I have to say, what they have showed so far is a bit lackluster for a game, hoping they step it up after the beta.

• 25 player limit per server
• Only gathering/crafting game play loop with no real goal besides improving itself
• housing and relationship building is the goal, but tied to real time timer, which will likely become a premium skip eventually
• Cosmetics seems to be only through payment, which is usually blindsided since takes alway one more goal from the game play loop

Everything kind of rests on how good questing and adventure zones will be.

Update:

Thanks everyone for participating in the giveaway! The giveaway is now closed, I hope you all enjoy the reading. :) As the number of participants was around the expected, I have sent you all a copy of the book!

--- Since I was a kid, I was obsessed with computers, technology, and books. Science fiction books, palpable technologies with surreal events, were my favorite addiction. I grew up drinking from this source, dreaming of writing my own stories one day. But growing up on the periphery I quickly came to understand it was not more than a dream, especially in Brazil. So, I was thrown into the nearest lane, jumping from technical support to software engineer.

Years flew by, and in the rush of day-to-day life, I ended up forgetting the essence that propelled me down this path. Goals, projects, codes, stress... blah, blah, blah. You know the deal, you took it too. However, after several (miracle) therapy sessions, I decided it was time to take a break from the command prompt and dive into Word. And, after many, many months, liters of coffee, a herniated disc, and a hefty dosage of ibuprofen, voilà, a book was born!

It is a cyberpunk story that speaks about work dehumanization, communities vs corporations and kicking the corporative ass.

Coincidetally, or not, the story connects with what we have experienced with Reddit and Lemmy, so I understood it would be fitting to conduct the book's giveaway on the Fediverse only!

Ghost Trigger is available on Kindle and Paperback, as well as other digital formats. It's a dive into passion, at the cost of a beer, and about three hours of your life.

I will be conducting the giveaway of 10 copies, in either:

• Paperback (North America, Europe and Australia only)
• Kindle
• Epub

To participate, just comment the format you would like to receive!

The giveaway will begin tomorrow, and winners will be chosen randomly.

Tried playing a bit with changing POV's and ambiguity on flash fiction, not sure on the result though.

---

Anxiety weighs on the prisoner’s weary form. The one he saw as a redeemer was far from it. It was something far more complex. Exhaustion threatens to consume him, yet he strides ahead, on the verge of his limit. He raises his gaze to the top of the wall — no more room for evasion, grass or bullet awaits.

He is the cockroach, hidden within the dewy moss. No turning back now, only forward to go. Following his training, he grapples the loose bricks. His grip scratches the surface, it hurts, it weakens. He slips once, he slips twice. He thought it was going to be easy, but as it turns out, it was just more labor.

Left on his own, his dreams of crossing borders linger. Feet touch the ground, a vibration tours his body. Too much pain, his foot fell first, top over bottom. Something is broken. He must move on. Scaling the wall was the easy part, he thinks. Now, the challenge is to remain unseen. In the darkness, the cockroach moves with stealth, escaping the piercing beams that would sear his flesh and usher his demise.

The watchtower guard is vigilant, an insatiable lust for the chase keeps him alert. Sweat trickles down his forehead as he squints, determined to spot the elusive cockroach and put an end to his ordeal. The plan was straightforward — create a diversion, release the prisoner, savor the free meal. But, as he realizes, there is no free lunch.

The cockroach creeps low, the overgrown vegetation concealing him well. It's only a matter of time now, he thinks, the river holds his freedom.

The drone hounds are set loose, their keen sense of heat drawing them from afar. The guard’s fear dissipates, knowing he has everything under control. No one will slip away.

The damp earth whispers of hope. It won't be long, he thinks. Hands stained with blood from jumping the wall. The throbbing pain from his fractured toes pulses through the leg. The aroma of rain-soaked soil is strangely comforting. The dampness of his clothes, less so. Green foliage sticks to his face as he continues to crawl. He can hear the river's murmur close by.

