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Imagine a world where politicians lie to their citizens, art has been devalued into a pure commodity, individuals are defined by how much money they make and apathy is the only way to survive. Sound familiar?
In tomorrow's London, the colour-blind residents of the UK have long forgotten how to question the Death Value system. Operating under the banner of "equality", the Death Value Test estimates how much money each citizen has the potential to pump back into the economy over their lifetime. However, when the results are in, not all people are treated equally because it's the value - not the individual - that matters.
But there is one woman who sees through the picture of the capital painted by those at the top. Isolated and frightened, she instinctively keeps her artistic talent a secret from the friends who prefer connecting to her wifi than connecting with her. Drowning in addiction, she tries to find wonderland in the rabbit hole when she realises the one person she trusts is as flawed as the system itself.
But when she glimpses a ray of hope that there might be others like her who see how deathly their value system is, she begins to question just how flawed people truly are - and how flawed the system built them to be. Sick of despairing and complaining she decides to act and sets out to remind the people just how brutal a commentator art can be by revealing London’s true colours of control.
In tomorrow's London, the colour-blind residents of the UK have long forgotten how to question the Death Value system. Operating under the banner of "equality", the Death Value Test estimates how much money each citizen has the potential to pump back into the economy over their lifetime. However, when the results are in, not all people are treated equally because it's the value - not the individual - that matters.
But there is one woman who sees through the picture of the capital painted by those at the top. Isolated and frightened, she instinctively keeps her artistic talent a secret from the friends who prefer connecting to her wifi than connecting with her. Drowning in addiction, she tries to find wonderland in the rabbit hole when she realises the one person she trusts is as flawed as the system itself.
But when she glimpses a ray of hope that there might be others like her who see how deathly their value system is, she begins to question just how flawed people truly are - and how flawed the system built them to be. Sick of despairing and complaining she decides to act and sets out to remind the people just how brutal a commentator art can be by revealing London’s true colours of control.
271 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 3, 2016
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3 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 11, 2016
'So? A DV is just a number. It's fiction.'
'And does that fiction not negate your reality as a human being? Does it not uncreate your existence as an individual? And if you do not exist – how can you act?'
The science fiction here is light, balanced on one fact: Our lead character lacks the modification that allows everyone else to have a value-added user experience. With it, clothes, art, the (artificial) sky exist in new and incredible colors, all over, always. In consequence the world around and outside, the trees and the sea and the everything else not yet painted over or packaged, has become grey and threatening. This is because the modifications only permit licensed content to be seen—and the embryonic modification doesn't let anyone opt-out.
The book, too, is a lens, but one that helps us see what we might rather not. (This is the magic-trick of fiction, that it smuggles the truth to us in the wrong suit.) The value of the seer here is not that she can see something else, even though it is her “gift” that eventually spurs her to action; it's that her distractions have fallen away. It turns “seeing is believing” round backwards, the way it ought to go. Ultimately, this and the remaining science fiction is only a parable which gets us to see a “dystopia” that isn't a troubling premonition of What Might Be: This is a grimacing invective against how it is. What is a DV (“Death Value”) besides what we often already think of ourselves—people in a free and just society who need to find the best possible careers to gain the most satisfying level of wealth and productivity? What would it cost us to stop thinking that way? (What would we GAIN?)
Now that said, I put the book down over and over again. Never because I didn't want to finish, or because the writing is ever turgid or poorly-paced—it isn't—but because there was only so much I could take in one sitting. The frequency and violence of the visual metaphors are exhausting. There are ugly and difficult emotions here. There is also the telling fact that I'm finding it harder and harder to read, more and more finding myself impatient, distracted, stopping-and-starting in front of books that I love—a phenomenon this book would readily acknowledge.
But such speculations aside, I put it down because this is a book that confronts the reader. Off the top of my head, I would say it confronts us with sexual violence and counter-violence and internalized violence; our collusion with our destroyers; the need to break with old and dear relationships to save one's self; the addiction to security or safety or comfort; the ugly ad hoc side of politics; mania, masks, temptation; embodiment and excrement and blood.
The world doesn't lack for criticism, and to indulge in it would miss the point. The book does not defend itself. It does not apologize for its edges. It does not play clever with the genre boundaries it does not care about, it does not pontificate about its stylistic choices. It never tries to justify its existence, or fall into self-reflection.
Instead: It shares a hopeful vision.
It is an invitation.
Take it and read.
'And does that fiction not negate your reality as a human being? Does it not uncreate your existence as an individual? And if you do not exist – how can you act?'
The science fiction here is light, balanced on one fact: Our lead character lacks the modification that allows everyone else to have a value-added user experience. With it, clothes, art, the (artificial) sky exist in new and incredible colors, all over, always. In consequence the world around and outside, the trees and the sea and the everything else not yet painted over or packaged, has become grey and threatening. This is because the modifications only permit licensed content to be seen—and the embryonic modification doesn't let anyone opt-out.
