Steve Toutonghi Libri

What does it mean to be human, and what happens when humanity takes the next step in its evolution? When Join arrived, it was hailed as a miracle: a technology that allowed humans to join consciousnesses. To experience perfect, constant companionship through multiple bodies. To never die. But Chance and Leap—two joins of five and four respectively—discover a terrifying malfunction in the technology. Chance and Leap must journey into the climate change–ruined heart of North America and the communities of never-joined “ferals” in search of the only ones who can dismantle the technology: the ones who created it.

Set in Seattle, Steve Toutonghi’s second novel, Side Life, is a dazzling, intriguing, and philosophical blend of literary science fiction—perfect for fans of Blake Crouch, Philip K. Dick and Ex Machina. What if every possibility of every life were within your reach? Vin, a down-on-his-luck young tech entrepreneur forced out of the software company he started, takes a job house-sitting an ultramodern Seattle mansion whose owner has gone missing. There he discovers a secret basement lab with an array of computers and three large, smooth caskets. Inside one he finds a woman in a state of suspended animation. There is also a dog-eared notebook filled with circuit diagrams, beautiful and intricate drawings of body parts, and pages of code. When Vin decides to enter one of the caskets himself, his reality begins to unravel, and he finds himself on a terrifying journey that raises fundamental questions about reality, free will, and the meaning of a human life.