Infinite Detail review: The dystopia that awaits when the Internet goes out

What happens after that is a potentially horrifying mystery that Tim Maughan explores in his new novel Infinite Detail, in which an act of cyberterrorism effectively cancels the Internet.Maughan divides the story into "before" and "after" chapters, which is a popular structure among recent novels that center on a single significant event. The "before" chapters detail the work of the man who transformed the neighborhood into a space where people could go to escape the watchful eyes of social media, connected devices, Big Data companies, and the like. However, it's also not hard to imagine how quickly society can crumble when our connections are instantly cut off.There's a point in Infinite Detail in which most of the details about the terror attack that brought down the Internet is revealed, and the crucial bits of information it reveals will make many previously confused readers want to flip backwards in the novel to put the newfound pieces of the puzzle in place. It's poetic in a way, because we can now only wonder what life would be like in a world where the Internet and all of its comforts vanished overnight. Maughan offers one version of the world, and it's one that I'm eager to read about again but not eager to experience—if the time ever comes.Infinite Detail is published by MCD x FSG Originals and will be available March 5, 2019.