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Minus One
As a fallen visionary leads a global uprising against wealth inequality, an idealist pioneers a disruptive technology to shatter the status quo—provided he escapes the pursuit of intergovernmental actors, counter-culture terrorists, and crime syndicates.
Caught in the power struggle, a punch-drunk former prizefighter and his estranged daughters—a biohacker in Toronto and an extortionist in Osaka—become perilously intertwined with the emergence of humanity’s transhuman era.
Minus One presents an exciting and harrowing glimpse into a volatile near future, where emancipating technology becomes the fulcrum in a battle between established powers and revolutionary change.
A Moral Battle for Our Technological Future
The central conflict is revealed early on in Minus One, Mark Kolody’s compelling techno-thriller about the complexities of the approaching transhuman epoch...
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The Disrupted
In a transhuman near-future, an AI codebase is replicating across the Net – instanced on living memories and operating without predictable goals or terminal values. It swiftly becomes the unassailable proof of faith for millions, the foundations for a theocratic empire and an increasingly existential threat. As society unravels, a disgraced veteran of the Resource Wars must reconcile his past to have any chance at saving the future.
Reviews for The Disrupted
The Disrupted renders a technology-saturated future through the eyes of an ensemble cast- each approaching an impending-techno-apocalypse with their own intensely personal perspectives and motivations. The world-building and character studies: top-notch. The future-casting and root-cause of the conflict: all too real. Recommended.
Set in a near future only an inevitable step away from our own, Mark Kolody's "The Disrupted" is a compelling piece of science fiction coloured with suspense, excitment and anxiety. Fans of the cyberpunk genre will relish it's rich cast of fully realized characters, each detailed and damaged, dancing with the mystery of what it means to be human in a world that is increasignly less so. Rife with style and themes of identiy, privacy and belief, "The Disrupted" presents a world in decay, percariously balanced on the threshold of irrevocable change. Our current angst and uncertainty in the face of rapidly evolving artifical intelligence makes this a timely read and is highly recommended.
I really enjoyed "The Disrupted." I'm a huge fan of cyberpunk more generally, and Mark Kolody's writing style and storytelling really do the genre justice. He does an especially good job of building a world that feels alive, and one I just wanted to know more about. I loved the ideas he explores, and his wholehearted engagement with the philosophy and possibilities of AI and what a world built around technology could actually become. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for an exploration of the future told with care for the ideas and possibilities we face.
I was hooked from the first chapter! I would never have suspected this was a debut novel if I hadn't been told. The story is confident and original. The characters feel like flesh and blood people and I care about what becomes of them. The author is clearly tapped into what makes people do what they do. I am about halfway through and I need to know how it ends! I look forward to future works from this author.
I know the human who wrote this novel and attest that it reflects his intelligence, warmth, and character. The novel is about humanism (purpose, morality, duty, love, sexuality) and implications of the pending intersection with transhumanism (from identity to wealth disparity) and artificial intelligence (including alignment and the nature of the singularity). Strange days ahead. Nevertheless, humor runs throughout: in circumstance, dialogue, and, er..., violence (which never devolves to sadism). I look forward to his next works.
Brief Q&A
Yep! I’m about 20,000 words into another near-future novel. It’s a bit premature to offer details, but the story explores identity, purpose, and adopted community within a context of layered hardship.
I’m a born/raised Torontonian with a fiercely Japanese wife. For more than 20 years, I’ve been returning to Japan and keep discovering more to appreciate about its people and culture. Especially Osaka. The people there are different (in a good way). I would’ve set The Disrupted in that city if the novel didn’t have to account for advanced climate change.
As for Toronto, it’s a dynamic, modern, world-class city of millions with more than 50% of residents being born in a foreign country. For perspective, the 311 service (for city info) has content offered in 180 languages. There’s something low-key magical about actively living with the world in a single location. I’m the son of two immigrants, married to an immigrant with a mixed-race child, and there’s absolutely nothing special about that here.
Toronto’s a wonderful city with plenty of upsides, but also fantastically expensive. Many people genuinely struggle here – 10% of the city’s population relies on food banks. It’s far more vibrant than when I was a kid, but has also grown considerably less egalitarian. When I was young and (quite literally) hungry, it felt like there was always a way out—if only I could work through it. Now, I see a lot more resignation and resentment where there was once optimism. It’s changed the very cadence of the city and there’s a gnawing emotional friction in that for me.
I’ve worked in the digital industry since 1996—enough to know the price of free services and how the sausage is made. That said, I lurk on Reddit and will answer questions on GoodReads or those sent to me directly.
Mark Kolody possesses unique insights into near-future science fiction from decades of working at the leading edge of the digital industry. Formerly, he was a co-founding editor of a nationally distributed literary magazine, the vice president of a theatre troupe, and the principal of a creative agency. Mark is the author of The Disrupted, and lives with his family in Toronto, Canada.
©2025 Mark Kolody