The book, too, is a lens, but one that helps us see what we might rather not. (This is the magic-trick of fiction, that it smuggles the truth to us in the wrong suit.) The value of the seer here is not that she can see something else, even though it is her “gift” that eventually spurs her to action; it's that her distractions have fallen away. It turns “seeing is believing” round backwards, the way it ought to go. Ultimately, this and the remaining science fiction is only a parable which gets us to see a “dystopia” that isn't a troubling premonition of What Might Be: This is a grimacing invective against how it is. What is a DV (“Death Value”) besides what we often already think of ourselves—people in a free and just society who need to find the best possible careers to gain the most satisfying level of wealth and productivity? What would it cost us to stop thinking that way? (What would we GAIN?)
Now that said, I put the book down over and over again. Never because I didn't want to finish, or because the writing is ever turgid or poorly-paced—it isn't—but because there was only so much I could take in one sitting. The frequency and violence of the visual metaphors are exhausting. There are ugly and difficult emotions here. There is also the telling fact that I'm finding it harder and harder to read, more and more finding myself impatient, distracted, stopping-and-starting in front of books that I love—a phenomenon this book would readily acknowledge.
But such speculations aside, I put it down because this is a book that confronts the reader. Off the top of my head, I would say it confronts us with sexual violence and counter-violence and internalized violence; our collusion with our destroyers; the need to break with old and dear relationships to save one's self; the addiction to security or safety or comfort; the ugly ad hoc side of politics; mania, masks, temptation; embodiment and excrement and blood.
The world doesn't lack for criticism, and to indulge in it would miss the point. The book does not defend itself. It does not apologize for its edges. It does not play clever with the genre boundaries it does not care about, it does not pontificate about its stylistic choices. It never tries to justify its existence, or fall into self-reflection.
Instead: It shares a hopeful vision.
It is an invitation.
Take it and read.
August 6, 2016
When I started reading this book back in May, there weren't yet any reviews and I was prepared to dig deep to write a detailed review. Since then, though, fellow Goodreader Brandon has aptly summed up the story and its strong points to a degree where I feel I'd only retread his insights. Still, I'd like to talk about some of the things I thought about this finely wrought, though occasionally frustrating debut novel by Ms. Donald.
The light sci-fi dystopia of near-future London is like looking through a funhouse mirror where things are mildly distorted but recognizable. The worst, most dehumanizing aspects of Capitalism have been repurposed here as the Death Value, in which the best and brightest are automatically pushed forward to the best schools and fast tracked to start producing big bucks in order to spend big bucks. It's a feedback loop of self-imposed slavery, where people are located in residential Zones according to their Death Value, which fluctuate depending on a number of factors such as purchasing power, social media activity, and excessive spending on whatever for the sake of national pride.
As Brandon mentioned in his review,
Our main character is like a superhero. By day, she works as a stock broker in a soulless corporation filled with frat bros and the arch-typical sexist boss from hell. By night, she locks herself away in a secret room in her apartment and paints with a single color, a color only she could make. One day, she spots a Zero, so-called because they live outside the framework the government regulates and promotes. She might not have noticed him, except for an eye-catching yellow scarf tossed around his neck. Thus begins the call to adventure, but this is a subversion of a hero's journey. Or perhaps a diversion altogether.
The first half of the book sets up key relationships between the main character and her best friend and colleague, Kathy; her former professor, who encouraged critical thinking and subversion through her art; her mother, a doctor; a romantic interest, Robert, and Robert's transgendered friend, Adrienne. A haze of alcoholism blunts real connection with these people. Our hero resorts to sarcastic quips and dry wit to survive the sinking feeling that people are sheeple. There's a tawdry, almost tabloid feeling to this fictional reality. The casual superficiality of most human interaction is brought to the forefront and it stings the eyes to read. No one seems to say what they actually mean or mean what they say.
When our hero has her revelation, we're thrusted into part two, in which the narration shifts from a third person perspective to her voice. This worked...less well for me. It reminded me of Jonathan Lethem's change of narration in The Fortress of Solitude, even though these books have little else in common. I'm all for experimenting with voice, but there has to be a reason to switch halfway through the book, and I didn't get quite enough interior insight to make this as successful a transition as it could have been.
Generally speaking, the second half has some brilliant moments that are marred by uneven pacing and what seems like a rush to get to the denouement at the end. Conveniences and contrivances for plot purposes are a bit too tidy. I don't want to reveal too many spoilers, but the main character's automatic acceptance into the burgeoning underground group, or resistance, comes across as way too easy. I got strong Mary Sue vibes in that our hero is brilliant, but damaged. A victim who is the only one who can get people to open their eyes. Of course, something has to be special about her, otherwise we have no reason to follow her story.
Still, it's maddening when she is the only character who isn't color-blind and is the only artist, and of course her art must be brilliant, like Banksy, but a potent symbol for revolution. She's intelligent and witty and apparently attractive with a strong sense of justice and a disdain for the injustice of the system in which they all live and a definitive drinking problem and a well-spring of feelings so strong that every strong emotion she has is almost inevitably described as almost bursting through her chest. Aliens, this is not. A 3-dimensional character is there, strong and true, but there isn't much room for growth or change on an interior plane. Shaving one's head and going by a different name and confronting addiction come across as placeholders for real, deeper change.
