{"product_id":"amped-isbn-9780307745491","title":"Amped","description":"\u003cp\u003eAs he did in \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestseller \u003ci\u003eRobopocalypse\u003c\/i\u003e, Daniel Wilson masterfully envisions a stunning world where superhuman technology and humanity clash in surprising—and thrilling—ways.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eIt’s the near future, and scientists have developed implants that treat brain dysfunction—and also make recipients capable of superhuman feats. Exploiting societal fears of the newly enhanced, politicians pass a set of laws to restrict the rights of “amplified” humans, instantly creating a new persecuted underclass known as “amps.” On the day that the Supreme Court passes the first of these laws, twenty-nine-year-old schoolteacher Owen Gray is forced into hiding, only dimly aware of the latent powers he possesses. To escape imprisonment, and to find out who he really is, Owen seeks out a community in Oklahoma where, it is rumored, a group of the most enhanced amps may be about to change the world—or destroy it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for Daniel H. Wilson's \u003ci\u003eAmped\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A fast-paced narrative, not too far away at all from everyday experience, that treats an unsettling question: How long will tolerance last once you can buy a better brain?”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“With \u003ci\u003eAmped\u003c\/i\u003e, Wilson has taken another step to claiming the late Michael Crichton's crown as the public's sci-fi thriller writer of choice. . . . Wilson hits all the notes in the right order, and the book’s pace is relentless. And perhaps best of all, he leavens his cautionary message with good-sized dollops of fistfights and gunfire. \u003ci\u003eAmped\u003c\/i\u003e might have a commendable message about tolerance and civil rights, but Wilson doesn’t let the message get in the way of our fun.” \u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eRichmond Times-Dispatch \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“A wild ride. . . . Wilson taps into something primal with \u003ci\u003eAmped\u003c\/i\u003e. . . . Wilson is a roboticist by trade, and he combines his background in science and engineering with a knack for fast-paced narrative. . . . [\u003ci\u003eAmped \u003c\/i\u003etaps into] some of the deep questions about medical ethics, the social effects of technology, and the way that class and politics make technological questions much harder to resolve” \u003cbr\u003e—BoingBoing.net \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“A fast-paced, futuristic thriller that’ll make you think, especially about the dangers of us-versus-them demagoguery.” \u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eFredericksburg Free Lance Star\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Absorbing . . . Wilson is no stranger to exploring the intersection of technology and humankind. In \u003ci\u003eAmped\u003c\/i\u003e, certain individuals have technology embedded under their skin. These humans are smarter and faster than norm—and because most of the federally funded upgrades went to the needy, the formerly dumb and afflicted ‘amps’ are scaring the ‘pure’ humans. The not-so-distant future is a hotbed of class war and civil unrest.” \u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePortland Mercury\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A fast-paced narrative, not too far away at all from everyday experience, that treats an unsettling question: How long will tolerance last once you can buy a better brain? Mr. Wilson recognizes that, in the modern world, the battlegrounds would be legal and political, not just physical.” \u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Fast-paced . . . fascinating . . . for hardcore sci-fi readers, \u003ci\u003eAmped \u003c\/i\u003eoffers plenty of juicy details to savor. As he showed in his bestselling thriller \u003ci\u003eRobopocalypse\u003c\/i\u003e, Daniel H. Wilson can write. The Carnegie Mellon-trained roboticist has a voice and style very much like Stephen King. But unlike King, Wilson also has the chops to base the weird beings in his stories on hard science.” \u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eWired’s Geek Dad\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Entertaining . . . propulsive . . . \u003ci\u003eAmped\u003c\/i\u003e [is] a gripping story of a community of Amps trying to make it in the middle of a prejudiced Oklahoma, where regular humans strike back at anyone with a telltale port on their temple. A piece of trenchant political science fiction about how we mistreat those who are different.” \u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Onion A.V. Club\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eAmped\u003c\/i\u003e beckons back to the Civil Rights era, when the definition and rights of American citizens were called into question.” \u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBookPage\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Wilson keeps the action and fear-based prejudice ever-present without sacrificing depth. The story’s heart is the moral quandary Owen faces once he knows his implant only responds to his deepest thoughts, keeping the reader wondering how far he will go and how much he is willing to sacrifice.” \u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Provocative . . . A thoughtful, well-written novel which deals with the often tense interplay between machines and humans. Wilson, whose prose is always a step above the