"Why? Why? Why? People buy the WHY, not the what. They buy the chicken, not the skin."
— Marian H. Volkolov, MARZENA: Transhuman Ambrosia
MARZENA is a Psycho-Techno novel series by K.T. Martel featuring a ring of women spies caught in the middle of Cold War II and set in the 2030s.
The first book of the series was first published on May 26th 2015
The book series so far consists of:
- Transhuman Ambrosia (2015)
- Blood is Art (2016)
- ????
- ????
The books provide examples of:
General- Added Alliterative Appeal: See Purple Prose.
- Afraid of Needles: When in Dr. Yoan's chair, Lauren starts shaking uncontrollably when she sees a needle on a table. This is presumably caused by Chekhov's Nightmares from the night before where a blond woman stabbed her with a syringe in the neck.
- Amazon Brigade: The C-Section is a groupe of elite women spies and assassins led by a Queen Bee who goes by the name of Marian.
- Antagonist Title: The name Marzena is likely based on the name of the Slavic Goddess Marzanna, the Polish Goddess of Death and Rebirth, of Winter and Nightmares.
- Armies Are Evil: Join the Transhuman Army, join the TAR, give artificial limbs to the cripples and optical stem cells to the blind, sell humanized pig organs on the Black Market, kidnap people and experiment new drugs and medical procedures on them. A seat on TArTArNet is waiting for you.
- Armor-Piercing Question: What does a Private Intelligence Company do with a neurosurgeon? Yeah, Lauren should really have thought this through before taking candy from a stranger.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Connecting to the FrontoTemporalDriver Engine does this ( and it slows down time too).
- Babies Make Everything Better: Go to your local electronic stores and take an appointment with a G-Net Genius. Time to be a parent and buy a new .ngn domain. But they're not just baby Self-Aware A.I.s, if you take good care of them they will grow up to become little children mule workers, and make you rich by creating neurosoftware that will be used by every company of the world. See? Holo Babies makes everything better for you.
- Back-Alley Doctor: Private Thomas is an "Augmented Reality" Surgeon, meaning that he doesn't know anything about medicine, but put on some glasses and some holographic magic and you got yourself an expert surgeon available from anywhere.
- The Baroness: Her name is MARZENA, MARZENA VOLKOLOV! She's pure evil and torture people for fun!
- Becoming the Mask: Subverted with Lauren, she was the mask all along.
- Body and Host: After her surgery at the hand of Dr. Yoan and after her first mind merging with Marian, Lauren gains the ability to temporally become the Queen Bee herself when switching to the proper Apparently Normal State.
- Book Worm: Cute Shy Girl Lauren knows everything there is to know about the human brains thanks to spending most of her life downloading textbooks for free hoping to one day become a doctor. She still has yet to read the Transhuman Seeder though. Averted with Marian, she gets all her learning from listening to people and having her digital clones read important things for her. Who has time to read these days?
- Backstabbing the Alpha Bitch: Livia is set up to become a Starscreamer and take down Marian with the help of Helena, although it turns out later to be only a clever ruse to gain Helena's trust (or was it?)
- Bilingual Bonus: French, Dutch, German, Russian, Swedish, Finnish, you name it, the book is full of it, although they are oftentimes explained by the narrator, and of course they are funetikally spelled.
- Bland-Name Product: Picosoft, Googol, and Axar inc, only to name a few.
- Brain/Computer Interface: G-Net A.I.s are capable of assimiling the computer codes of a single computer into their cortex allowing them to directly use them with their mind the same way that humans do in the real world. Also the Bremen Chip, a small electronic device containing astroglial brain cells that is inserted in the thalamus and allows an organic brain to connect wirelessly with either another organic brain or an artificial one. Just close your eyes and play with those beautiful pictures in your mind.
- Brainy Brunette: Livia.
- Cigar Chomper: Marian always keep a box full of Russian cigars inside her desk when she needs to remember herself from where she's from. "C'mon you can't cash in a million bucks without having at least ONE Cigar?"
