Bandwidth

In Peper’s very credibly rendered near future, Dag Calhoun works for Apex, a lobbying firm whose clients include the Commonwealth, the world’s biggest communication infrastructure provider. The Commonwealth’s feeds, personally tailored to each individual, are described as “the permeable membrane through which you experienced and participated in culture, the arbiter of what you found when you searched and what you discovered when you dipped into the roiling, throbbing cosmos of global conversation.” When Dag crosses paths with the enigmatic Emily Kim, he is shocked to learn that a group of “castaways” living with her off the grid on the San Juan Islands are manipulating the feed to shape global socioeconomic policy. Matters come to a head when Dag, who realizes that he himself has been manipulated for years by the castaways, discovers that his efforts to serve as their advocate to sway industrialists on international climate change initiatives is in direct conflict with one of Apex’s most lucrative—and dangerous—clients. Peper guides his story with a sure hand, lacing its narrative with issues and references that resonate powerfully in the age of net neutrality, algorithms, and social media hacks. Agent: DongWon Song, Howard Morhaim Literary Agency. (May)