Infinite Detail
Published 2026-09-16 07:23:47
Book info
- Author
- Year 2019
- Genre Science Fiction
- Format Paperback
- Pages 372
BEFORE: In Bristol's center lies the Croft, a digital no-man's-land cut off from the surveillance, Big Data dependence, and corporate-sponsored, globally hegemonic aspirations that have overrun the rest of the world. Ten years in, it's become a center of creative counterculture. But it's fraying at the edges, radicalizing from inside. How will it fare when its chief architect, Rushdi Mannan, takes off to meet his boyfriend in New York City—now the apotheosis of the new techno-utopian global metropolis?
AFTER: An act of anonymous cyberterrorism has permanently switched off the Internet. Global trade, travel, and communication have collapsed. The luxuries that characterized modern life are scarce. In the Croft, Mary—who has visions of people presumed dead—is sought out by grieving families seeking connections to lost ones. But does Mary have a gift or is she just hustling to stay alive? Like Grids, who runs the Croft's black market like personal turf. Or like Tyrone, who hoards music (culled from cassettes, the only medium to survive the crash) and tattered sneakers like treasure.
The world of Infinite Detail is a small step shy of our own: utterly dependent on technology, constantly brokering autonomy and privacy for comfort and convenience. With Infinite Detail, Tim Maughan makes the hitherto-unimaginable come true: the End of the Internet, the End of the World as We Know It.
Thoughts
I don't know what made me want to pick this book up, the front cover isn't fully engaging and the blurb on the back cover was in tiny text. But I got enough to know it was a dystopian cyberpunk offering and that seemed like an interesting concept.
The book is set in Bristol, with plenty of detail that proved the author knows the location well. I did wonder if there was a secret sponsorship deal with IKEA, as it was mentioned at least five times. The story ended up not being that dystopian, because it's really not that far removed from where we are in modern society. An early quote following a rightly paranoid and security conscious character shows just how easy it is to let your guard slip:
On the way into the station they'd had to hold hands as they passed through the turnstiles, Scott explaining it was so the city could see they're together, and charge him for Rush's fare. The idea made Rush uncomfortable, but holding his hand felt so right. He's made a career out of telling everyone that cities know too much, but right then he didn't care that this one knew they were together, or who it told.
The 'before' descriptions are worryingly recognisable. Building up to the cyberterrorist incident is doom-laden. The attack itself is realistic. I just had a problem with everything set 'after' the event. Characters would turn up saying it was bad in the city, but without really talking about how. There was a graveyard of shipping boats but what happened? We were shown that everything had got a bit cliquey and there wasn't much in the way of resources, but I was just left wondering why.
It's not clear to me why the cyber attack would bring about the fall of society. I totally buy that we're too reliant on technology and shutting down the internet would cause a lot of problems, but I think I needed more of a path between the incident and civilisation falling apart. If the whole premise of the book is finding a way back from disaster, I need more information about how bad it really is and how we got there to fully appreciate the journey ahead.
The atmosphere of the book is good, though. I'm relatively new to the cyberpunk genre so I don't know if it is more driven by feelings than by specifics. For me, the better half of the book couldn't sustain the other, so I can only score this 2 out of 5.
Rating: 2 / 5