- Clone by Conversion: the whole point of the story was to bring Lauren and Marian together so that Lauren would develop a Marian Apparently Normal State via her Dissociatively empathic abilities and a neurochemically compatible brain. In plain English we just organically cloned Marian's brain like a hacker cloning a credit card.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Marian uses her bedlam skills to pull out MLK's earrings and to skin out his tattoos with a knife, all the while enjoying herself with an overly long Evil Gloating, and while the narrator is busy describing everything that is happening inside MLK's brain thanks to her neuroscience genius. This results in the Five Stages of Lövheim's Cube.
- Cool Shades: Gorski, he can't take off his shades or everybody will see that he has mixed ancestry. There's also Marian who likes to put on shades when moving between places.
- Cryptic Conversation: Recurrent, notable examples are Marian and her FTD clones and that one last conversation between Marian and Lauren about some political backstabbing plot.
- Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Subverted, you'd think that a super-AI boom would lead to a global dehumanization of the world, but then it just doesn't happen. Glialbots are too humans. Things in the future are still pretty much the same, except for a couple of extra addons and yet smaller computers. The only thing that eats souls are neurobots, but that's just deporsonalization, you don't need computers for that. Subverted when Lauren ends up in Dr. Yoan's chair where the brain operations will seemingly "delete" her forever, but then it doesn't happen, she just becomes more like herself. In Dissociation Idendity Disorder, integration of personality can't kill alters, even if sometimes they think it can.
- Cyber Space: The Glial-Net, interactions are made easy thanks to holo glasses and holo contact lenses. Give the gift of artificial life, buy a Neuroglial Network Domain today. Hey! If you don't like living in a world of Self-Aware robots go back to Internet Classic.
- Deadly Euphemism: Jewish is either Jedish or Jayish, and Muslims are Mooktoos. And the H-Man is the H-Man, you cannot write down his name.
- Death by Origin Story: It's implied that the real Lauren is this. And according to Helena, President Victor Zolnerovich already died a few years prior to the story, and digitally cloned himself but not before replacing his human-self with a body double, because robots can't be president of course.
- Do Androids Dream?: Yes they do thanks to the G-Net. Android dreams are often referred as the "debug room" with the right side taking care of graphical glitches, and the left side mechanical glitches. Glial robots are just like humans because their algorithms include neuronal feedback performed just like in human astroglial cells. The center of their artificial consciousness is located in the Thalamic Subnetwork, the artificial equivalent of the Thalamus.
- Eldritch Location: Say hello to TAR-Net, a fully virtual labour camp. Fantastic place, join the Transhuman Army now and get your mind uploaded to TAR-Net after you die. There you will be able to enjoy a fully encrypted cybernetic world fully isolated from the rest of the Internet and where you will be forced to work for the Russian Government for free for the rest of eternity. Daily Activities include spying 24/7 on every people owning a Tresisda computer and making written reports to Omniscience local super AI, President Zolnerovich himself.
- Electronic Telepathy: When entering Dr. Sam's mind thanks to drugs and Virtual Reality, Lauren and Kristen communicates with each other using digital telepathy thanks to nanobots reading their brain activity by sending wireless signals when entering inside dilated brain vessels acting therefore like mini MRI machines.
- The Empath: At some point, Lauren has a Bill Grannt episode where she catches a killer by putting herself in his shoes.
- Empty Shell: Whoever fake-Lauren was before becoming Lauren is this. Subverted with Helena in that she was just faking it to avoid talking to Marian.
- Evil, Inc.: Germano-Russian and Polish Software Company Tresisda. From secretly helping Neo-Nazi terrorists to financing paramilitary groups performing underground experimentations on live humans, to the average American. Not to mention that they stole Googol from America and destroyed the whole eastern Market for Picosoft and Axar forcing them to merge into Spartan Soft. Also, they like spying on their loyal consummers in the name of the Father and the Mother Land. Star Cloud, Although seemingly just an innocent data storage company on the surface, Star Cloud doubles up as a private intelligence company known as the C-Section, employing a Cabal of women who keep watch over the world economy but not without stealing money by rigging the stock market.