norm, is at his strongest creating amp augmented action sequences and in conjuring situations which explore the boundaries between humankind and its technological creations.” \u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Thrilling . . . First he gave us helpful advice for the robot uprising, then he wrote the robot war novel \u003ci\u003eRobopocalypse\u003c\/i\u003e. Now Daniel H. Wilson is turning his attention to the plight of cyborgs and posthumans with his dystopian new novel \u003ci\u003eAmped\u003c\/i\u003e.” \u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eI09.com\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Wilson’s newest novel, \u003ci\u003eAmped\u003c\/i\u003e, shares with its predecessor [\u003ci\u003eRobopocalypse\u003c\/i\u003e] a solid basis in current scientific technology—in this case, neural implants that treat a variety of conditions. \u003ci\u003eAmped\u003c\/i\u003e imagines a not-too-distant world, when these ‘superabled’ people—made stronger, smarter, faster by the devices in their heads—are perceived as a threat to unaltered or ‘pure’ humans.” \u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eTulsa World\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This is a terrific book on any number of levels, doing what sf has always been able to do best: showing us a possible future so that we can not only attempt to avoid it, but we can also look at its echoes as they already exist in our own time.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Magazine of Fantasy \u0026amp; Science Fiction\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eDaniel H. Wilson\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestseller \u003ci\u003eRobopocalypse\u003c\/i\u003e and the nonfiction titles \u003ci\u003eHow to Survive a Robot Uprising\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eWhere’s My Jetpack?\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eHow to Build a Robot Army\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Mad Scientist Hall of Fame\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eBro-Jitsu: The Martial Art of Sibling Smackdown\u003c\/i\u003e. He lives in Portland, Oregon.\u003c\/p\u003e1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe First Step\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI’m standing on the steep slate roof of  Allderdice High School, gripping a rain-­spattered wrought iron  decoration in one hand and holding up my other hand, palm out.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Don’t,” I’m saying to the girl in front of me. “Please don’t.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy  hand wavers, tracing incantations of fear and panic in the air. Just  beyond my outstretched fingers is something that has been spiraling out  of control for years. Only I shouldn’t call her something. Should never  call her a thing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSomebody is what I mean.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s the  technology, see? We can’t get away from it. Anywhere you find people,  you find it. Clever little contraptions. Cunning strategies. We’re  toolmakers born and bred; and even if you don’t believe in anything  else, you’d better believe in that. Because that’s human nature.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s the tools that make us strong.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd  it’s the tools that put a girl on the edge of this roof. I crawled out  here against all advice the second I heard who it was. I owe this girl a  debt and I can never repay it but I’m doing my best to try.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSamantha  is just fifteen. The wind is smearing her brown hair against gray  skies, pushing her tears in streaks across her blank, emotionless face.  Allderdice is a massive school, built during the industrial genesis of  Pittsburgh. Sam stands on the precipice, six stories up. The rain is  spitting at us through afternoon sunlight, and the dull stone building  seems to be bleeding or crying or both.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI can’t believe she’s really going to jump. Not after all she’s been through.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou  make a tool to fix a problem, right? But—­and I’ve thought about  this—­it’s the boundaries that define us. Bold, black lines that can’t  be crossed—­the limits of human ability. Lately, the edges have been  torn off the map.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow we’re all getting lost.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEight years  ago a little kid named Samantha Blex missed a week of class. In the  first photos on the news, you could see Sam was a little cross-­eyed.  She smiled a lot through her kid-­sized purple eyeglasses. Cute. The kid  was all slobber and grubby fingers and grins. Had a habit of putting  blocks in her mouth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat’s why, when Samantha walked back into  school after her weeklong hiatus, a lot of the other kids’ parents were  scared. Terrified is more like it. A textbook case of fight or flight,  with a serious lean toward fight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSee, Sam wasn’t cross-­eyed  when she came back to class. She didn’t put blocks in her mouth anymore,  either. In fact, Samantha Blex pretty quickly demonstrated that she was  now the smartest kid in third grade. After a few breathless rounds of  testing, Sam turned out to be in the top-­hundredth percentile on  citywide intelligence tests.