By Peter Ryan
Destiny Imperfect
He played to save his father.
He stayed to save the world.
Visionary sci-fi with a heart
In a vastly overpopulated future, the virtual world is critical to humanity’s long-term existence. The Troika runs the planet. The Govt protects people. The Gyre wants it all.
Play the games. Earn the cryps. Save your dad. Arik is a virtual warrior who lives on the bitter edge—a solitary Tier 2 dark-gamer desperate to break through to T1 but, like so many, he’s barely surviving. When Arik receives a sketchy proposal—a covert military mission where death in the virt equals death in the real—he has to decide between his wretched reality, and a potentially deadly outcome that places more than just his father’s life in the balance.
But Arik’s innate skills cannot triumph against the machine, and what was once a straightforward virtual mission has spiraled into something far more menacing. He needs a team to succeed.
He played to save his father.
He stayed to save the world.
Writing for the love of it
Peter Ryan
Peter Ryan is a passionate reader, motorbike enthusiast, and t-shirt designer as well as being an English professor at a university in South Korea. His journey began in the sun-soaked streets of Perth, Western Australia, where he spent his formative years. Peter’s thirst for adventure and exploration led him across the globe, embarking on diverse career paths along the way. From toiling as a laborer on the bustling construction sites of London and Melbourne to serving as a chauffeur and minder to an English lord. ‘Keyes to the City,’ his second novel, draws inspiration from real-life encounters with individuals who defy convention and walk their unique paths. Peter, now residing in Seoul with his Canadian wife, continues to craft compelling stories that resonate with readers worldwide.
Other Syncline Titles
Two men. One conspiracy. No time to waste.
It’s post-Brexit London, and the City is awash with illicit funds. With the country’s security apparatus reeling from a lack of intelligence and operational capacity, an international terrorist with powerful mob connections seizes an opportunity to hack in and cash out. And now, it’s only London’s finest discretion consultants that stand between him and the City’s utter demise.
Bestriding London’s subculture scene has led to experiences of a lifetime for discretion consultants Horrace Keyes and ‘Fullon’ Willy Watson. But when a menacing underworld boss approaches them, looking for dirt on a fast-rising politician, they are thrust into a maelstrom of terrorism, politics, and the murky world of high finance. What was once a wild and carefree existence is now a whirlwind of conspiracy, intrigue, and death.
Keyes and Watson need to use their hard-kept secrets to survive, but doing so could kill them. The stakes are high. The clock is ticking. Game on.
Draft
You’ve got a problem. It’s unlikely he cares.
A hard-boiled journey through one man’s final shot at redemption.
The future is complicated. Jack is not.
In the early twenty-first century catastrophe strikes, shattering the Earth’s timelines and leaving in its wake a bleak, post-apocalyptic future. The world realigns. With past and future fractured, communities desperately cluster together for protection from marauding War Clans and predatory Scythers. Humanity is under attack from the worst enemy it’s ever faced: humankind itself. In this climate of terror, a new breed of enforcer is needed—the Keepers.
Ex-soldier and ex-cop, hard-drinking Keeper Jack Trevayne is armed, surly, and vulgar. Equipped with his sentient motorbike, he is the only one who can protect humanity while keeping the timelines clean. He has the skills and he has the attitude. But he’d just rather have a beer.
The future is complicated—Jack is not.
Sync City
Take some of the grit and violence of Mad Max and blend it with an octane-guzzling action story that jumps back and forth through time, and you’ll get Sync City.
– Kuniko Abe
This book caught my attention early and would not let go. Too often, authors shy away from gritty and dirty characters or make the grit and dirt a gimmick. Not so here! This story holds through time, being just as enjoyable on the second read through as the first.
– Ryan Nelson-Rury
The opening paragraph of Peter Ryan’s Sync City made me laugh, and I would do so many times throughout the book. Later, though, my sister picked it up to give it a look—and promptly admonished me for leaving it lying around where her three kids might read it.