State Tectonics

Malka Older

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One of the best books of 2018, according to Kirkus Reviews, the Chicago Review of Books, and BookRiot.

Campbell Award finalist Malka Older's State Tectonics concludes The Centenal Cycle, the cyberpunk poltical thriller series that began with Infomocracy and is a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Series.

The future of democracy must evolve or die.

The last time Information held an election, a global network outage, two counts of sabotage by major world governments, and a devastating earthquake almost shook micro-democracy apart. Five years later, it's time to vote again, and the system that has ensured global peace for 25 years is more vulnerable than ever.

Unknown enemies are attacking Information's network infrastructure. Spies, former superpowers, and revolutionaries sharpen their knives in the shadows. And Information's best agents question whether the data monopoly they've served all their lives is worth saving, or whether it's time to burn the world down and start anew.

The Centenal Cycle
#1 Infomocracy
#2 Null States
#3 State Tectonics

Book Details

Publisher: Tor Books
Publish Date: Jun 25th, 2019
Pages: 432
Language: English
Edition: undefined - undefined
Dimensions: 8.40in - 5.50in - 1.30in - 0.80lb
EAN: 9781250203274
Categories: • Science Fiction - Cyberpunk• Thrillers - Political• Thrillers - Technological

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 Faculty Associate at Arizona State University, where she teaches on predictive fictions. She is co-editor of We Will Rise Again, an anthology of speculative fiction about social justice movements, coming out in December 2025.

Praise for this book

"State Tectonics is a really good story about our near future and how social and news media are increasingly shaping the perceived realities of people and countries. It shows how people of good will can invent the future of democracy, and how that future might further evolve. The entire Centenal Cycle offers a vision which already influences the path of democracy and commerce in the here and now." --Craig Newmark, founder of CraigsList

"As a work of speculative fiction -- particularly about a subject as complex as the future of democracy -- State Tectonics is superlative." --TechCrunch

"Satisfying as a novel, anxiety-inducing as a comment on our society." --Kirkus Starred Review on State Tectonics

PRAISE FOR NULL STATES

"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 on Null States, Top Pick (4.5 Stars)

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

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

"A riveting science fiction thriller that brings the future of democracy to vivid, divisive life... a hell of a good story." --The Chicago Review of Books

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

"Far too messy to be utopian or dystopian, Older here raises all sorts of critical questions. I love this book; can't wait to see what else she writes." --Ian Bremmer, author of The End of the Free Market and Superpower

"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