"A sparsely written story filled with cold war tensions, conflicting intelligences and a society rapidly adopting advancing technology. "
"The News" is a term used in the Cold War used for intelligence that has yet to be understood. An apt title for this book, that focuses on an unexplainable transmission. Added to this the 1983 setting, a year notable for being the closest the world has come to accidental nuclear war, and the high stakes tension means this transmission has inordinate power. Sparsely written, almost memo-like in structure but the third person point of view creates the sense of an outside observer which ties in with the feeling of being watched, from the unknown transmission and the final pages.
I found The News to be a quick read, it’s to the point narrative style keeps the book very focused on the action, leaving the reader plenty of space for interpretation. It was interesting how historic events were interwoven into the story in order to help demonstrate the overarching messages of technological advancement and how they can fail without proper human oversight: Chernobyl, Stanislav Petrov’s actions. I liked the additional historical information provided at the end to provide information on events and historical figures from within the book. The setting of politics and international relations on a knife edge helps bring this concept to life in an engaging way, but there’s also resonance with the technological advancements of today. I think that The News would be a great read for anyone interested in historical and speculative fiction.
| Primary Genre | Historical Fiction |
| Other Genres: |
In 1983, at the most dangerous moment of the Cold War, Soviet intelligence intercepts a transmission they cannot explain.
In Moscow, a senior analyst risks his career to keep it from being buried.
In London, an MI6 officer works to prevent a fatal misunderstanding.
In Washington, a decision is made to act — not on what the signal says, but on what the Soviets might do with it.
THE NEWS is the story of what happens when the most important information ever transmitted reaches a civilization that has already begun outsourcing its judgment to systems that can only confirm what they already believe — and what that costs the humans caught inside those systems.
It is set in 1983. It is about right now.
The signal is the news.
What governments do with it is the story.
What they fail to do with it is the warning that remains.
The News: A Cold War Novel features in the following genres: Dystopian and utopian fiction, Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, Thriller and Suspense, Speculative fiction
The News: A Cold War Novel is available in Paperback
The News: A Cold War Novel was written by Marc Stuart Connolly and published by Independently published
