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The Obake Code
Our take
A heist book first, sci-fi trappings second, built for readers who show up for a crew pulling off an impossible job under pressure. A retired hacker gets blackmailed back into the game by a gang leader she wronged, and pulls together old friends to survive it. The queer found-family crew, featuring a sapphic lead and a nonbinary member, pulls off the genre's favorite trick. People who trust each other completely are running a con that could get them all killed. A sci-fi heist this confident about its own plotting, and this queer at the center of it, is still not common.
Expect a found-family crew that has each other's backs completely, the exact chosen-family energy heist fans show up for. The plot moves fast, with double-crosses and shifting loyalties inside the crew itself. Hacking, cybernetics, and a video game side detail give the world a lived-in, tech-soaked feel without tipping into exposition. It reads new adult in tone, with characters figuring out who they are after the big score rather than before it, and the pace stays near constant throughout.
Publisher's description
An all-new, stand-alone sci-fi caper from the author of Hammajang Luck: a bored hacker is forced by vicious gangsters to take down a crooked politician...only to find herself up against a code she might not be able to crack.
After the heist of a lifetime, Malia has it all: a loft apartment aboard the massive Kepler Station, expensive clothes, and a dev credit in her favorite video game. She’s also bored as hell. Three years after retiring her mantle as the Obake, the most infamous hacker in the quadrant—and arguably the galaxy—Malia hasn’t taken well to civilian life. So what’s the harm in rigging a few cybernetic prizefights and making a little cash on the side?
When Malia’s scheme is uncovered, she runs afoul of Jeongah Song—the dangerous leader of a local gang with a reputation for brutality. Malia is ready for retribution. But what she gets instead is an offer she can’t refuse: take down the local politician leading a “clean up the streets” campaign displacing residents and hindering Jeongah’s operations on the space station… or die. Without another way out, Malia takes the deal.
Luckily, she has some friends she can call on in times of need: a master thief, a street racing wheelman, and a femme fatale grifter. But as Malia digs deeper into the politician’s shady dealings, she finds herself embroiled in a conspiracy that might be too big for her to handle. One that has roots in her own rise as the Obake—a cybernetically enhanced superhacker created by a power-mad genius… a superhacker whose mods are rapidly degrading. Faced with threats on all sides, Malia may finally be in over her head...or stuck—forever—inside her own mind.
- Publisher
- Harper Voyager
- First published
- 2026
Available formats
- Print — 352 pages · ISBN 9780063430860
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