Book club guide

Before you start

Bioweapon is set a generation after a catastrophe called Ragnarok. A World Government has rebuilt order, and almost everyone carries the Lync, an implant network that links every mind to every other and to the state. The story follows two people on opposite sides of the planet: Rin Renslow, whose home in the Australian desert is burned in the government’s Cleansing, and Leah Sudeski, a London journalist who finds evidence of a genocide the network has hidden.

The questions below avoid spoilers until the last section. 516 pages; adult readers. Content: violence and combat, genocide, some strong language and drug use; no sexual content.

Questions for any point in the book

1. The World Government’s promise is “peace, order, connection”. How much freedom would you trade for a world without war? Does the book’s world feel like a fair trade gone wrong, or a trap from the start?
2. The Lync is sold as connection. What does it give people, and what does it take? Which parts of it already exist in your own life, in phones, feeds or digital ID?
3. Leah’s job is to find out what’s true. How does a journalist work in a world where the network can shape what everyone sees? Who in your own life do you trust to tell you what’s real?
4. Rin crosses the world to protect a woman he has never met. Why does he go? What do loyalty and duty mean to him, and where did he learn them?
5. The title calls a person a weapon. What makes someone a weapon: how they were made, how they’re used, or what they choose to do?
6. The story starts in the Australian desert rather than a big American city. What does that setting change about the story and the people in it?
7. The author first published a version of this book in 2012, when a chip in everyone’s head was pure science fiction. Since then, companies have begun implanting brain chips in patients. Which parts of the book read differently now than they would have then?
8. The book takes no political side; its argument is that no government should be trusted with that much power over people. Do you agree that’s a position above politics, or is it political in its own way?

After you finish (spoilers)

9. The two parts are called Legacy and Deliverance. What is the legacy, and who, if anyone, is delivered by the end?
10. Which character changed most between the first chapter and the last? Was the change earned?
11. This is Book One of a trilogy. What do you most want answered in Book Two, Hacker?

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