- Extreme Doormat: Dr. Lauren will go to any length to preserve the status quo. Add to this the fact that she is Alexithymic and thus blind to her own emotions making this trope go to excessive length. She will kill if ask to by the proper authority figure and that in spite of the horrible guilt that will follow, and she will take up on her shoulders great and dangerous mission to save the world with little to no argument despite definitely not being professionally qualified for such a task. This trope goes up to eleven when Gorski and the TAR Kernel seize her up to strap her on the chair of the Mad Doctor where she does not even attempt to scream or fight them off, and does not even attempt to talk herself out of it. Fighting would only make things worse anyways.
- Fake Memories: The Narrator hints several times that Lauren's memories of her past may not be quite all that accurate. We learn later on that Lauren's memories were actually incepted inside her head via a virtual reality created from the life of the real Lauren. All that done while she was in a drug induced state, ironically the same process she was using on her patients while working for Marian.
- Fate Worse than Death: Instead of Your Mind Makes It Real, if you die in a dream or a virtual dream, you'll wind back time and be forced to relive the sequence over and over until you manage to resolve it (like a video game). Truthin Television, in that this is what happens to people who suffers from psychological trauma.
- Feminist Fantasy: The Story is about a woman who runs a military company made solely of womyn, who "Erase" people for a living and give psychotherapy to civilian women to convince them to spy for said womyn. Do I need to say more?
- Fiery Redhead: Kristen Börstrom is a Swedish Redhead Ex-Cop turned into super killer assassin, although it's not her natural color.
- Five Stages of Grief: Book 1 gives us the Five Stages of Grief according to Lövheim's Cube (+1): 1. Fear (Pure Dopamine), 2. Rage (Dopamine + Noradrenaline), 3. Shame (Nothing), 4. Angst (Pure Noradrenaline), 5. Contempt (Pure Serotonin), 6. Secret Bonus Backdoor Joy (Dopamine + Serotonin)
- Foreign Cuss Word: Somebody said Foreign Cusswords? Sata-nee-fittan Yayzüs Skit! Bllin Märde Yäyfla Hellfeta JÄVLA HORA Gottferdamnten Idioten Schlampa-Bitch-Kunt Ficken Fücken Sodding Sewka You! Alter Falter Mann! watch your language girl!
- Foreshadowing: "Our 3 little piggies stied into the limousine," then said characters end up in a farm, no such thing as coincidence.
- For Science!: Anika: "Time to Merge the Mind of a Woman with a Machine, in the name of science of course."
- French Jerk: Helena, she spends most of the first book refusing to talk to the point of mutism. Beside smelling bad and her bad hairdo from months of solitary incarceration, she doesn't seem to have anything better to talk about than morals, religions and European Superiority. And let's not forget that she's really a Tri-face bitch secretly working for the United-Bank.
- Freudian Couch: During her first visit in Livia's office, Lauren notes the presence of a couch under the giant portrait of what is assumed to be a Valkyrie. She only gets to sit on the chair though.
- Funetik Aksent: „Vat bedoolt yay fünetik aksent?! Ik spreak me very hroot Englisch!” A great many characters of the story are not native English speakers, so you get some small mishaps every once in a while. Most prominent examples are Livia and the TAR Kernel. Also note the usage of quotation marks where the author makes use of French, Dutch and German quotation marks to denote accent tags (although French Quotation marks can also denote Russian accent tag).
- Fun with Acronyms:
- The nickname of Death Dealer Kevin Fordson, MLK (Mass Lobotomized Killer/ Murdering Low-life Knave), not to confuse with Martin Luther King of course.
- Marian's psychometric test classing people personalities based on 4 traits, S.N.O.T. (Science, Nutrition, Oral, Traditional)
- European Secret Intelligence Service, I.J.S. (Intelligence, Justice, Something)
- According to the Author's website
, the title MARZENA itself is actually a German acronym for "Mitarbeiter Zellen für die Entwicklung der Neuronen Anwendungen," or in Canadian English “Associated Cellular Assistants for the Develoment of Neuro Apps”, or in plain English, Software that makes Software.
- Germanic Efficiency: The whole world knows that the real brain behind Tresisda are Germans. The Russians are just there for the marketing. Well the whole world knows it except for Americans, they think that the Dragon OS is Chinese.
- A Glass of Chianti: Marian likes to drink Petrus and Champaign, along with cheese cubes, otherwise it would be bad for the liver. And no to forget Livia who drinks Grape Juice instead of wine, go figure it out.
