The hardback is sold out, but Holophin is now available as an e-book.
IT IS 2031 and the must-have gadget is the Holophin: a tiny, dolphin-shaped microprocessor which cures your worst impulses and phobias, comforts you in your grief or boredom and makes everything look much, much prettier. Hatsuka and Max are students at the esteemed Takin International School, a learning institute so magnificent it produces Holophins as a by-product of its coursework projects. The billionth device has just been sold, but when Takin’s best students are stalked by a shady rival manufacturer, Holophin’s monopoly, and the narrative itself, begins to unravel – with unexpected consequences.
This hallucinatory and darkly funny sci-fi mystery is the debut novella by acclaimed poet Luke Kennard, a refracted meditation on identity, technology and the imagination.
Published in hardback in a numbered, limited edition of 300. _
Digital formats
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Reviews
“a sparky, image-rich novella that reboots familiar genre themes”
The Telegraph
“a compelling adventure in cyberindustrial espionage”
Annexe Magazine
“wonderful reading, imaginatively fresh, technically surprising [...] It deserves to sell millions. I haven’t read so much joy since Heartsnatcher.”
Gists & Piths
“Holophin needs a couple of hours of your time and is going to do something to your head”
Edward Field
“Like David Mitchell, [Kennard] seems to have assimilated a wide range of influences in such a way that whatever he lays out, he has considered all the angles. In this case, what starts as a tight, imaginative flight of fancy, soon collapses in on itself.”
Adrian Slatcher
“If the creeping dominance of smartphones worries you, the Holophin is your worst nightmare.”
Sabotage
Feedback from readers
“It’s a small but terrifying satire, an ingenious idea, with all kinds of philosophical consequence, and it rips along joyfully and oddly, with some brilliant handbrake turns (the Proppian folktale for god’s sake). It’s just ingenious, cleverly playful and masterfully unsung about itself.”
“‘Kennard uses surrealism in a controlled, formal kind of way which no-one has else has thought to do since 1936.”
“‘Holographic Dolphin! Also, that chapter made of just symbols and the bit where the dolphin tells stories.”
“Futuristic security nightmares make me a happy robot”
“A chillingly original concept, realised with superb skill and mastery of craft. A Black Mirror of the page.”
“A quirky, genre-busting novella, complete with a dolphin sticker! Also, an excellent publisher who deserves support for taking risks on innovative but excellent work.”
“Strange, beautiful SciFi that tips its hat to the mighty Douglas Adams”
