Join

What does it mean to be human, and what happens when humanity takes the next step in its evolution?
 
When Join arrived, it was hailed as a miracle: a technology that allowed humans to join consciousnesses. To experience perfect, constant companionship through multiple bodies. To never die.
 
But Chance and Leap—two joins of five and four respectively—discover a terrifying malfunction in the technology.
 
Chance and Leap must journey into the climate change–ruined heart of North America and the communities of never-joined “ferals” in search of the only ones who can dismantle the technology: the ones who created it.

A native of Seattle, Steve Toutonghi studied fiction and poetry while completing a BA in Anthropology at Stanford. After various professional forays, he began a career in technology that led him from Silicon Valley back to Seattle. Join is his first novel.