Bluescreen launches a series author Dan Wells hopes, in the book’s Acknowledgements, will be “very long.” Well, I hope so too.

The series appears to be called Mirador, after its geographical setting. This is cyberpunk sprawl Los Angeles, in a future in which two thirds of the world’s population carry implanted djinnis. These devices are both the ubiquitous omnitool successor to the smartphone and also the jack by which their bearers interface with the internet. Stores and homes recognize a user’s djinni so they can market to him or open the front door; djinni-bearers feel disoriented when they are temporarily forced to shut down the devices.

Bluescreen‘s protagonist is Marisa, hacker and leader of the Cherry Dogs, a high-profile online gaming group whose motto is “live crazy.” The words come to haunt the group when their path intersects mysterious shadowy figures who have released Bluescreen into the wild. This software is marketed as a rich-kid cyberdrug that is plugged into a user’s djinni and causes the user to reboot… but it may turn out to be something much worse.

Wells, as always, writes lucid prose, action-filled stories, and compelling characters. Can’t wait for the next one.

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