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe kid had one hell of a week away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn  an interview, Sam’s teacher told a reporter in a shaky voice that he  wasn’t sure if Sam was still the same little girl, now that she’d  visited her doctor and been given a Neural Autofocus implant. That quote  grabbed a lot of airtime. I felt really bad about it later. Should have  known better than to say it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd that’s how it started. With  sweet little Sam walking back into my classroom, looking me right in the  eye with a new spark of intelligence—­a new electricity altogether.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhere’d  the spark come from? It’s simple enough. An aspirin-­sized piece of  conductive metal, an amp, carefully placed in the prefrontal cortex of  the kid’s brain. A baby squid pulsing with an exquisitely timed series  of electrical stimulations, gently pushing her mind toward the beta one  wave state. Focused concentration, 24-­7. This sharpened focus massively  amplified her intelligence, bulldozing away the dim, mild,  slobber-­mouthed little girl I knew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd only a little nub of dark plastic on her temple, like a mole, to show for it. A maintenance port.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJust like mine.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I  know how you feel, Sam,” I call to the coltish teen on the roof. “I get  the stares. I hear the whispers. We can make it through this.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI’m  flawed hardware, like anybody. Have been for a long time. Epilepsy. My  doctor says it’s a Tower of Babel in my head and I believe him. Of  course, I would. My doctor is my father.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut the nub on my temple  doesn’t lead to anything as hot shit as a General Biologics Neural  Autofocus unit. It’s just a simple stimulator designed to treat epilepsy  and keep me from swallowing the old tongue. Proverbially. Dad has  always said that doesn’t really happen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStill, turning my implant  off is not an option. And that’s the bitch of it. These tools we love  so much have burrowed under our skin like parasites. They’re in our  brains now, our joints and organs. Crouching behind our eyeballs and  clinging to our sinuses. Making us smarter and stronger and always,  always more dependent.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You don’t know how it feels,” says Sam. “You’re medical. Not elective. You’ve got no inkling.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSometime  in the past, in some sterile office, a doctor said Sam had a problem.  She had a little trouble concentrating, that’s all. But there was a  solution available. And her parents chose to use it. They had a little  bit of money and they wanted the best for their daughter and they were  willing to take the risk. Any parent might have done the same.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You didn’t choose this, Sam.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Tell me about it,” she mutters, eyeing the ground.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt  was my first year teaching. Age twenty-­two. Those chubby faces with  their quick eyes sent me packing to teach high school the very next  year. But I was there. I watched it all begin. Now, I’m crouching on the  roof and inching away from the safety of the window and I’m watching it  end.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Stop that, Mr. Gray,” Samantha warns. She sounds slightly  irritated, as if she’d caught me picking my nose. “Don’t come any  fucking closer.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI’m creeping across the spine of the building  toward her now. A shivering, cowardly twenty-­nine-­year-­old turtle on a  slippery log. My knees and crotch and chest are blotched with water, my  cheeks sprinkled with drops. Please, please, please, I’m thinking.  Please don’t let me slip and fall and die this morning with my  water-­splotched crotch and my goddamn useless pencils in my shirt  pocket and my soft clean hands with no calluses on them. This roof is  slicker than ice. Slicker than a fucking waterslide and there’s no going  back, so I hump it forward and ignore Sam’s annoyed voice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe gives up protesting, and waits.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt  was the Pure Human Citizen’s Council that pressured schools across the  country into barring implanted kids. They said the few modified kids  were taking precious resources away from the vast majority of human  kids. It was true and Allderdice agreed, but Samantha’s parents were  passionate and that’s how she ended up before the Supreme Court. A  poster child for the inevitable future.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe lawyers picked Sam  because she was a straight Neural Autofocus job. The nub on her temple  wasn’t connected to the minnow’s flash of a retinal implant in her eye  or a gleaming prosthetic limb. She was just a little girl, pretty and  pure—­save the one inhuman flaw buried inside, the truth of it  flickering out into her IQ score.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFinally, my face crosses over  into shadow. I see a knee-­length skirt snapping in the breeze. Samantha  stands with her hands on her hips, resigned.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI realize that she  hasn’t jumped yet because she is trying to figure out how to make sure I  am safe. A relieved breath hisses out of me, a whimper. We both hear it  and think about it for a second.