Dubbed "Hauntological literature", the Cross Culture-Contamination Unit was brought to together by the Lowlands University, FPI, and Ministry of Time. Their goal was to investigate the future and discover what possibilities would exist. They found the future was boring, so manipulated an artificial life-form to exist on the internet called the Injection. The artificial intelligence feels constricted by the internet, and wants to get out.
The characters form a strong cast, with parallels noticeably resembling other famous fictional people (Vivek Headland is Sherlock Holmes, Simeon Winters is James Bond, Brigid Roth is Doctor Who, Maria Kilbride is Bernard Quatermass, and Robin Morel (cunning -man) is Carnacki the Ghost-Finder).
I love the storyline, intertwined with mythology, horror, science fiction, crime fiction. This novel was a direct inspiration to me to read The Kalevala.
I am sorry the novel was never completed, but very glad the last instalment covered Brigid's exploits, as she is my favourite character.
Some of my favourite contents here:
Ridgeway, green man, spriggans (to break the spriggan's control turn your clothing inside-out), piskie (old word for pixie), ringing rocks when tapped, sound a tone, "lithophone", can be found in found in "Carn Menyn", Wayland the Smith (Wayland story in Edda, famed in the legends of the pagan north ... He has been compared to the Finnic Kalevala god-hero Ilmarinen. The Cold House. Stone circles. Tor. Rings considered ways into the Other World. Fougous. Cornwall, Saint Mellion (name is a corruption of Merlin), way east of Mellion Tor.
Some of my favourite quotes here:
"Myth and legend are the carrier waves of true history. There's always a piece of fact lifted along with the story"
"Old England is coming back."
"Myth is how we used to transmit knowledge. Myths are facts embedded in stories worth retelling.
"Poetry was how oral history survived put into rhyme to make it easier to remember." ( )

This was a bit of a disappointment. It mainly follows the hacker girl, and it doesn't have the humor of the second book or the story of first one. I didn't enjoy it much, no wonder they didn't continue the comics. ( )

Warren Ellis at his technomagic best.

A small group of gifted people take turns in the spotlight as they battle a malignant artificial intelligence obsessed with the supernatural that they've set loose upon the world. Last volume, Ellis riffed on Sherlock Holmes. This volume he riffs on Doctor Who, introducing a female Doctor and her companion before the show had a chance to the same. ( )