One of the Los Angeles Times's 12 Best Books of Summer
A Chicago Tribune "Coolest Book of Summer"
"A blast . . . Filled with sharp descriptions and terrific dialogue, Cloudthief stuck with me. I've read no other novel that captures so neatly what it means to be a data-center nation." —John Powers, Fresh Air
Why settle for nothing, when you can steal everything?
Forget banks, casinos, museums—society’s most valuable treasure sits in the giant, anonymous data centers that power modern life. There, in endless rows of hard drives, lies the sum of our civilization’s knowledge, all of the world’s personal and private truths, uploaded and saved. They wait unseen, unexploited, and, most critically, unguarded.
Tim is a climate journalist disillusioned with chronicling the end of the world. Virginia is an evasive, paranoid, and technologically savvy con artist who has found an ingenious way to live off the grid in the heart of Manhattan. Joined by desire and desperation, they hatch a plan to steal secrets. But they have secrets of their own—secrets they can’t tell each other, secrets that could destroy them both...
With their last few dollars and some dimestore wigs they set out for the outskirts of Tulsa, Oklahoma, the unlikely site of the world’s largest repository of knowledge—a data center the size of a small city—to attempt a brazen heist that, whether they fail or succeed, will change their lives forever.
But the heist is only the beginning.
From the award-winning author Nathaniel Rich, Cloudthief is a heist novel for a new era, in which the most valuable things in life are virtual, privacy is a sick joke, and security is relative. After all is lost, what remains?
Genre: Mystery
A Chicago Tribune "Coolest Book of Summer"
"A blast . . . Filled with sharp descriptions and terrific dialogue, Cloudthief stuck with me. I've read no other novel that captures so neatly what it means to be a data-center nation." —John Powers, Fresh Air
Why settle for nothing, when you can steal everything?
Forget banks, casinos, museums—society’s most valuable treasure sits in the giant, anonymous data centers that power modern life. There, in endless rows of hard drives, lies the sum of our civilization’s knowledge, all of the world’s personal and private truths, uploaded and saved. They wait unseen, unexploited, and, most critically, unguarded.
Tim is a climate journalist disillusioned with chronicling the end of the world. Virginia is an evasive, paranoid, and technologically savvy con artist who has found an ingenious way to live off the grid in the heart of Manhattan. Joined by desire and desperation, they hatch a plan to steal secrets. But they have secrets of their own—secrets they can’t tell each other, secrets that could destroy them both...
With their last few dollars and some dimestore wigs they set out for the outskirts of Tulsa, Oklahoma, the unlikely site of the world’s largest repository of knowledge—a data center the size of a small city—to attempt a brazen heist that, whether they fail or succeed, will change their lives forever.
But the heist is only the beginning.
From the award-winning author Nathaniel Rich, Cloudthief is a heist novel for a new era, in which the most valuable things in life are virtual, privacy is a sick joke, and security is relative. After all is lost, what remains?
Genre: Mystery
Praise for this book
"Cloudthief is a literary tour de force that takes us deep inside the immensely powerful systems that have become the secret architecture of our lives. It is at once a gripping narrative of crime and consequence, and a devastating critique of our surveillance-obsessed world. This novel confirms Nathaniel Rich as one of our most essential and prophetic voices." - Amitav Ghosh
"Nathaniel Rich has constructed a category of fiction inescapably classifiable as noir reportage. Cloudthief is a must-read novel for anyone disturbed about the dubious direction of the 21st century." - Barry Gifford
"Is any younger writer so versatile, talented and original as Nathaniel Rich? . . . Cloudthief is propulsive, precise and alive, the rare book that could instantly be made into a film though rich in knowledge, ideas and questions - and that gives me hope for literature." - Pico Iyer
"Cloudthief is a sneaky, clever 21st century heist novel that's a propulsive page turner, but also contains multitudes in the ways it interrogates our modern condition. Extremely satisfying and very funny." - Jeff VanderMeer
"Nathaniel Rich has constructed a category of fiction inescapably classifiable as noir reportage. Cloudthief is a must-read novel for anyone disturbed about the dubious direction of the 21st century." - Barry Gifford
"Is any younger writer so versatile, talented and original as Nathaniel Rich? . . . Cloudthief is propulsive, precise and alive, the rare book that could instantly be made into a film though rich in knowledge, ideas and questions - and that gives me hope for literature." - Pico Iyer
"Cloudthief is a sneaky, clever 21st century heist novel that's a propulsive page turner, but also contains multitudes in the ways it interrogates our modern condition. Extremely satisfying and very funny." - Jeff VanderMeer
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