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Jesus, you’re a pussy,” says  Samantha. She glowers down at me like a ship’s figurehead sprouting from  the peak of the roof. Too hard to be made of wood. Made of metal.  Little flecks of it, anyway.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I’m jumping,” she says. “Trust me, you’d have jumped years ago.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“No, Samantha—­”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Shut  your mouth,” she snaps. “You don’t know shit. I’m smarter than you,  remember? You couldn’t teach me back then, so why try to talk to me now?  Just shut up. I’m jumping. The impact is going to kill me instantly.  It’ll take about two seconds to fall.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eImmediately I think of how  she looked in those little purple eyeglasses. The memory of her floats  like a haze over this teenage girl in front of me. It was too much, the  gap between the old Samantha and the new. Something broke in that week  she was gone. A piece of her must have got lost in the transition.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSamantha  glances down. “It looks like I’ll hit damp grass, which doesn’t mean I  won’t die. That’s inevitable from this height. I’ll have accelerated to  about forty miles an hour. But the grass is good. It means that when I  hit, there’s a solid chance my guts won’t spray out of my mouth and  asshole.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI just blink. Her words are a rock wall and I’ve rammed  into it going full speed with all the momentum gathered by an  idealistic career teaching mostly docile students. I mean, I know that  the obedient kids I teach are different from the ones who stream out  into the world at the end of the day. But I never fathomed this kind of  talk. This never showed up from eight to three. It was trapped inside  the desks and books and held back by, what? The threat of detention, I  guess.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSamantha doesn’t seem worried about detention.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“And  don’t think that nub on your temple makes you anything besides a spaz,  Gray. Sorry. I meant to say autosomal dominant frontal lobe epileptic.  Yes, we all know.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe taps the mole-­sized nub that protrudes from her right temple, clear hazel eyes shining in the spotty sunlight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This,  Mr. Gray. This is really something. You know, right after I got this, I  was actually looking forward to coming back to school. I didn’t see  things so clearly then.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You can’t listen to other kids,” I say. “They’re only jealous.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Kids?”  she asks. “You think this is Algernon syndrome? That dumb little  Samantha woke up and realized the other kids were mean? I haven’t  worried about children since the third grade. It’s the rest of the  world, Mr. Gray. Allderdice is a microcosm. And the larger world hates  us. To quote the Honorable Chief Justice Anfuso, ‘The existence of a  class of superabled citizens threatens to pull apart the fabric of our  society.’ There’s no place for me here. Or anywhere else.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“That’s today. But what about tomorrow? What about the Free Body Liberty Group? We don’t know what might happen,” I urge.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The  world has been changing, Mr. Gray. People have been waiting for  permission to hate us. Now all the evil is going to come out. There are  too many of them and not nearly enough of us. This has all happened  before. It will end the same. In labor camps. Mass graves.” She looks at  me with pity. “You’re a dead man walking. How pathetic that you don’t  even know it.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSomehow, I find the courage to crouch on cramping  legs. I reach my wavering hand out to her, feeling the warm lick of rain  on it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Please, Samantha,” I’m saying.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You were right,” she says.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“About what?” I ask.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“What you told those reporters. You said you didn’t know who I was when I came back. It’s true. I’m not the same girl.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Don’t do this. We’ll fight them. I promise you, Sam.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Sam’s gone. I’m somebody else. Somebody that never should have existed.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI’m  shouting and standing up and I’ve forgotten to be afraid. As I reach  for her, I see her tear-­streaked face between my fingers for a frozen  instant. Her eyes are wide open when she steps off the roof.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEight  years ago, a little girl named Samantha Blex missed a week of school.  When she came back, she changed the world. And this morning, she left  it.A Novel","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305175437541,"sku":"NP9780307745491","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780307745491.jpg?v=1767721471","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/amped-isbn-9780307745491","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}