A visceral, action-packed dystopian nightmare, Omniviolence is the new near-future sci-fi thriller from Jones Worthington – a writing duo made up of Gareth Worthington (Dark Dweller) and Stu Jones (The Zone). Together, the pair have combined to craft an unapologetically violent and terrifyingly tale that explores the potential extreme future that lies ahead of us.
Set in a future where government and law enforcement have all but been destroyed, and given rise to an unregulated internet and a crypto-powered economy, any semblance of society as we know it has been eradicated. In this future, keyboard warriors can now pay freelance drone killers to enact their revenge in the real world with deadly consequences. In Chicago’s slums, Jackson, a teenager living in his mother’s basement, is one of the world’s most prolific drone killers, eliminating targets from the relative safety behind a computer screen and untraceable payments. On the other side of the coin is Bones, an old-fashioned mobster enforcer who is conducting kills the old-fashioned way. But when their contracts coincide, the pair find themselves reluctantly needing to join forces to uncover who betrayed them and go on the run in a world ruled by omniviolence.
The book’s title alone tells you that this is going to be an extreme examination of human nature’s propensity for violence. Though rather than reveling in the barbarity for the sake of shock value alone, it uses the brutality to question how the erosion of moral boundaries can lead to societal ruin.
The plot itself is impressively, intricately woven, threading the reader through slices of action thriller, road movie and pure sci-fi. The two leads are fully dimensioned characters and their development throughout the adventure evolves smartly while navigating the many twists and turns. Unfortunately, the villains of the piece occasionally stray over the line into Batman bad guy territory, with their objectives and capabilities risking undermining some of the layers of creative depth the world-building has constructed.
Packed with harrowing content, Omniviolence is a deliberately uncomfortable read that some will no doubt find distressing or triggering. However, beneath the dark themes, the authors have injected a relentless energy to the storytelling that gifts the book space to provide a thought-provoking commentary on society as it is now, and the path that it’s on should we look to indulge in humanity’s worst impulses.
Chilling, entertaining and surprising at every turn of the page, Omniviolence is a warning to the destructive power of technology and the darkness that lurks within the human soul.
Omniviolence is OUT NOW. Buy it here on Kindle
