Amazon Prime Members, Borrow Upload Free!

From now until June 16, 2014, Amazon Prime members can borrow Mark McClelland’s award-winning science-fiction novel, Upload, from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library for free.

Download Upload on Amazon

Upload is a near-future sci-fi thriller that goes deep into the mind of Raymond Quan, a troubled young hacker with a criminal past and dreams of escaping into a digital utopia of his own creation.  Upload is the story of the first person to upload his mind into a computer, an unlikely hero in an all-too-plausible tale of transhumanism and the singularity.

Intrigued?  Take a look at the About the Book page.  Check it out on Goodreads and Amazon.   Or read what Goodreads Author R.S. Carter has to say about it:

WOW. I LOVED this book. There are so many sides to this book that I could attempt to tackle. But my brain is exhausted from this read. Upload would be a premium selection for any scifi book club.


First there is the issue of ethics. If you could upload a consciousness into virtual reality while simultaneously destroying the physical body, should it be allowed? What if the body was going to die anyhow?

The main character in this novel is a loner. An introverted genius who has joined the Upload project at a local university. He has a past he wishes to escape, but it is that past which created and funded his life. He has plans to upload in the future but all at once, our protagonist is hit from three sides: the Upload project is going to be disbanded because a government committee deemed human upload to be unethical, his criminal past is catching up with him, and finally he discovers real world love for the first time.

Think you know how this book is going to end? You’ll be wrong.

This one takes a turn into a virtual reality adventure. Ready Player One meets The Matrix combined with the God complex of The Lawnmower Man.

My analogy to The Lawnmower Man is a little extreme – it isn’t that severe. But then again, we don’t know the whole story so it might have been more similar than we can imagine. You’ll understand when you read the book. There are some parts of the story intentionally missing.

I’ve read a number of reviews from people who loved the story and the science-fiction, but hated the protagonist. I LOVED Raymond! Sure, he had his character flaws (and some are very dark), but that what makes him such a perfect character for this story. And I’m always a sucker for child geniuses. This is Ender Wiggins as an introvert – hence the Lawnmower Man reference.

Ah, I’m going in circles. Read this book!

Why Isn’t Upload On Google Play Anymore?

If you’re looking for the eBook version of Upload, the only place you’ll find it, between now and June 16, 2014, is on Amazon.  In order to take advantage of Amazon’s KDP Select marketing features, such as Countdown Deals, Free Promotions, and free lending via the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, I had to make the eBook available exclusively on Amazon for the 90 day KDP Select membership period.  When the 90 days are over, I plan to resume distribution of the eBook through Google Play, Barnes & Noble’s Nook Store, iBooks/iTunes, Kobo, and Lulu.

I apologize for the inconvenience to those of you who don’t use a Kindle or prefer to buy your eBooks somewhere other than Amazon.  The fact is, roughly 90% of my eBook sales have come from Amazon, and there’s the potential for KDP Select to significantly improve my book sales. As a first-time self-published author, I’ve found it’s vitally important to experiment with marketing and distribution.

Thanks for bearing with me.  If you have questions, don’t hesitate to contact me directly, via Twitter (@markproxy) or email (markdmcclelland at gmail).

-Mark McClelland

Looking For Books Like Transcendence?

TranscendenceIf you’re excited about Transcendence, and intrigued (or scared) by the concept of mind uploading, you should check out Upload.  It’s a smaller-scale, more realistic exploration of the concept of mental uploading, through the eyes of the first person to do it — a troubled young man with a criminal past, who plans to take advantage of his position on the Human Mind Upload Project to transfer his consciousness to a computer and escape into a digital utopia of his own creation.

“McClelland’s ambitious debut novel envisions a future in which the vanishing line between virtual reality and ‘organic life’ causes an antisocial genius to conduct the ultimate evolutionary experiment.” –Kirkus Indie

Upload on AmazonUpload grabbed my attention early on and wouldn’t let go… I loved the way that McClelland projected some of our current problems, on a quite feasible trajectory, into the future. We can all relate to this science fiction.”  –Richard Bunning, Author of Another Space in Time

“This book had me riveted from beginning to end. In Upload, Mark McClelland does what the best science fiction does. He gives the reader an intriguing world in which to consider the big questions, but doesn’t try to answer them directly. Through the main character, Raymond, we explore consciousness and conscience, identity and agency, reality and virtuality. Exquisitely well written and edited, this is a book I’ll come back to again.” – Goodreads review

More information available on Goodreads and Amazon, or right here in the About the Book section.

Personal Challenge: Draft of Next Book Complete By December 31

Today, on my 43 Things profile, I set a personal challenge for myself: to complete the first draft of my next book by the end of the year.  If I fail to achieve my goal, I will give up all non-work-related Internet access for three months.  This seemed like a fitting consequence, given that the most likely thing to distract me from my objective is the Internet.

So, if you enjoyed Upload and you’re hoping for a sequel, get yourself a 43 Things account and cheer me on!