Welcome to WhatIsHathor.com, official home of Katie Pratt and the Ghost Targets universe. Before I get to that, though, let me answer the question posed by the URL.
For the technical folks out there:
Hathor is a revolutionary database architecture that makes possible a high-fidelity record of the human experience. Hathor is the company that licenses and maintains that database. And Hathor is the software used by governments, corporations, and private individuals to monitor and research every detail stored in the system.
For everyone else:
Hathor is the perfect surveillance system. Well…almost perfect.
Hathor exists within a near-future science fiction series by author Aaron Pogue. It creates a world in which privacy is virtually non-existent, but in exchange we’ve got a perfect record of everything anyone does, writes, or says.
That’s scary in some ways, but it also offers some remarkable conveniences. The constant monitoring responds to the public’s every whim. Want a pizza? Say, “Hathor, I want a pizza. Thanks!” A pizza will come right to your door.
Hathor knows what kind of pizza you want. Hathor knows how much you can afford to spend on it. And, of course, Hathor knows who you are. And where your door is.
As you might imagine, such perfect scrutiny has had quite an impact on crime. In the world of the novels, nearly every crime is captured in perfect detail, the criminal known at once, and authorities dispatched instantly.
But there are people rich or powerful enough to tamper with the record. Their actions disappear within the archive, earning them the nickname “ghosts,” the books in the Ghost Targets series follow Katie Pratt and an elite team of FBI agents who specialize in tracking down these special criminals and bringing them to justice.
The books are half mystery and half thriller. They’re science fiction, but only really in the setting. The protagonist isn’t very interested in the technology that makes her world possible, so the story only rarely bumps up against it.
That’s tragic, really, because the technology behind the series is really cool. What’s more…it’s real. Virtually all of the technology seen in the Ghost Targets series exists in prototype form right now.
At WhatIsHathor.com, we’ll talk about that technology. We’ll discuss the discoveries we’re making today that make Katie’s world a realistic possibility for our own future — and the obstacles that stand in the way of it.
If that sounds interesting, subscribe to the RSS feed or sign up for our newsletter.
And if you’re like Katie and you’d rather skip the technology mumbo-jumbo and get straight to the story, dive right in with the first book in the series, Gods Tomorrow.
