Null States: Book Two of the Centenal Cycle

Malka Older

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"Kinetic and gripping" --NPR on Infomocracy

Null States continues Campbell Award finalist Malka Older's Hugo Centenal Cycle, the near-future science fiction trilogy beginning with Infomocracy that is a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Series

- The book The Huffington Post called "one of the greatest literary debuts in recent history"
- Named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post, The Verge, Flavorwire, Kirkus, and Book Riot
- A Locus Award Finalist for Best First Novel

The future of democracy is about to implode.

After the last controversial global election, the global infomocracy that has ensured thirty years of world peace is fraying at the edges. As the new Supermajority government struggles to establish its legitimacy, agents of Information across the globe strive to keep the peace and maintain the flows of data that feed the new world order.

In the newly-incorporated DarFur, a governor dies in a fiery explosion. In Geneva, a superpower hatches plans to bring microdemocracy to its knees. In Central Asia, a sprawling war among archaic states threatens to explode into a global crisis. And across the world, a shadowy plot is growing, threatening to strangle Information with the reins of power.

THE CENTENAL CYCLE
Book 1: Infomocracy
Book 2: Null States
Book 3: State Tectonics

Book Details

Publisher: Tor Books
Publish Date: Aug 7th, 2018
Pages: 448
Language: English
Edition: undefined - undefined
Dimensions: 8.20in - 5.40in - 1.30in - 0.83lb
EAN: 9780765399540
Categories: • Science Fiction - Cyberpunk• Thrillers - Technological• Thrillers - Political

About the Author

Older, Malka: - Malka Older is a writer, aid worker, and sociologist. She is the Executive Director of Global Voices, a community of writers, editors, and translators providing community journalism from all over the world and advocating for indigenous and minority languages, media literacy, digital rights, and online freedom of expression. Her science-fiction political thriller Infomocracy was named among the best books of 2016 by Kirkus, the Washington Post, and Book Riot; with sequels, it was a finalist for a Hugo award. The Mimicking of Known Successes, a murder mystery set on Jupiter, was on four best of 2023 lists and was a finalist for the Nebula, Hugo, Locus, and Ignyte awards for Best Novella. The sequel, The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles, was named one of the best science-fiction books of 2024 by Esquire, and the third book in the series, The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses, comes out in June 2025. She is a FacultyAssociate at Arizona State University, where she teaches on predictive fictions. Her opinions can be found in The New York Times, The Nation, and Foreign Policy, among other places.

Praise for this book

"Seriously inspirational for people who are genuinely involved in inventing the future." -- Craig Newmark, founder of CraigsList

"Subtly radical (except where it's openly radical), this book and series continues to offer a kinetically involving narrative that can also make you think about our actual world today." --RT Book Reviews, Top Pick (4.5 Stars)

"Carefully researched, prescient, thoughtful, and disturbing." --Kirkus Reviews

"In Infomocracy, Malka Older built a realistic world where current trends result in new forms of democracy and peace building, based on Internet-like comms and transparency. She extends that in Null States, depicting the evolution of that world as it faces further real world challenges. Both are intellectually challenging and fun to read, and seriously inspirational for people who are genuinely involved in inventing the future." --Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist

PRAISE FOR INFOMOCRACY

"Kinetic and gripping, the plot hurtles toward an electoral climax that leaps off the page." --NPR

"Futurists and politics geeks will love this unreservedly." --The New York Times Book Review

"This brilliant book is unquestionably one of the greatest literary debuts in recent history." --The Huffington Post

"A futuristic world with eerie parallels to current events... [an] uncanny political thriller." --The Washington Post

"Smart, ambitious, bursting with provocative extrapolations, Infomocracy is the big-data-big-ideas-techno-analytical-microdemoglobal-post-everything political thriller we've been waiting for." --Ken Liu, author of The Grace of Kings

"A fast-paced, post-cyberpunk political thriller... If you always wanted to put The West Wing in a particle accelerator with Snow Crash to see what would happen, read this book." --Max Gladstone, author of the Craft Sequence

"A frighteningly relevant exploration of how the flow of information can manipulate public opinion...timely and perhaps timeless." --Kirkus Reviews starred review

"Older's sparkling debut, the first full-length novel from the novella-focused Tor.com imprint, serves as both a callback to classic futurist adventure tales by the likes of Brunner and Bester and a current examination of the power of information." --Publishers Weekly

"In the mid-21st century, your biggest threat isn't Artificial Intelligence--it's other people. Yet the passionate, partisan, political and ultimately fallible men and women fighting for their beliefs are also Infomocracy's greatest hope. An inspiring book about what we frail humans could still achieve, if we learn to work together." --Karl Schroeder, author of Lockstep and the Virga saga

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