Basilisk

(Paperback)

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Description

A terrifying and unputdownable horror-thriller novel of fiendish puzzles, compelling mysteries and paranoia about an enigmatic hacker, a deadly online game, and a cyber weapon that makes people go insane.

Perfect for readers of Paul Tremblay, Neal Stephenson and Mark Z Danielewski's House of Leaves, and the people who just have to know the answer.

Alex Webster is an ethical hacker who, like most hackers, prefers questions to answers. So when she and a colleague, Jay Morton, stumble across a mysterious game created by a shadowy figure known as The Helmsman, they are instantly hooked.

As they solve increasingly bizarre puzzles and uncover The Helmsman's deranged manifesto, they are pursued by a sinister group known only as XXX XXXXXXX XXXXXX, who will do anything to stop them uncovering the Basilisk, a cognitive weapon which makes anyone who understands it lose their mind.

When Jay disappears, as they hone in on the truth of the Basilisk, Alex is left trying to piece together whats happened to her friend, escape the awful smiling glitch people stalking her every move, and solve The Helmsmans final puzzle.

Reviews

"Deftly plays with form and content to pull you into a labyrinthine mystery." -- Rian Hughes
"Thomas Ligotti goes cyberpunk by way of House of Leaves in Basilisk, a compulsive, ambitious, audacious book that will worm into your head much like the viruses it details. It's the kind of book that takes over your life and leaves you afraid to be with your own brain. Damn you, Matt Wixey." -- Paul Tremblay, New York Times bestselling author of Horror Movie and A Head Full of Ghosts
"One doesn't read Basilisk. This book must be dismantled like a bomb. A hacker's House of Leaves, a Nabokovian bio-weapon, a piece of cypherpunk folklore, this found footage mindphuck is pure red-pilled adrenaline." -- Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Wake Up and Open Your Eyes
"Basilisk possesses everything I look for in weird, boundary-pushing, disorienting horror fiction. Disturbing, intricately complex and utterly maddening, this novel seems so impossible and yet completely inevitable at the same time. A remarkable literary achievement. This book feels dangerous to touch, let alone read." -- Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke
Basilisk is one of those rare artworks that remind me why the internet was a fascinating place to begin with. It channels the seemingly infinite mystery of the web in the aughts and early tens, perfectly embodying the interactivity, the esoterica and the patois of a generation whose lives were indelibly melded with the eldritch creature that is Online. It's one of the only books of internet horror that seems to understand internet horror, and the necessity of forcing the reader's complicity and participation in it. A worthy creepypasta in its own right, and a wild ride you won't be able to get off if you wanted to. -- Hiron Ennes, author of Leech
"Basilisk is a hugely ambitious and wildly imaginative tour-de-force. A hallucinatory fever dream of a novel that will suck you in and not let you go. What an achievement." -- Nicholas Binge, author of Ascension
"As a puzzle-lover, and admirer of the internet's weirdest intricacies, I found Basilisk incredibly immersive. If Only Connect and The Matrix had a murderous, smiling, dark-web baby, it would be something like this: both ferociously clever and capable of making me think deeply scary thoughts." -- Aliya Whiteley, author of The Beauty and Skyward Inn

Author Bio

Matt Wixey has worked in cybersecurity for over a decade, as an ethical hacker, intelligence analyst, and researcher. He has been writing prose, plays, and screenplays since 2018. In 2020 he was selected for the London Library's Emerging Writers Programme, and was a mentee on the 4Screenwriting mentorship scheme. In 2022, he won the Finish Line Script Competition. He has had several short stories published by Hammond House and Loose Dog Press, and his debut full-length play, Stray Dogs, was produced in 2021.