Sign-In
Cart
Code Blackout
Paperback
Currently unavailable to order
Please enter your email and a message will be sent to you when this product becomes available on our website.
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Sep 3 2025
Pages: 358
Weight: 1.05
Height: 0.74 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
When the lights die, the contracts wake up.
Paper beats pretty until pretty is true.
A city-wide blackout strands Harbour City Medical Centre behind vendor-locked systems that won't budge without a remote ack. With a public audit and grid reconnect set for 06:00, Trauma Chief Mara Vance and a night-shift crew have one job: keep people breathing-while rewriting the rules in real time. Elevators lie on battery, oxygen is rationed by maths, and a green cabinet insists on an Obedience Loop before it will move metal. So the team does what hospitals used to do: meters over menus, tape over theory, people over portals.
CODE BLACKOUT is a fast, grounded medical-tech thriller about human custody over critical systems. Think The Martian-style problem-solving with Chernobyl-level stakes-told in sharp, cinematic chapters that read like a live incident log.
Why you'll turn the pages
A new kind of villain: not malware but a contract clause-the Obedience Loop-that decides who breathes until someone clears it.
Competence & heart: oxygen maths, manual islanding, LOTO, isolation pressure, lab Delta Law, a procurement team that finally ships the card in the crate.
A wall that becomes policy: the night shift writes rules in big letters where hands live; the city ends up signing them.
Inside you'll find
elevators that bite (and how to bridge them), oxygen actuators that won't open without a clause, vacuum skids asking for a resume ack, smoke purge versus isolation under one-voice AHJ, and a finale that makes the Rule on the Wall public record: Bots may remind-two names sign.
Perfect for fans of Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain, Daniel Suarez's Daemon, and Andy Weir's The Martian-readers who love authentic kit, high stakes, and people who stay calm when the room doesn't.
Format & tone
48 short, titled chapters; bingeable pace; PG-13 intensity
Authentic hospital & plant ops (no techno-babble you can't use in a hallway)
A hopeful thriller about stewardship in public-with pens, tape, and the courage to sign your name.
Rule on the Wall isn't just a motif-it's the ending. This is how ordinary people make complicated things safe, not in secret, but on the wall where everyone can see.
Also in
Mystery & Thriller
Coffin Road: An Utterly Gripping Crime Thriller from the Author of the China Thrillers
May, Peter
Paperback
Sabine's Notebook: In Which the Extraordinary Correspondence of Griffin & Sabine Continues
Bantock, Nick
Hardcover
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Movie Tie-In Edition): Book 1 of the Millennium Trilogy
Larsson, Stieg
Paperback
The Golden Mean: In Which the Extraordinary Correspondence of Griffin & Sabine Concludes
Bantock, Nick
Hardcover
Big Little Truths: Reese's Book Club: A Novel: The Sequel to Big Little Lies
Moriarty, Liane
Hardcover
The Pirate Queen: A Novel from the New York Times Bestselling Author of the Frozen River
Lawhon, Ariel
Hardcover
The Altar of Pergamon: The Mystery of the Dark Angel and the Future of the World
Cahn, Jonathan
Hardcover