- Herr Doktor: Subverted in that Dr. Yoan isn't really from Germany or Austria but from Switzerland, and his accent isn't particularly attrocious either.
- Averted with Private Thomas, he's neither German nor a Doctor, but the robot behind his glasses probably is.
- Also note the recurrent use of German-like or Dutch-like surnames for certain other characters like Dr. Lauren Hackenhoek and Dr. Samantha Bergfield, although both are assumed to be American born.
- Hide Your Lesbians: Lauren's dream suggest that Livia and Marian could be this, although it's not clear whether this is the case or not. It could also just be Lauren's own repressed inner feelings as being Alexythemic she's unable to know that she doesn't know what her emotions are. Because of Unreliable Narration, it could also so be that the allusions are really a reflection of the narrator's fantasies rather than the characters themselves.
- Hollywood Hacking: Subverted, We got a team of Super Spies holed up in a room with an army of AI worker analysts backing them up, and we're all ready to hack into everybody's computer and... and where are the super computer hackers? The C-Section doesn't do Computerjitsu, you only need to hack the human element. What they need is people who understand human psychology.
- I Have Many Names: Every character and even organisation of the story seems to have multiple names. Marian/Marzena Hale/Volkolov, Vivianne Lodeveck Zoudenhaden (Livia), Helena Boudreau/Grüneswald, Lauren Hackenhoek/Renée Fritzhaber, Ju-Hon Gwon-ki/John Gorski, MLK/ Kevin Fordson, The C-Section/the Agency/Coven/Starcloud, IJS has a German and a Russian version,
- I'm Having Soul Pains: Renée Fritzhaber thanks to the artificially induced DID from being part of the BP-696 program and from being a Tomato in the Mirror. "DON'T LOOK AT ME! NOBODY CAN LOOK AT ME!"
- I Need to Go Iron My Dog: This happens near the end where Lauren tells Helena to go after Sandra.
- Inside a Computer System: Marian when she uses her bremen chips to connect to Geni's Thalamic Subnetwork and to the FTD Engine.
- The Internet Is for Porn: And so is the HoloLens and the Bremen Chip, time for virtual mind merging porn.
- In the Future, Humans Will Be One Race: Certain people in the Transhuman Army believe that following the teachings of the Seeder will lead to the eventual creation of a true Master Race. Homo Sapiens is dead, Homo Animus will reign supreme!
- Kick the Dog: Other than aforementioned Cold-Blooded Torture, which happens at least 3 times (that we know of), MLK gets poisoned with deadly mushrooms and the only cure is to get a pig liver transplanted by a Mad Doctor. Also Helena, who is locked up in a 4X4 sound-isolated padded cell for most of the book and gets brain surgery meant to make her talk and emotionally bound with the protagonist.
- Lady Land: The Star Cloud HQ Building is pretty much this, with both human ladies and robot ladies of course.
- Living Lie Detector: Marian is said to smell lies with her eyes.
- Lovely Angels: Marian and Livia are this.
- Manchurian Agent: Inverted, they're not Manchurian! They're Anti-Manchurian, evil people turned into good people thanks to laser-guided brain surgeries and then who turns evil again when their brain heals and they recover their memories (It's just artificially induced DID really).
- Mind Screw: During the Totally Recalled dream sequence, Lauren comes accross two strange letters written in red on a mirror, Ф and Ш. What the hell was that about? Not to mention the carpet with big and small circles.
- Murder, Inc.: According to Helena, there this thing called the Coven which is kind of like a modern day evil league of super womyn. The Coven hide itself behind a number of companies such as Star cloud or the C-Section. They form the Feminist Mafia and controls the stock market by killing people for a profit to buy ruined companies with decimals on the Credit. Also the United-Bank of all Nations, the UBN, money is all about profit at any cost.
- Man of Wealth and Taste: Rich and well-dressed Business Mogul Marian is the female version of this trope.
- A Match Made in Stockholm: Marian and MLK, near the end MLK is given his chance to run away forever and join the Transhuman Army, but instead go back to Marian to shoot an anti-transhuman propaganda video where he blames the torture inflicted on him by Marian on the TAR. "Look! They even numbered my skin grafts with tattoos!"