Movement stirs the undergrowth, and the guard has no seconds to waste. His gaze darts around; the hounds trail distantly.

The guard steadies, the guard targets. The wind rustles his attire, his hat is sent flying off. A quiver runs through his arm. Too much work this was. No inclination to make amends wells within him. He presses the trigger, the sound reverberates into the distance. Recoil jolts his shoulder. He observes, he scrutinizes, he prays.

The river embraces its visitor, the roach contends with the powerful currents. The burden is lifted, he can rest now, it’s time to go home. It was too much labor. It was worth it.

I've compiled a timeline of cyberpunk books that, in my opinion, represent significant shifts in the genre and its ideas. Whether it's the early explorations of AI and dystopian futures, the emergence of virtual reality, or the more recent reflections on environmental and social issues, each book on this list adds a unique perspective to the ever-evolving cyberpunk landscape.

However, it takes a village and all that. So I would like to list them here in c/cyberpunk, cross-posting it at literature, to know your opinions on the genre, the books, and if you have any suggestions, complementary or disrupting, on this list.

1. "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick (1968): To me, it all begins here. This novel, which served as the basis for the movie "Blade Runner", popularized the groundwork for many cyberpunk themes like artificial intelligence, dystopian future, and the blurred line between reality and the artificial.

2. "Neuromancer" by William Gibson (1984): Often considered the genre defining work, it introduced the concept of cyberspace and explored themes of artificial intelligence and corporate power, and to me it indirectly set the core principle of the genre, "high tech, low life".

3. "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson (1992): This book further pushed the envelope on the concept of virtual reality, offering a blend of ancient cultures, linguistics, computer science, politics, and philosophy, and fucking added fun to the genre.

4. "Ghost in the Shell" by Masamune Shirow (1995): I cheat a little big here by adding a manga series. It deserves a mention, along with the movie, because it dives deeply into the themes of self-identity, artificial intelligence, and societal intrigue that really brought cyberpunk to the world. It had a profound influence on cyberpunk literature and media after it's conception.

5. "Altered Carbon" by Richard K. Morgan (2002): This may be a little controversial, as I don't really like the author to be honest, but this novel adds more depth to themes of identity and humanity through the concept of consciousness transfer and immortality.

6. "Accelerando" by Charles Stross (2005): This one added weight to the genre by exploring the societal and personal changes that might happen as a result of the technological singularity, a theoretical point when technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible. I personally dig this aspect, and try to write more of it.

7. "Windup Girl", by Paolo Bacigalupi (2009): I know, I know, "biopunk". But I refuse to budge on it. To me this retains the core concept of cyberpunk, and is cyberpunk, because it is about technology, and its effect on quality of life and society. But the simple fact that the novel brings this discussion makes it a remarkable point in the genre.

8. "Player One" by Ernest Cline (2011): Another controversial addition here, but this book is a blend of dystopian future with nostalgia for the pop culture of the 1980s, and revives themes of virtual reality and the influence of technology on society, giving breadth (and a new breath) to the genre.

9. "The Ministry for the Future" by Kim Stanley Robinson (2020): This near-future novel tackles themes around climate change and global politics, focusing on the power of technology as a tool to combat environmental disaster, and offers a more optimistic view of the future. I like this one here because it brings the discussion to current topics, maintaining the genre alive.

10. "Repo Virtual" by Corey J. White (2020): White's novel explores cyberpunk in an age of late capitalism, AI, and questions about sentience and autonomy. Along with ministry of the Future, this serve the same purpose of maintaining the genre purpose alive and bringing us to the point we are now, which is also a good concept that I agree with: it doesn't need to be about things far away in the future, because soon some of these novels will be about things in the past, and the genre must remain the same still.

An article I wrote a while ago when the LLM's were blooming, decided to publish it on paper.wf too!

I have always been fascinated by internet communities, and going through almost all of the versions of it so far in my life, I felt like rumbling about it, as I wonder where we will go from there.