The Times: An April 2021 Science Fiction Pick

“Unity is an astonishing debut, twisty and startling, demonstrating both the disciplined development of a long-gestated project and the raw, dynamic flashes of an author’s early work. It shows intense interest in the distance between conversation and communion . . . an absorbing, thrilling ride.”
—New York Times

“Imagine Neuromancer and Lilith’s Brood conceived a baby while listening to My Chemical Romance and then that baby was adopted by Ghost in the Shell and Blue Submarine no. 6. The baby’s name is Unity.”
—Meredith Russo, author of If I Were Your Girl

“Unity manages to be simultaneously exciting and philosophical, a brilliant gut-punch of a novel. I cannot wait to see what Elly Bangs does next.”
—Kij Jonhson, author of At the Mouth of the River of Bees

“Unity is a wild firefight of a novel. But amidst the vivid dystopian worldbuilding—the undersea metropolises and scorched badlands—and all the breakneck action is something deeper, a philosophically and emotionally resonant exploration of what it means to carry multiplicities of ourselves, our myriad shades of being. Elly Bangs is a writer of both kaleidoscopic imagination and deep literary empathy, a cyberpunk star in the making.”
—Omar El Akkad, author of American War

“Chock-full of both big ideas and high-energy action, Bangs’s thrilling debut centers on a mad chase across a dystopian Earth in search of a collective consciousness that could save humanity from itself. Danae works as an often overlooked tech servant to a criminal syndicate that controls an underwater metropolis, but she is secretly a severed piece of a group mind that encompasses hundreds of people. Determined to get back to her larger self, she hires Alexei, a mercenary with a death-wish, to help her escape her employers. With Danae’s lover, Naoto, tagging along, the trio flees the city and heads to what was once Arizona—but they are doggedly pursued by bounty hunters and a shadowy figure from Danae’s past. . . . This gritty, thought-provoking cyberpunk adventure does the genre justice.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Delivers on the huge, mind-bending promise made in its first few pages.”
—The Times

“Elly Bangs has created a vivid, fascinating, and utterly believable future world, and she immerses the reader into it skillfully and seamlessly . . . Echoes of Richard K. Morgan’s Altered Carbon or the Netflix series Sens8, but this is an entirely original and ambitious creation.”
—New York Journal of Books

“Breakneck pacing, non-stop action, and delightfully-damaged characters combine with some of the most intricate and clever worldbuilding I’ve seen in ages to make this an incredibly memorable debut.”
—Sam J. Miller, author of The Art of Starving

“The high-powered energy of such nth-gen cyberpunk as Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon.”
—Locus

“Epic science fiction, and intimately personal at the same time, thanks to the clever and revolutionary trick of disassembling the individual subject.”
—Nick Mamatas, author of The People’s Republic of Everything

“An intricate, exciting book.”
—Aurealis

“Thousands of years in the future, the United States has fractured into various countries. Crossing the borders can be tricky, and violence is an easy way to settle disputes. Danae is a unique being: they are old and claim responsibility for saving humanity a few times, but they are in pieces. In order to reunite with their whole self, they must escape their current city. Danae and her lover Naoto hire an ex-mercenary, Alexi, to guide them and keep them safe as they attempt their reunion. Danae and Naoto show a softer side of the apocalypse as they love one another completely. Naoto supports and loves Danae, through the difficult—and probably fatal—journey. But with mercenaries and—Danae’s biggest fear—evangelicals around, the book has an end-of-the-world vibe. The apocalyptic landscape is terrifying, beautiful, and well thought out. Readers may very well draw parallels between this future-U.S. and our current reality.”
—Booklist

“Unity is a killer debut by a thrilling new writer. Trust me, you’re all going to be hearing a lot about Elly Bangs and this gleaming and gritty world she’s created. And cyberpunk fans? Put down the game controller and read this now. This is the real stuff.”
—Daryl Gregory, author of We Are All Completely Fine and Spoonbenders

“Danae is a woman of many secrets, chiefly that she isn’t a woman at all: She is many people in one body. It takes a while to get to the specifics of what exactly that means, mainly because Danae begins the novel escaping a rapidly collapsing futuristic underwater city with her partner, Naoto, and a hired gun named Alexei. Danae hires Alexei to escort her and Naoto back to dry land and across the climate change–ravaged former United States . . . stick around for the good stuff at the end.”
—Kirkus

“An intense and enthralling ride that kept me thinking long after I finished the last page.”
—Reviews in a Minute

“Elly Bangs’ Unity is a fascinating little novel, filled with unexpected turns and twists.”
—A Green Man Review

“Unity is a bold and impressive debut novel from author Elly Bangs . . . I did feel a sense of awe over Elly Bangs’ achievement. It’s a fantastic story and very capably told.”
—SF Crowsnest

“Highly recommended for all science fiction/cyberpunk fans! . . . The world building was superb, the two main characters were likeable despite their flaws, and the villains were unhinged and legitimately terrifying.”
—Planet Whileaway

“Unity completely lived up to its descriptions, and my expectations, and it ended up being one spectacular, wild ride. Not only is this novel exciting, but it’s also profoundly thoughtful, especially thinking about the intersection of technology and humanity, and the possible implications in our not-so-distant future.”
—Lovely Bookshelf

“Unity is a blistering post-apocalyptic interrogation of personhood and society. Elly Bangs brings grief, revelation, and humanity to bear in this incredible debut novel.”
—dave ring, editor of Glitter + Ashes: Queer Tales of a World That Wouldn’t Die