There is an argument to be made that it is a difficult time to be writing action-packed fiction with a pulpish bent: more modern forms of entertainment media continue to grow in popularity, and whilst videogame narratives struggle to claw their way out of the ghetto of barely-coherent melodrama and machismo it seems probable that it will be the game, not the film or the novel, that will retrospectively define the youth of this generation.
There is also an argument to be made that this trend need not be relevant: there will always be space for novels that build themselves around action and adventure, and there will always be readers. The young are not the only demographic worth pursuing, and nor are they the only demographic who, to put it hyperbolically, enjoy having their adrenaline raced.
John Trevillian’s first novel, and the first of a trilogy, is what I would consider pulp fiction for the modern SF reader. It’s full of ideas, many of them – as is inevitably the case in a culture saturated with media production – familiar. It picks and chooses from sub-genres; the decadent megalopolises and megacorps of cyberpunk, the iconic villains and heroes of the more light-hearted end of post-apocalyptic fiction (an oxymoron, yes, but a highly entertaining sub-genre), the gun-porn and gung-ho attitude of MilSF, plus a smattering of satire.