chong is framed, disgraced, and on the run. Hunted for a trumped-up act of treason and manslaughter, the resourceful leader of China’s elite cyber-warfare unit takes refuge at a hacker enclave in one of China’s deserted “ghost cities.” Devastated by his wife’s suicide, he unleashes a cyber-weapon that threatens to draw China and the US into a nuclear war.

Dr. Mili Parekh, the brilliant head of the US National Security Agency’s Attribution Division, is tasked to identify the source of the attack. Parekh’s technical skills point to China’s culpability in the cyber-attack, and to Major Lin himself. Complicating matters for the wheelchair-bound Parekh are nagging doubts about another entity emerging in her analysis—and its possible links to Lin.

©2022 Christopher Bates (P)2023 Christopher Bates

Outstanding and daring imagination

a thrilling page turner with deep informative and entertaining dives into Chinese politics and culture.

Creative

The book’s use of the water margin plot is really fascinating, and I love how the author brought Chinese modern history into it as well. After listening to it several times, though, I found the pace of this story was a little too fast. The technology part was still great, and I got to appreciate it because of the limited use of buzzwords. I’d definitely recommend it to people who like modern/post modern history and science fiction.