Travel Documents 123: Grandfather Anonymous
Genre: sci-fi, spy thriller, adventure, espionage
The Dust Cover Copy
Elderly, unarmed, and extremely dangerous.
Ajay Andersen was the best hacker the NSA had ever hired. He sank corporations, toppled governments, and broke cryptography. All of it. Retirement hasn't slowed him down one bit, thank you very much.
His granddaughters are threatened, and he's going to need to step it up a notch. Biotech corporations and criminal enterprises hold the keys to survival, but ubiquitous surveillance threatens to reveal Ajay’s every move. Ajay would do anything to protect his family, but the more he digs, the more he dredges up the shadows of his own dangerous past.
He only needs to know one thing:
What makes his granddaughters so darn dangerous?
The Scene
Worldbuilding
In a little rambler in Minnesota, in the body of a little old man in carpet slippers, lives a sorrow deep as oceans and an intellect to terrify us all.
And he has a daughter very much like him.
Elderly father and striving daughter live in a world where quantum computing has taken down all encryption. Privacy is an illusion. Ever heard of Pegasus Malware? Look it up. What it does to targeted people, the whole world now does to everyone.
A lot of people have a vague inkling of this. But imagine living in a constant state of knowing that the sky is full of eyes, every camera tracks you, and nowhere is really safe.
And then imagine you have something to hide.
Imagine that secret is a child.
Two children.
Now imagine what you would do.
The Crowd
Characterization
It’s the characterization that really makes this story.
Ajay, a former NSA agent and not-exactly-retired hacker type who will die on the run (even if his hip is bugging him) is what old operatives become if they live so long. If you look at him from this perspective, he’s a paranoid old man so scared of the grocery store that his cupboards are mostly bare. If you look at him from this perspective over here, he’s an operative who’s always four steps ahead. And if you stand over here, he’s a broken-hearted father with a daughter estranged for twenty years, still thinking of the child she was and not recognizing the person she is. To his dismay.
Ajay Andersen’s experience of sudden grandparenthood, his meditations on old age, and his grim knowledge that dammit, he used to be fast, he used to be good, is really moving. His friend Olivia is a really interesting exploration on buried history showing itself even in the ‘harmless little old lady’. And the two young girls are beautifully portrayed: neither infantilized tots nor overly-wise little adults. The character of Sashi easily could be cast as a cold-hearted villian, but through the eyes of a broken-hearted father, she is a study on the tragedy of ambition and expectations gone wrong.
For a tech-espionage thriller, this is top-tier charactarization!
Writing Style
Told in Ajay’s voice, the story has a thin film of gallows humor floating like oil over deep water. In that water, murky truths about the modern world swim, and all the harsh algebra of survival runs. The writing is clean, incisive, sharp and clear. Unexpected moments of sweetness shine in it like diamonds in the mud.
Taken together, it makes for a dark and fascinating brew that begs a dive in.
The Moves
Plot
Twisting, shocking, surprising and full of personal quirks!
Overall Rating
If you’re tired, feeling cranky, and need somebody who gets it, pick this up and hang out with Ajay. He gets it. He might even have some tips on how to handle it.