Infinite Detail

Before: In Bristol’s center lies the Croft, a digital no-man’s-land cut off from the constant surveillance, big data, and corporate hegemony that have overrun the rest of the world. Ten years in, it’s become a center of creative counterculture. But it’s fraying at the edges, radicalizing from inside. How will it fare when its chief architect, Rushdi Mannan, takes off to meet his boyfriend in New York City―now the apotheosis of the new techno-utopian global metropolis?After: An act of anonymous cyberterrorism has permanently switched off the Internet. Global trade, travel, and communication have collapsed. Luxuries that characterized modern life are scarce. The community of the Croft still exists, but it is now more black market and urban farm than creative commune. Everyone has a hustle now, and everyone has a sense of loss. But are they just struggling to stay alive—or are they building something new?The world of Infinite Detail is a step shy of our own: utterly dependent on technology, constantly brokering autonomy and privacy for comfort and convenience. With Infinite Detail, Tim Maughan makes the hitherto unimaginable come true: the end of the Internet, the end of the world as we know it.