God didn't show up at the apocalypse.
The Technomancer series is a Cyberpunk Urban Fantasy series by Michael Gibson. It is one hundred and seventy-five years after humans accidentally caused God to abandon the world and demons to take over the planet. Rather than simply destroy or enslave humanity, they've instead established a decadent technologically advanced civilization where humans sit at the bottom of the social order serving their wired infernal masters.
Salem is a Lightrunner, specialized couriers who do jobs for the demonic nobility or anyone else who can afford it. Recruited by a mysterious client named Grimm, he soon finds himself part of what little resistance remains against the new order. Whether he wants to be or not. Oh and The Man Behind the Man may be the devil.
The novel series consists of:
- To Beat the Devil
- Flotsam Prison Blues
- Angels and the Bad Man
- One Piece at a Time
- Flesh and Blood
The books share a universe with The Hammer of Witches series by the same author, set decades before the apocalypse.
No relationship to GURPS Technomancer or The Technomancer, the Martian RPG from Spiders.
This series contains the following tropes:
- After the End: The Biblical Apocalypse has occurred but God didn't show up and the world has fallen under the sway of demons. It has also become a Cyberpunk dystopia within the remaining cities, the rest of the world degenerating into lawless wastelands.
- The Alcatraz: Flotsam Prison in the second novel is the worst prison in a world full of them. It is built in the middle of an island out of garbage, populated with the worst criminals demonkind has to offer, and is run by a nightmarish sadist.
- All Myths Are True: In addition to God, the Devil, angels, and demons, we also have the Norse pantheon, The Fair Folk, and Cthulhu Mythos playing roles in the story.
- Almighty Janitor: Ricky, the guy who runs Salem's favorite bar is the Devil.
- Always Chaotic Evil: The Deep Ones are this. They are seemingly mindless forces of destruction and oblivion. Demons are more
Always Lawful Evil in that they are rules obsessed as well as determined to gain status through malevolent Loophole Abuse. - Angels Demons And Squid: The Deep later emerge as a power rivaling God and seemingly mindless sealife-related monsters seeking to unmake Creation. This is in a series that already has the Biblical apocalypse having occurred and demons having taken over the world.
- Apocalypse How: The Earth was devastated in the demonic invasion but has now been rebuilt as a cyberpunk setting.
- Arms Dealer: Reynolds, the worst human alive, sells weapons to both demons as well as anti-demon forces throughout the apocalypse. A.K.A Salem's past self
- Big Bad Wannabe: Abraxes thinks he's the Evil Overlord but he's really just a Starter Villain. Despite the fact he's a powerful demon lord, he ends up killed at the end of book one.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Salem is capable of showing up demon lords much-much smarter and more powerful than himself. Most come to believe he's a genius trickster only playing the part of a fool. He is but not to the extent people believe. It's Subverted when it's revealed it's because the Devil is helping him.
- Break the Haughty: Starting in Flotsam Prison Blues, Salem's immature Deadpan Snarker personality starts being chipped away by a combination of horrific trauma, memories of his past traumas resurfacing, and the increasing realization of his importance to keeping his friends safe, as well as realizing just how much they all mean to him. By the end of Angels and the Bad Man, he's been humbled significantly, but is also far stronger in his resolve to be the hero he needs to.
- The Chessmaster: Ricky AKA Satan is behind most of the events in the series. In addition to manipulating all of the demonic factions against one another, he's also involved in other pantheons as Loki and the Horned God. He even says that Salem couldn't even understand his we of manipulation
- City of Adventure: New Golgotha is a center of the demonic empire. It is a Cyberpunk Dystopia with the poor living on the bottom and the city's demonic masters living at the top of skyscrapers.
- Classical Antihero: Salem really doesn't want to be The Hero. He is lazy, irreverant, and concerned only with making enough money to get through the day. He actually has a Dark and Troubled Past that he's running away from and the above is just a cover.
- Cool Old Guy: Grimm, who serves as The Obi-Wan. He encourages Salem to become involved with the world again as well as serve as La Résistance to the demonic overlords of the world.
- Crapsack World: The world is ruled by demons, humans are the underclass, and nothing new has been on the television for a century.
- Creative Sterility: Since the demonic invasion, no new media has been created or art. This is because no human souls have been created and inspiration is absent without God's light.
- Crossover Cosmology: Despite its Judeo-Christian premise, this appears to be the case. Other gods are descendants of exiled but not damned angels.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Averted when humanity was conquered by demons. It turns out technology was able to hold the infernal hordes at bay for a time. Eventually, the fact their enemies were immortal caught up with them, though.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Not uncommon in the series with Gha'aliss suffering a particularly nasty dismemberment.
- Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: In this case, it's not the soul that's in danger, but the body. All forms of cybernetics, barring the extremely rare Nano Machines, drastically reduce the human lifespan, with even the most advanced versions available cutting decades off.
- Cyborg: A very common sort of technology in the future but Reynolds is the only one with nanotechnological enhancements—even if they are centuries old.
- Cyberpunk: A bunch of antiheroes, one of whom is a cyborg Street Samurai, versus the demon-ruled technological dystopia of Earth. Later, we also get the Yakuza and a Cthulhu-allied Megacorp becoming major antagonists.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Salem acts like a teenager despite the fact he's over a hundred years old. This is because he has created his current persona to escape his past as an Arms Dealer and The Quisling.
- Decadent Court: Demonkind has one of these with the Princes at the top and humanity at the bottom. They constantly fight for power, territory, prestige, and petty revenge.
- Deadpan Snarker: Just about everyone in the book, making it a World of Snark.
