About: Silicon Embrace

Silicon Embrace is a 1996 English language science fiction novel by John Shirley. Set in the near future, it tells the story of a group of journalists in the course of a Second American Civil War. The second civil war in the story is between "religious and ethnic" factions. The main characters get involved in a plot set by obscure entities within the US government together with an alien race from Zeta Reticuli, called the Zetans, who are supposedly friendly to Earth. A second group of aliens, called the Meta, are initially considered hostile. As the novel progresses, layers are peeled away and some of the truth, but not all of it, is revealed.