- My Brain Is Big: Subverted, Don't go thinking that you can just build up a giant robotic brain and create super intelligence, warns Anika From Bremen in one of her many scientific proses. Giant Brains only mean more coordinations between data, to become more intelligence one needs to raise the ratio of Astroglial cells in the Cortex, which doesn't have anything to do with size.
- Noodle Incident: During their first meeting, Marian talks about Helena's past as if the reader was already familiar with the Section's MO (or existence) and of who Livia is. "You want to know why you're here? ... It's something you said to Livia..." (Head Scracthing Reader: Who's Livia??) Also We never get to see the first meeting between Livia and Helena and Book 1 makes mention of it in this way.
- No Social Skills: Dr. Lauren, unless you want her to explain to you how neuroscience and neurosurgery works, there's no problem there.
- The One Guy: MLK fits this to a T.
- Parody Commercial: Transhuman Ambrosia has a whole chapter dedicated to this, we got Tresisda vs Spartan (Dragon OS vs iWin OS), Famous entrepreneur J-Mark Applebaum and his digital son Barry telling you that Tresisda cares about family, and Santa Claus turning velociraptors into long dead rockstars using the new Tresisda Sunglasses.
- President Evil: Russian President, Victor Zolnerovich, is a heavy supporter of Neo-Nazism and is himself a a clone robot AI. Also possibly Chancellor Norvak, or at least this is what Marian thinks.
- Retired Badass: Anika From Bremen is a famous writer from the future (i.e. future after the events of the story)) and is coming out of retirement to write the book series.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: Thanks to computer nerds finally understanding the concept of exchanging bananas for bananas, MARZENA can now introduce you the concept of the Glial-Net, an internet where domains are Self-Aware A.I.s capable of human intelligence. Life as a Glial Robot is described as being very similar to a human but with slightly graphically crappier vision and trapped in a neverending lucid dream (or nightmare). Contrast this with Soulless Neuro Robots like Sirana who can only copy behaviors, but can't replicate the human thought process or feel emotions. Neurobots can't simultaneously coordinate enough data to become conscious, a bird flapping a single wing will never fly.
- Robot Me: Geni is a digital clone of Marian created by Merging Mind with a Blank Slate. It's all still in Beta Stage of course.
- Sacred Scripture: The Transhuman Seeder is a collection of books written by Anika From Bremen (Narrator) that demonstrates how the brain works and establishes how this knowledge will create a biological technological and spiritual revolution. The book itself is considered holy by the members of the Transhuman Army.
- Screw Yourself: Marian and Geni ( they need to combine brain activities to unlock the FTD Engine and the only way is by hugging one another)
- Secret Police: The IJS, They spy on people, sell their data to Neo-Nazis and use the Transhuman Army to clean up the mess left behind so that Tresisda pass out as heroes. Also there is Section-C, a Private Intelligence Company contracted by Homeland Security to take care of dirty business that the American government don't want to get involved in.
- Secret Test of Character: Working for Private Intelligence Company, a few of these would be expected. Marian is a big lover of these. She loves asking strange questions just to see how people will react (e.g. Have you ever gone to Michigan?). At some points she goes as far as asking Lauren to kill Doctor Sam, and we also have Livia who at some point sends Zoé to kill Lauren to test how she handles stressful situation.
- Sequel Hook: During the final dream sequence, Lauren must chase after the shadow of a woman with black hair. The Narrator, who we have never met and who we know almost next to nothing about, admits at the end that the shadow woman was her and that Marian and her were once like sisters.
- Shout-Out: So many, so many, [[Hey! It's all Good Man, Hannibal Bill Grannt]], Hohlander the Remake, The Tetrix Movies, Househead, Zombies repeating Shtobo Mola Jit/ Myorvt Shtobo Jit over and over, Stegano?! WTF!, blue meth is so 2013, how about eating your own pig for diner (Hannibal), YEAH! HOLO CHRISTMAS!
- The Silent Bob: Sandra is the female version of this, made more troubling by the Author using French Quotation marks for the few times where she does say anything. MLK when he goes on a trip to Europe with Lauren and Helena.
