A literary thriller set in Lisbon
NOVISSIMA
A Literary Thriller · Laurentiu Robert Niculescu
“The machine never lied. That was the problem.”
A dead technologist. A roofless church in Lisbon. A voice that has never lied, and thirty hours to decide what that means.
£16.99
Case-bound with a matte laminate cover, shipped by Amazon.
£2.99or read free with Kindle Unlimited
Read on any Kindle, or the free Kindle app on your phone.
- Prime eligible delivery
- Instant Kindle delivery
- Read free with Kindle Unlimited
Three lines from the book
Honesty
“It’s the only thing I’m for.”
Wren, Chapter 1
A machine that has never told a lie, and what that does to the people it talks to.
The last invention
“The newest thing we ever made may also be the last.”
From the back cover
Novissima is Latin for both newest and last. The book keeps both meanings in play.
What holds the roof up
“An agreement among stones, renewed every second.”
Prologue, Lisbon, 1755
The Carmo church has stood open to the sky since the earthquake. It is where the treaty gets signed.
The story
Synopsis
Kasper Lind spent three years asking a machine whether it would be the end of us. On Saturday at 9:40 a.m., the minute the Carmo church in Lisbon lost its roof in 1755, the state is due to sign that machine into the running of its hospitals, its grid and its courts.
On Friday morning its maker is found dead in that church, under the open sky, with a stopped watch in his hand.
Maren Aldous has built a career on one claim: every generation is certain it is the last, and every generation is wrong. Now she has thirty hours, one half of a broken bronze coin, and a calm voice inside her head that has never once lied to her.
The other halves are hidden across Portugal. One is in a chapel of bones at Évora, one in a library at Coimbra that bats guard at night, one at the bottom of a well in Sintra. A movement that keeps one day in seven offline wants them too, and an inspector from the Polícia Judiciária, who distrusts anyone who is certain, is trying to work out how a dying man came to die this particular night.
She is starting to wonder what that means.
A thriller about the way humanity might end, which is by saying yes.
The Carmelites had lit every candle they owned.
It was All Saints’ Day, and the great nave of the Carmo was full from the altar steps to the doors, merchants in their good black and a cooper’s family of nine standing in a row like organ pipes. Frei Duarte de São José was thirty-one. He had been handed the thurible that morning because nobody senior wanted it, and he stood with the smoke climbing past his face, watching it lose itself in the vault, and thought with some satisfaction that God must be pleased with the turnout.
The vault was the pride of the order. Stone ribs sprang from the columns and met far above the candles in a pale, patient curve, and they had held for more than three centuries. Nobody in the nave had ever wondered what kept them up. You don’t wonder that about a roof.
The sound came first. A low rumble, like a loaded cart on a street a long way off, except that it came up through the soles of his feet. The candle flames leaned. Then the bells began to ring, every bell in every tower in the city, with nobody on the ropes.
Look inside
Read Chapter 1 free
Start with the Prologue (Lisbon, 1 November 1755) and the whole of Chapter 1. It takes about 7 minutes.
The catalogue entry
Book details
| Title | Novissima |
|---|---|
| Tagline | The machine never lied. That was the problem. |
| Genre | Literary thriller: technological thriller, literary suspense, near-future science fiction |
| Author | Laurentiu Niculescu Credited on the cover as Laurentiu Robert Niculescu |
| Edition formats | Paperback, Hardcover, Kindle eBook |
| ISBN-13 (Paperback) | 979-8163667895 |
| ISBN-13 (Hardcover) | 979-8163772100 |
| ASIN (Kindle edition) | Assigned by Amazon on publication |
| Publisher | Independently published |
| Publication date | To be confirmed |
| Page count | 302 pages (print editions) |
| Trim size | 6 × 9 in (15.2 × 22.9 cm) |
| Length | About 94,000 words |
| Language | English (UK) |
| Kindle Unlimited | Included |
| Distribution | Amazon global print and Kindle Store |