Welcome to the Characters
AI, Gene-Splicers & Anarchists Fighting for their World
Main Characters
The Lieben Cycle is a cyberpunk wonderland full of vivid, diverse characters who drift between serious and comedic. Two timelines will eventually intersect at the end of the second novel, the upcoming sequel Emptiness at the Centre.
For now, I hope you enjoy the mains from 2085 and 2155, and a comprehensive list of characters at the bottom.
The art is a current project of mine, as I drift away from my old artbreeder portraits and create bespoke, personal digital paintings of each character in my own hand. Please bear with me as I work a piece at a time to create art by my own hand, it's been years since I attempted digital painting of any kind.
"It's why Papa made me, to give the rocks a push."
The world's first sapient artificial intelligence, Lieben was meant to herald in new bottom lines for the Conglom's Elite.
When her beloved creator Dr. Karnak and his intern Baiko fell in with anarchists, Lieben developed outside the corporation's will.
Seventy years later, she is the Android Queen of Haven, an alternative from the corpocracies which contain the human race and the voice calling the Conglomerate Bio Machs 'home'.
Emptiness at the Centre
No. The Asset had a name. Scrawled into the side of the casket, a series of letters Rykstra was probably foaming at the mouth to analyse. 'Aderastos'.
The first successful The Conglomerate of Gaia Assets, Aderastos is an experimental biological war machine. Sealed on the CGM Ithavoll, AD-001 Aderastos broke out in 2155 and swam to Uclulet, BC.
A quiet, but imposing 8ft giant, Aderastos saw humans for the first time in the Uclulet Haven, reached out, and healed them.
In the Haven's hospital, he came across Max Allard, and in one silent stare, the fate of humanity got a breath or two kinder.
Emptiness at the Centre.
“I swear I had permission to bring my surfboard, Sir."
"What!? No!"
"Ah, Sir. What's…” Allard gulped, couldn’t a dressing down wait until after morning kip? Heck, a cup of brimstone coffee? He fought the urge to rub at weary eyes, or count the hours of sleep he’d got on two fingers. “...okay now I'm more scared to ask."
There was no way the biological war machine could see anything but 'kicked puppy' in Allard, right?
Pity Aderastos saw unexpected depths, and Max's fate was tied to the Assets forevermore.
Emptiness at the Centre.
“Karnak was always bloody. A bloody nuisance. Told Ego this was all fucked from the start. You’re fucked, you know that? Fucking Baba Yaga in a party dress. If you spoiled the sanctum, I’ll carve your circuits out myself.”
The android said nothing, consumed in her electric sleep while the world decompressed and began to make sense by inches. History, geography, news. She was an overexposed relic being caught up to speed, reaching up at the despair of antiquation to re-discover relevance. She was a woman terrified of public exposure. She was a cash cow, an investment, a prize.
The Idless’ hope for a mascot, or banner to lead them to a promised anti-corporatocratic future.
A veteran of the The Flag War, Anastas is a programmer and AI researcher with a nefarious past and present. Headquartered in The Bookshop since coming to London in 2079, he remained anonymous in the megatropolis' throngs, until Baiko and Ego of the Idless came to his Bookshop door.
“Do you like my river, Baiko?”
The sound of the waterfall surged in its’ contentment in the background, trickles babbling along the rocks of the stream. Clear now, the water looked less like a closed system of whirling, slow reeling circles. Life, in its’ abundance let the bric-a-brac flow downriver.
“Yes.” Baiko picked up her tablet and patted the space beside her, thumb slipping onto the pause button for the recording. “Lieben, do you know what a secret is?”
Emptiness at the Centre.
“Tara.” Robert grumbled, “What brings the Chairman’s Shitzu to my lair? Why are you here? We’re busy.”
“Failing, yes. I am well aware. Having problems, Bobert?”
He grimaced at her nickname, the way it curled out of her mouth like a whore’s promise.
Emptiness at the Centre.
characters
Amazon Top 300 Cyberpunk + Genetic Engineering Sci-Fi
"I never thought science fiction could be so beautiful."
AI meets gene-splicers, when the Idless & the Conglom fight to define Lieben and thus, the world. Seven decades later, Aderastos sets the human race against its’ next stage in evolution, if he can survive long enough to rescue his fellows, and Max.
Will Lieben help, or hinder?
Sequel to the Cyberpunk Bestseller
"I never thought science fiction could be so beautiful."
The walls are closing in on Aderastos and the Assets, in both 2092 and 2156. Will he rediscover their secrets in time to save his fellows, and rectify the chaos in Lieben's world?
Back in 2092, the Conglom's search for Lieben and the Idless increases in tenacity. How did Lieben take the Chernobyl Throne?
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