REVIEW: The Hive Construct - Alexander Maskill

Title: The Hive Construct
Author: Alexander Maskill
Series: None
Publisher: Transworld Publishers
Source: Review Copy
Publication Date: 13th August, 2015

Winner of the Terry Pratchett Prize, a dark yet dazzlingly imaginative science fiction thriller by a furiously talented new young writer Situated deep in the Sahara Desert, New Cairo is a city built on technology—from the huge, life-giving solar panels that keep it functioning in a radically changed, resource-scarce world to the artificial implants that have become the answer to all and any of mankind's medical problems. But it is also a divided city, dominated by a handful of omnipotent corporate dynasties. And when a devastating new computer virus begins to spread through the poorest districts, shutting down the life-giving implants that enable so many to survive, the city begins to slide into the anarchy of violent class struggle. Hiding amid the chaos is Zala Ulora. A gifted hacker and fugitive from justice, she believes she might be able to earn her life back by tracing the virus to its source and destroying it before it destroys the city—or before the city destroys itself. With its vivid characters, bold ideas, and explosive action, The Hive is science fiction at its most exciting, inventive, and accessible.

BLOG TOUR: The Hive Construct - Inspiration Behind Zala

Today Alexander Maskill, debut author and winner of the Terry Pratchett Prize to talk to us about the influences behind his protagonist, Zara. 

However much I try to insist that The Hive Construct (out now in paperback from all reputable booksellers!) is an ensemble work, I can’t pretend I didn’t realise that people would gravitate towards de facto main character Zala Ulora. She’s capable, she’s deeply flawed but capable of growth, she’s enough of an outsider to the setting that the reader gravitates towards her perspective most easily of all the perspective characters, she collides with the setting’s various factions without being directly beholden to them, and her story arc carries most of the heavy lifting regarding plot.