Cafe Noir: A Dystopian Satire

By Ross C Hardy

"After the ruinous Brand Wars, Krater's Koffee is the most powerful corporate superpower in this polluted, privatized, brutalized, and thoroughly GMO'd consumer-capitalist culture...Krater refined how to give the teeming masses their coffee fixes via vapor-inhalers--to the point that drinking liquid in an old fashioned mug is considered a dangerous, rebellious act sometimes enjoyed in underground competitions... In this dystopia, barista Argo Jones is a lifelong Krater employee and true believer, having been sponsored out of childhood poverty by the company and given Krater's cybernetic implants and combat training to work the front line as a coffee tech/server. But when his franchise is devastated by a lethal product contamination, management orders Jones into the chaotic streets--where average folk are bombarded by holographic commercials and neuro-implant ad blockers are a necessity--in order to draw out the subversives thought responsible... In this nightmare society, cat meat is a fast-food staple, intelligent (and insulting) seagulls are employed as couriers, and actors are lab-grown in vats...Don't be surprised if this bitter brew keeps you up all night." --Kirkus Reviews

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1505317940
• ISBN13: 9781505317947
• Release Date: February 2015
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 276 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.0" x 8.0"