- Significant Anagram:
- Masatrina, the fictitiously famous killer AI from Television, is an anagram for Samaritan.
- Russia's very own Evil, Inc. Computer Software company, TRESISDA, is also an anagram for DISASTER.
- Soviet Superscience: According to Marian, the Russian Government of 2033 wants to use Super Psychology and Anti-Manchurians Agents to destroy the cultural independence of the Balkans and create a giant Invincible Super Russian State.
- Spirit World: According to Book 1 the surface of the brain, Cortex Land, can be understood as some kind of dreamworld where one can navigate through either a world of pure context (right hemisphere) or pure content (left hemisphere). Both worlds are inhabited by "biological holograms" the biological equivalent of digital holograms (those pictures of people in your head) which can considered as spirits. Sometimes a spirit goes into the deeper levels of Cortex Land to become a Thalamic Wizard, and then the spirit becomes a self-aware consciousness.
- Super-Soldier: Subverted, project BP-696 was a failure, they only created kids with severe cognitive delays and memory problems. Great material for Anti-Manchurian Agents though.
- Surgical Impersonation: Dr. Lauren is actually a Body Double of the real Dr. Lauren who is already long dead.
- Swiss Bank Account: Subverted, Dr. Sam doesn't have a Bank Account in Zurich, although the computer seemed to think that he did.
- Those Wacky Nazis: Neo-Nazism is very popular in Russia of 2033, not to mention the people of the Transhuman Army who are sometimes referred to as Transhuman Nazis.
- Tomato in the Mirror: Lauren when she realizes that she's a body double of the real Lauren made by Plastic Surgery Magic.
- The Trickster: Anika Fun Bremen, obviously. And Marian too, being the head of a Private Intelligence Company is all about psychology and fun mind games, Chronic Backstabbing Disorder ought to ensue.
- Twin Maker: Bremen Chip + Brain Osmosis Infusion on a Blank G-Net AI.
- Unreliable Narrator: Anika makes it clear multiple times throughout the story that she wasn't there when it happened. She's just a ghost writer transcribing down the toughts and memories of the characters
- Viewers Are Geniuses: Book 1 is very keen on neuroscience with overly detailed explanations that borders on Techno Porn. Even the Narrator admits to it at some point by saying that "if you understood any of this, then I guess you must be a genius now."
- Vigilante Man: Although not a man, Marian loves to make herself appear as a Vigilante as to justify her sadistic nature and sell herself as the hero.
- Virtual Ghost: Some people thinks that G-Net A.I.s are this. They're watching you from their own private virtual space and you can't even see them without your glasses or contact lenses.
- Virtual-Reality Interrogation: Lauren plug Dr. Sam to a virtual reality created via the bio-feedback of his dreams, and then send a virtual avatar controlled by Kristen to steal his banking information.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: Silly movies and video games... You can't die in a dream! Also if you die and fall in a comma, the Doctor can bring you back to consciousness by stimulating your thalamus.
- Warrior Therapist: Although physically imposing, Marian only needs her mouth to dismantle anybody and make them do or think whatever she wants. Her most notable adversary is Helena, who is completely obvious to her attempts at making her talk. Also there is Livia, who trains ordinary women into becoming spies and assassins, and emotionally support them throughout their missions. She accurately guesses that Lauren's sister was the one getting more gifts at Christmas.
- We Will Spend Credits in the Future: The Dollar is long gone by the year 2033. It's all Credits now, same thing except everything is divided by 2 to make people feel richer despite having less money. Some older people seems to have problems dropping the word "dollar" off their vocabulary though.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The unnamed TAR Kernel, he just disappears after his Speech and is never heard of again with no concrete explanation as to where he went or what happened to him.
- What Is Evil?: There is no true evil, only chaos and people with short attention span.
- Who Writes This Crap?!: Lawyer Algorithms of course!
- Wild Child: Renée Fritzhaber, she's spent most of her youth in full isolation in a mental insitute being experimented on. so being literate enough to read that makes her only half-wildling.
- Written Sound Effect: There is quite a few of these throughout the book, *Wherz Wherz*, lo and behold my circular saw of terror.