The prose is vivid and cunning throughout. Occasionally so many metaphors are in play that they collectively lose their potency. Careful attention to individual lines and phrasings give off the whiff of purple prose, and the profligacy of adverbs will work for some people, but I felt some light editing would clean these sections up. Dialogue zings, but rings less true in part two when it devolves into shapeless banter. Like the switching of POV, these stylistic choices will work for some and won't for others.
It's not a "difficult" book, but I personally didn't find it conducive to reading straight through in one sitting. Like Brandon, I had to confront this book piecemeal, sometimes leaving it alone for days at a time. There are sharp edges here and it can cut you. It's unapologetic reimagining of our own fictional existence. It's asking you to open your eyes and to see, to really see what life can be.
The light sci-fi dystopia of near-future London is like looking through a funhouse mirror where things are mildly distorted but recognizable. The worst, most dehumanizing aspects of Capitalism have been repurposed here as the Death Value, in which the best and brightest are automatically pushed forward to the best schools and fast tracked to start producing big bucks in order to spend big bucks. It's a feedback loop of self-imposed slavery, where people are located in residential Zones according to their Death Value, which fluctuate depending on a number of factors such as purchasing power, social media activity, and excessive spending on whatever for the sake of national pride.
As Brandon mentioned in his review,
Our lead character lacks the modification that allows everyone else to have a value-added user experience. With it, clothes, art, the (artificial) sky exist in new and incredible colors, all over, always. In consequence the world around and outside, the trees and the sea and the everything else not yet painted over or packaged, has become grey and threatening. This is because the modifications only permit licensed content to be seen—and the embryonic modification doesn't let anyone opt-out.
Our main character is like a superhero. By day, she works as a stock broker in a soulless corporation filled with frat bros and the arch-typical sexist boss from hell. By night, she locks herself away in a secret room in her apartment and paints with a single color, a color only she could make. One day, she spots a Zero, so-called because they live outside the framework the government regulates and promotes. She might not have noticed him, except for an eye-catching yellow scarf tossed around his neck. Thus begins the call to adventure, but this is a subversion of a hero's journey. Or perhaps a diversion altogether.
The first half of the book sets up key relationships between the main character and her best friend and colleague, Kathy; her former professor, who encouraged critical thinking and subversion through her art; her mother, a doctor; a romantic interest, Robert, and Robert's transgendered friend, Adrienne. A haze of alcoholism blunts real connection with these people. Our hero resorts to sarcastic quips and dry wit to survive the sinking feeling that people are sheeple. There's a tawdry, almost tabloid feeling to this fictional reality. The casual superficiality of most human interaction is brought to the forefront and it stings the eyes to read. No one seems to say what they actually mean or mean what they say.
When our hero has her revelation, we're thrusted into part two, in which the narration shifts from a third person perspective to her voice. This worked...less well for me. It reminded me of Jonathan Lethem's change of narration in The Fortress of Solitude, even though these books have little else in common. I'm all for experimenting with voice, but there has to be a reason to switch halfway through the book, and I didn't get quite enough interior insight to make this as successful a transition as it could have been.
Generally speaking, the second half has some brilliant moments that are marred by uneven pacing and what seems like a rush to get to the denouement at the end. Conveniences and contrivances for plot purposes are a bit too tidy. I don't want to reveal too many spoilers, but the main character's automatic acceptance into the burgeoning underground group, or resistance, comes across as way too easy. I got strong Mary Sue vibes in that our hero is brilliant, but damaged. A victim who is the only one who can get people to open their eyes. Of course, something has to be special about her, otherwise we have no reason to follow her story.
Still, it's maddening when she is the only character who isn't color-blind and is the only artist, and of course her art must be brilliant, like Banksy, but a potent symbol for revolution. She's intelligent and witty and apparently attractive with a strong sense of justice and a disdain for the injustice of the system in which they all live and a definitive drinking problem and a well-spring of feelings so strong that every strong emotion she has is almost inevitably described as almost bursting through her chest. Aliens, this is not. A 3-dimensional character is there, strong and true, but there isn't much room for growth or change on an interior plane. Shaving one's head and going by a different name and confronting addiction come across as placeholders for real, deeper change.
The prose is vivid and cunning throughout. Occasionally so many metaphors are in play that they collectively lose their potency. Careful attention to individual lines and phrasings give off the whiff of purple prose, and the profligacy of adverbs will work for some people, but I felt some light editing would clean these sections up. Dialogue zings, but rings less true in part two when it devolves into shapeless banter. Like the switching of POV, these stylistic choices will work for some and won't for others.
It's not a "difficult" book, but I personally didn't find it conducive to reading straight through in one sitting. Like Brandon, I had to confront this book piecemeal, sometimes leaving it alone for days at a time. There are sharp edges here and it can cut you. It's unapologetic reimagining of our own fictional existence. It's asking you to open your eyes and to see, to really see what life can be.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews