âA fantastic science fiction thriller with a sincere and important message.â âKirkus Reviews
Victor Eastmore knows someone killed his grandfather, the pioneering scientist Jefferson Eastmore. But Victor, diagnosed with mirror resonance syndrome, has been shunned by Semiautonomous California society. Nobody will believe a Broken Mirror. Now Victor must tread the line between sanity and reclassificationâa fate that all but guarantees heâll lose his freedom.
With its self-driving cars, global firearms ban, and a cure for cancer, the science fiction world of Broken Mirror may sound like a near future utopia, but on Resonant Earth, history has taken a few wrong turns. The American Union is a weak and fractious alliance of nations in decline. Europe manipulates its citizens through propaganda. And Asia is reeling from decades of war.
Determined to uncover the truth about Jeffersonâs murder, pansexual Victor and his trans friend Elena set out on a road trip that takes them across the American Union from Semiautonomous California through the Organized Western States to the Republic of Texas. But Elena is holding something back, and Victorâs condition worsens.
Amid shifting geopolitical sands, Broken Mirrors like Victor find themselves at a cyberpunk crossroads: evolve or go extinct.
âA fantastic science fiction thriller with a sincere and important message.â âKirkus Reviews
Victor Eastmore knows someone killed his grandfather, the pioneering scientist Jefferson Eastmore. But Victor, diagnosed with mirror resonance syndrome, has been shunned by Semiautonomous California society. Nobody will believe a Broken Mirror. Now Victor must tread the line between sanity and reclassificationâa fate that all but guarantees heâll lose his freedom.
With its self-driving cars, global firearms ban, and a cure for cancer, the science fiction world of Broken Mirror may sound like a near future utopia, but on Resonant Earth, history has taken a few wrong turns. The American Union is a weak and fractious alliance of nations in decline. Europe manipulates its citizens through propaganda. And Asia is reeling from decades of war.
Determined to uncover the truth about Jeffersonâs murder, pansexual Victor and his trans friend Elena set out on a road trip that takes them across the American Union from Semiautonomous California through the Organized Western States to the Republic of Texas. But Elena is holding something back, and Victorâs condition worsens.
Amid shifting geopolitical sands, Broken Mirrors like Victor find themselves at a cyberpunk crossroads: evolve or go extinct.
A new universe called to me, and I answered, ignorant of the harm in crossing over.
âVictor Eastmore, Apology to Resonant Earth, (transmission date unknown)
Semiautonomous California, 29 February 1991
Itâs one thing to die quietly with things left unsaid among family members. Itâs another thing to do what the great Jefferson Eastmore did with his secrecy and architecture of conspiracy: keep essential truths from Victor and put him on a collision course with an uncanny future.Â
Victor gazed across City Lake toward the tessellated foothills, where the elite families of Oakland and Bayshore kept their hedges trimmed and thorny. His grandfatherâs sarcophagus was up there, surrounded by marble pillars and gold-gilt fencing shaped like twisted strands of DNA. A tidy and neat brick gravemound would never have sufficed, since at the end of his life, Jefferson was as grandiose as his cancer-curing career. The stones were plucked from the canals of New Venice, and a plaque listed the manâs many accomplishments. Not listed was his failed effort to cure Victor of mirror resonance syndrome.
Victor spun around to face the city skyline. The morning was bright and windy. The timefeed on his MeshBit indicated thirty minutes until his reclassification appointment. He could go and wait in the anteroom, but his anxious vibrations might shake the building to its foundations.Â
He took a breath. No going back. Before the sun reached its zenith that day, his path would materialize. If he were lucky, he could stay a Class Three: free but under close supervision. Or he could become a Class Two: under guard, imprisoned, at a rancho in the hinterlands. He whispered a cherished but inconsistently effective mantra to fight off brain blankness: The wise owl listens before asking who. Each episode of blanking out was one more step toward mirror resonance syndromeâs inevitable tragic end: becoming a comatose Class One, insensate, a forgotten ward of the government. The only unknown factor was how quickly the future would crash against him.
He trudged along the shoreline, tensing and relaxing his jaw, trying to distract himself. Glittering towers rose exultantly cityside. Squally breezes swooped out of a cloudless, azure sky and assaulted bulrushes, sedges, and cattails in the shallows where a grid of waterplots penned them in.Â
Granfa Jefferson had been poisoned. Victor knew it. He had proof. But his family didnât believe him, and if he said any more about it, he would be locked away. Fair? No. Surprising? Not really. After all, his life was a farcical succession of tragedies. It wasnât time to give up, though. Not while he had unanswered questions.
The palm trees encircling the lake rustled like cheerleaders shaking their pom-poms. The water rippled, creating countless sun flashes on the lakeâs surface, and afterimages glowed and pulsed when he closed his eyes. The stench of goose shit turned his stomach.
He wedged the MeshBitâs detachable sonobulb in his ear, then called Elena. She answered right away. This was not the first time her promptness was suspicious.
âSee?â she said. âWhen a friend calls, you should answer. Right away. Not never.â
âI know. I need your help,â he said. âMy appointment is here. Iâm having trouble.â
âWhere are you?â she asked.
âCity Lake. West shore.â
âI canât get there in time.âÂ
You were there for Granfa Jeffâs funeral. You showed up at my apartment whenever you wanted. Why canât you be here now?
âThen talk to me,â Victor said. âAnything to keep my mind off my theories about Granfa Jeff.âÂ
At the time, Victor had nothing close to the truth about Jeffersonâs secret messages and plans for conspiracy and counter-conspiracy. He couldnât have guessed his role in the proliferating conflagration that would transform every person on Resonant Earth and beyond. No one could have predicted the neuro-contagion that eventually radiated beyond the American Union of Nations, or the mind-machine hybridization that became humanityâs destiny, or the fact that crossing over to another world would become a possibility rather than paranoia. If Victor had guessed any of it, he might have failed his reclassification deliberately and shown up at the gates of a rancho to check himself in. All this was a lot to have piled onto a mentally unstable young adult.Â
âBut you found radiation on the data egg,â Elena said. âI believe you. Weâre going to figure this out.â
Her confidence gave Victor warm tingles, but the timing was all wrong. Murder bird, murder birdâthose arenât the words I need right now. âLetâs talk about anything else. Please, Iâm desperate. As usual.âÂ
Elenaâs recent return to Semiautonomous California had helped him, even if something felt off with her sometimes. And right now, he was feeling supercharged, like his world hinged on every movement, every word, and the right shift in thinking could set him free, if only he could figure out what that might be.Â
She took a breath. âI think you should leave SeCa.â
Although the bioconcrete path beneath his feet was firm, he was unsteady, as if balancing on a tightrope swaying in the wind.Â
âIf I donât show up, theyâll reclassify me in absentia. I could never come back.â
âWhy would you want to come back?â Elena asked. âThey treat people with mirror resonance syndrome like criminals. You havenât done anything wrong.â
Victor paced toward the lakeâs edge. Crowds of lotus leaves floated, looking sad without their blossoms. âRemember when we talked about moving to an island? I said we could stargaze all night.â
âAnd I would make a pie out of real coconut flesh. Yeah, I remember. A wish is a lie, Victor.â
Elena was right. He couldnât afford to dream. Until he found a cure, his blanking episodes made him a danger to everyone.Â
She went on, âWithout mentioning the thing you donât want me to talk aboutââhe had no doubt she was rolling her eyes as she said thisââI will say that after what you told your family, I think you leaving SeCa isnât such a bad idea.â
Static came through the sonobulb, like a cotton ball pressed too deeply into his ear. His parents, granma, aunt, and cousin all thought he was losing his mind. They might be right, but why couldnât they just listen for once? His stomach ached as he remembered the disbelief, disappointment, impatience, and the hint of fear on their facesâugh, the memory was a knife twisting in his guts. It was good that the Personil was dulling his emotions; without it, heâd be lost in a storm.
He checked the screen on his MeshBit and tensedâonly a few minutes until his appointment.Â
Leaving wasnât a solution. It wasnât. He cleared his throat and said thickly, âNo matter where I go, Iâm still, you know, me. If I go blank here, people know what to do. Out there âŚÂ I donât know what would happen.â
âNo. The good people of Semiautonomous California arenât lining up to save you. SeCa is the problem. Itâs the good versus evil Cathar mindset. Other places are different. You can get away from discrimination. Away from surveillance. Thereâs no future here for you.â
Victor sat on a bench facing the lake, closed his eyes, and smashed his fists together. She was saying he could go somewhere the Carmichael laws couldnât reach him: the sandy beaches of the Southeastern Confederacy, an island within the Dominion of Florida and Cuba, or maybe a cabin in the mountains up north at the border between the Louisiana Territories and First Nations of Canada. But if what Ozie had said was true, that other nations were passing laws based on SeCaâs, soon there would be no place truly free for people like him. Maybe leaving would buy him some time. Maybe that would be enough.
âItâs that different elsewhere?â Victor asked.
Elena said, âPeople in Texas think a broken mirror is seven yearsâ bad luck.â
He barked a laugh. A nearby jogger did a double take at the sound. âIâve never thought of myself as a bad-luck charm. At least seven years is better than a lifetime.â
She sighed. âTexas is wild. Everyone is fighting all the time. The government is barely functional. Itâs chaos, but itâs not oppressive. I donât know. I canât explain it. Maybe you should see it for yourself.â
She was rambling, like old times. She was finally warming up to him again.
She wouldnât have killed Granfa Jeff. She had no reason to. She wasnât a killer. Oh yes, sheâd returned carrying secrets, but an Eastmore murder wasnât one of them.
His MeshBit pinged, and his heart suddenly pounded. âI have to go.â
Elena spoke rapidly. âDonât let them trick you. Not all the questions are going to be fair.â
âHow do you know?â
âIâve been asking around. Try to keep calm and rational.â
âAs opposed to psychotic and homicidal? Iâll do my best.â
Victor discontinued the feed, took the sonobulb out of his ear, reconnected it to the MeshBit, and tucked it inside his pocket, where it bumped against the slightly radioactive data egg that was somehow supposed to save him from being locked up. He exhaled loudly, then walked toward his reclassification appointment.
Broken Mirror: Resonant Earth is one of my first forays into the cyberpunk/dystopian sci-fi genre and I was very happy with what I read. Cody Sisco has created a breathtaking, deeply dark alternate-history Earth with complex characters, layered worldbuilding, and twist after twist after twist. I highly recommend it to fans of T.R. Napper, Adrian Tchaikovsky, and Philip K. Dick, or anyone looking to explore sci-fi with a dystopian noir feel.
The gritty prose really shines in this book. I was hooked from the start, and the highlight of Broken Mirror: Resonant Earth is certainly the worldbuilding and reality-bending commentary. Siscoâs descriptions of tech â both real and invented â allow for this alternate version of Earth in the 1990s to feel fully realized without becoming overly-complicated or convoluted. There were some instances of infodumping that could have been shortened, but those sections didnât take much away from the overall experience.
Another highlight is in its variety of representation. This story is very much about mental health and chronic illness, and Sisco combats a number of stigmas and slurs regarding mental illnesses in general, which was handled with tact. I really connected with the main character, Victorâs, experiences with the harassment, doubt, and fear that comes with his illness.Â
There is also a fair amount of queer representation, all of which felt natural and compelling within the story. What I enjoyed most, however, was that the characters were all well-developed and flawed in realistic ways. Not one of Siscoâs characters truly had me rooting for them, and thatâs a good thing. All in all, the combined atmosphere of grim worldbuilding and untrustworthy narrators are very in-line with what I know of cyberpunk/noir, which left me feeling satisfied with the story.
Broken Mirror: Resonant Earth is on the long side for a science fiction thriller, and the story does drop off quite suddenly at the end, meaning the reader will want to pick up book two ASAP. Luckily, Tortured Echoes is available in its original edition, but I will personally be waiting for another revised version. Despite its length, the chapters are short and moved the pace at a speed that kept me interested.