What is a secret?
The definition is of a truth, hidden from general view. The implication is that there is often some malevolent intention behind this deception. The truth in question, if revealed, threatens the interests of those who do the hiding. It follows that the bad guys have seen this truth and by hiding it from the rest of us, they gain some advantage. In the cold war, the secrets were largely scientific, concerned with the weaponization of nuclear physics or biology. The danger there though was the inequality of knowledge between the competing factions. We were safe as long as both sides had the same destructive capability. Destruction was mutually assured if either side elected to use their knowledge in anger. The glamour of cold war spy novels derived from the high stakes and the guile of the agents on both sides as they strove to protect their perceived advantages. I say perceived because in reality, what those agencies were in fact protecting was the status quo. But there is another kind of secret, an even more intriguing one. This is the secrecy of ignorance. What I mean is, a truth obscured not by an act of hiding but rather through a lack of effective searching. This may be because we are unaware of its existence or alternatively, we just lack the interest to look. These kind of secrets become particularly interesting when someone gets serious about uncovering them. Why is this person so focussed on finding this truth? What do they stand to gain? Should we be searching too? In Infinite State, the concluding part of the Infinity Trilogy, Carlo Bianci is driven by the conviction that Lodestar, a new generation of social network, contains just such a truth. His increasingly reckless drive to find it brings the world order to its knees. What is this secret and why is it worth the heavy price of uncovering it? Infinite State is available from Amazon. Click here for details.
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