Virtually True [Kindle Edition]

Adam L. Penenberg (Author)

Book Description

"A literary thrill ride operated by complex and memorable characters . . . a plot worthy of Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, and Martin Cruz Smith."

The murder of a friend. 

Conspiracy on a global scale. 

A near-future, dystopic world run by corporations, where nothing is as it seems and everything is part of something else. Technology and everyday life are inseparable, and information is a weapon that can save your life--or kill you.

Exiled to a damp Southeast Asian republic, journalist True Ailey relentlessly searches the war-ravaged peninsula for the killers and the truth. 

Virtually True, by award-winning journalist Adam Penenberg, is a non-stop roller-coaster ride for the mind.

 

Now boarding.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Penenberg uses his encyclopedic knowledge of the weirdest frontiers of technology and marries it to his gifts for compulsive storytelling and high-energy prose to bring us one of the best novels of recent years. It will make you think long and hard about the mess we've made of our planet. Read it now, before the movie version comes to a theater near you." --Suketu Mehta, author of Maximum City, 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist

From the Inside Flap

"In Virtually True Adam Penenberg brings his considerable experience as a tech reporter to create a near future world that is both utterly disturbing and entirely believable. This is a fantastic novel, completely absorbing and full of memorable characters and fascinating ideas."--David Liss, author of The Twelfth Enchantment and A Conspiracy of Paper

"Its hero may ply his craft many decades in the future, with a bomb-proof self-cleaning suit taking the place of a grubby trench coat, but his readiness to risk life, love and sanity to uncover the truth traces a clear path back to Woodward and Bernstein. Equal parts journalistic masterpiece and sci-fi masterclass, Virtually True refuses to let go until long after its earth-shattering finale."--Paul Carr, author of The Upgrade: A Cautionary Tale of Life Without Reservations

"In Virtually True, the imagination fires, the dialogue crackles. Adam Penenberg's deeply imaginative novel is a wild ride of techno-subterfuge rooted in the eternally human quest for identity, and justice."--Paige Williams, narrative writing instructor at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• File Size: 425 KB
• Print Length: 334 pages
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publisher: Wayzgoose Press (July 7, 2012)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B008IVNIRK
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #375,874 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Matrix and thensome July 13, 2012

By Reader

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

If you like The Matrix, you'll love this. Adam Penenberg is a real life journalist writing about a fictional journalist- True Ailey, who is caught up in a strange world where you can't tell what's real and what isn't. Reality isn't pretty- poverty, disaster, murder, broken dreams. The virtual world is dangerous too, there are people that don't want True there and they don't care who they take down to get rid of him. In between, there's a lost love, the battle against addictions, and most of all- the unwavering search for the truth, no matter what the cost.

A roller-coaster ride that will keep you turning pages. The writing skillfully keeps you a little off-balance and that's exactly what brings you into True's off-balance world.

A great read!

14 of 19 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwww October 21, 2012

By Daarn

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I tried as hard as I could to get into this book but it took too long to get to the plot.... I am still not there and have put the book down and started another one. I dont expect the author to give away the whole story in the first few pages but give me something to maintain my interest.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fast-moving technothriller November 13, 2012

By DJ

Format:Kindle Edition

It took me a little bit to get into the style, but by the third chapter I was hooked. It's a complex plot, mixing virtual reality, globalization, technology, journalism, and even love and revenge, but it all ties together somehow. Lots of plot twists. Fantastic characters. I think I liked the bad guys best.

More About the Author

Adam L. Penenberg is a journalism professor at New York University who has written for Fast Company, Forbes, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Wired, Slate, Playboy, and the Economist. A former senior editor at Forbes and a reporter for Forbes.com, Penenberg garnered national attention in 1998 for unmasking serial fabricator Stephen Glass of the New Republic. Penenberg's story was a watershed for online investigative journalism and portrayed in the film Shattered Glass (Steve Zahn plays Penenberg).

Penenberg has published several books that have been optioned for film and serialized in the New York Times Magazine, Wired UK, and the Financial Times, and won a Deadline Club Award for feature reporting for his Fast Company story "Revenge of the Nerds," which looked at the future of movie-making. He has appeared on NBC's The Today Show as well as on CNN and all the major news networks, and has been quoted about media and technology in the Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, Wired News, Ad Age, Marketwatch, Politico, and many others.