- Demon Lords and Archdevils: The way the world is presently ruled is an elaborate hierarchy of these. They are organized on feudal lines with Dukes, Barons, Counts, and other titles denoting their position in the demonic hierarchy.
- The Devil: Was overthrown by his own archdemons and demon lords after God left. He has been plotting his return ever since.
- Devil, but No God: Because God left and abandoned the world, demonkind is now ruler of creation. God's angels were left behind as well and did not take kindly to this.
- Evil Versus Oblivion: The Deep Ones are enemies of demons and vice versa. The Deep Ones want to eradicate the universe while demons just want to rule it.
- Femme Fatale: Gha'aliss is the only woman to get the better of Salem. He also got the better of her as Reynolds.
- Feudal Future: Demons haven't really adjusted to the times except technologically and have divided up the Earth underneath the Archdemons.
- First-Person Smartass: Salem spends 90% of his time making wisecracks. This turns out to be a cover for his Dark and Troubled Past.
- Have You Seen My God?: God has left reality in anger over humans cloning Jesus.
- Hell on Earth: Demons have evacuated Hell and now rule Earth. They have managed to establish themselves in gleaming Neon City style cyberpunk dystopias while the rest of the world has degenerated into becoming lawless wastelands.
- MegaCorp: ArcTech, formerly Kurosawa-MacMillan, is a corporation that is both directly responsible for the apocalypse (accidentally, admittedly) and for keeping Demonkind armed and equipped with the latest technology ever since the First Demon War. They produce everything from plasma cannons to aircraft to quantum computers, and are gradually unlocking the secrets of Salem's father.
- Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: The reason that God abandons humanity and Hell takes over isn't because of deliberate malice or some great plan, but because a MegaCorp decided to clone Jesus Christ, just to see what would happen. As it turns out, what would happen is that their Christ clone would become The Antichrist. Oops. Of course, the truth is a lot more complicated.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Salem isn't as stupid as he appears. Just close. Except, this is a cover.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Deep Ones are all this by default since the physical universe pains them.
- One-Man Industrial Revolution: Salem's father, Abraham MacMillan, was a brilliant superscientist. He developed miniature fusion power, quantum computing, and Nano Machines, the latter of which he apparently had in working order at some time in The '90s. He's still around as a Brain in a Jar thanks to another of his inventions, and since his death has continued developing brilliant new inventions with the help of his son.
- Our Angels Are Different: They're vicious human hating things which blame humanity for sending God away.
- Our Demons Are Different: Demons are a variety of races which exist in a feudal structure over humanity but suffer from Creative Sterility.
- Physical God: The gods of Norse mythology qualify and some show up. All of the supernatural beings are like this, though.
- The Quisling: Almost all of humanity is now collaborating with the demons. It was this or extinction. Salem was one of the worst as Reynolds the arms dealer.
- Science Hero: Salem, hence why he's known as the Technomancer by some characters. He developed advanced swiss army tech bracers, specially designed plasma pistols, and was able to get extremely advanced pre-fall technology up and running to give himself an advantage for decades to come. Granted, his father provided the baseline for a lot of his tech, but it's made clear that he's learned enough to become a brilliant inventor in his own right.
- Speaks in Shout-Outs: Salem, especially in the first book. In fact, every protagonist in the first book. Shout outs and lampshades to every piece of popular pre-fall media can be found several times a page at points. This gets significantly downplayed from Flotsam Prison Blues onwards, but remains an important part of Salem's character as a coping mechanism for his Dark and Troubled Past.
- Super Prototype: A large amount of Salem's arsenal is comprised of forgotten prototypes, equipment of his own design, or a combination of the two. That he has his father's brain (and later Nikola Tesla) to help with their design and operation is a bonus.
- Urban Fantasy: Demons, technology, crime, and sorcery.
- Voice with an Internet Connection: Salem is permanently tied to the holographic recreations of his parents.
- We Have Reserves: Demonic tactics in the First Demon War consisted mostly of zerg rushes with untrained melee troops against the far more technologically advanced human defenders. This worked enough to win the war, but ended up being subverted hard when the Lords of Hell realized they didn't have nearly the reserves they thought now that their forces were mortal. This is around when they actually started arming up with modern technology and training in proper military tactics.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: A large number of immortals appear in the series, and most of the ones who's opinions we see are not happy about the fact that they are among them.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Salem's grandfather, Ted MacMillan, is directly responsible for the apocalypse and current state of the world, but his reasoning behind it is tragic. It turns out that he is in fact the biblical Cain, cursed eternally to always resurrect with all his memories so that he always knows the pain he's unwittingly inflicted upon all of his descendants. He tries over hundreds of generations to be a better person, but no matter how much good he does God has no interest in forgiving him. Eventually he becomes fed up with it and uses one reincarnation to bring about The Antichrist in the hopes that he will end the world and Cain, along with his cursed descendants, will finally be able to rest. Instead, God simply locks the gates to Heaven and the Legions of Hell are able to conquer Earth. By the time Salem finds him, he's become The Atoner, trying to save as many as he can from Demonic rule while biding his time before he can hopefully undo the damage he's done.
- Xanatos Gambit: The Devil arranged for the death of Abraxes as part of his long-running plan to avenge his overthrow. Salem and company were just his tools for it.
- Yakuza: Have managed to survive to the 23rd century by becoming the Techkuza. They're basically magical samurai cyborg gangsters.
- Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: After the Second Demon War, a Lord of Hell is congratulating a group of arch-traitors for their work in destroying human resistance on the eastern seaboard. Reynolds, AKA Salem, is given special compliments for indirectly killing so many humans, saying that he shows as much contempt for humanity as the Demons do. Reynolds, who acted out of pragmatism and was trying to help most of those people, is clearly wrecked by the "compliment."
