Swarm (Garcia novel)

Swarm (2017) is a cyber-noir novel written by American author Guy Garcia. Released in February 2017, it follows Austin, Texas-based hacktivist Tom Anaya, who after receiving ultra-sensitive experimental software from the U.S. Department of Defense uses his cyber-hacking and social media skills to trigger a biomorphic uprising that will usher in the next phase of human evolution. Under the guise of his alter-ego avatar identity known as Swarm, Anaya’s ultimate goal is to become the controller of the ‘hive mind,’ but his way of doing so could have potentially deadly effects.

Garcia’s initial inspirations for the novel came from biological swarming science, electronic dance music, government surveillance and mind-control experimentation, and integration of social media into virtually every aspect of people’s lives. “I was amazed at the hive mind, so to speak, which can take on the awareness and actions of a single organism,” Garcia said. “The deeper I went, the more I wondered what would happen if the transformational effects of serotonin in human brains could be amplified and got into the wrong hands...I set out to write a high-tech thriller, but in the end, an amazing amount of the story turned out to be factually true.”

Garcia claimed the idea for Swarm came late one night while watching a cable science program about recent findings on the transformational biology of locust swarms. In a 2017 interview he recalled, “I was fascinated to learn that ordinary grasshoppers and marauding swarms of ravenous locusts are actually the same animal. Under certain extreme conditions, including lack of food and crowding, a rise of the serotonin level in grasshopper brains triggers a morphogenic reaction where they become aggressive, sexually promiscuous, and physically transform into bigger, meaner members of a single collective hive mind. I had already been thinking about how social media was changing human behavior and aggregating our online personas into a massive network of proto-emergent consciousness. As I researched the latest advances in mind control experiments by the U.S. government and others, the plot and characters all began to flow and twine together.

Garcia admitted that early in the novels’ planning stages he was split between the percentage of fiction and nonfiction in the book. But with his deeper knowledge of today’s technological landscape, he now believes the tech content in the novel is 80% nonfiction and 20% fiction.

Swarm explores technology and hacktivist culture with primal human urges and social forces that may trigger the next phase of human evolution. Garcia wanted to “make sure that the trove of information never overwhelmed the human dimension of the story, but the personal passions behind big ideas ended up being the book's moral compass and subliminal message.”

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