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Clarity
What would you do if your perfect world was a lie?
Seventeen-year-old Liberty Moore lives a Rockwellian life until her dad lets her in on a grave secret—the world she sees is fake, programmed by a chip implanted when she was born.
Gifting her with a pendant that strips the illusion, he shows her town which hangs on the brink of disaster, filled with deadly pollution and undrinkable water.
Before she can adjust to that bombshell, her father disappears. When a doppelganger tries to replace him, her necklace reveals his deception.
With her father missing and her mother willing to sacrifice everything to keep the facade, Liberty ventures into Clarity to find the truth beyond the guise of perfection and overcome a malicious plot to delude the citizens of her city.
If she fails, both she and Clarity will cease to exist.
261 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 28, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 2, 2023
I hadn't actually considered this a young adult story, although now I see it self-described as such and think about the intro, I guess it is a bit. Who am I to judge? We open on our protagonist Liberty, aka. Libby, a happy-go-lucky artistic type whose overbearing fashion designer mother wants her to follow in her footsteps. Liberty is attending a college of some kind and having moderate to industrial-strength angst about this hunky boy she's keen on. Okay, it's young adult fiction. Don't care.
This solid character setup immediately takes a creepy turn when we find out that basically nothing is what it seems. The overwhelming majority of the population is installed with "personal reality", PR, an extreme form of augmented reality that affects sight, taste, and to a certain degree touch to basically overwrite everything in the community's immediate environment with a utopian world of peace, plenty and beauty. The second that system switches off, the world is revealed as grimy, rotten, falling-apart and slowly bleaching itself to death under a burning sun and degenerating atmosphere.
Told from the first-person perspective of Liberty, we watch as she is brought into the world of "Clarity" by her tech-activist father and begins to realise that living without illusions is really fucking hard, actually. Especially when almost everyone else prefers the illusion to reality, and even a lot of the people with Clarity (like the cops, and assorted grifters) are not on board with upsetting the sheeple.
There's more to it, and the story unfolds chapter by chapter in intriguing, often-disgusting, increasingly-complex ways. The history and the fate of the world, the shady organisations behind the scenes taking advantage of the illusion-wrapped livestock, and the very close-to-home question of how we got there from here - all present themselves as part of Liberty's harrowing journey of discovery.
The tech of PR is largely not stated in much detail, but is understood to be implanted and centrally controlled by way of a network coverage type deal. You don't really need to know how it works, just what it does. I was reminded of the cyberpunk book ARvekt, which also handled an all-pervasive augmented-reality culture and what happens when you switch off the integrated headset. Clarity shows this contrast really well, and the human element of willing self-delusion is perfectly captured.
The story is riddled with tiny moments that allow the reader to follow a thread in their own imaginations, and what the implications are for the PR swaddled world. "Probably a peep" was a perfect and horrible little moment like that. When everybody else is seeing another world entirely, the potential for abuse can be communal or intimate. Another one was Graceon, the barely-mentioned retirement village where I am willing to bet old people are Soylent Green'd.
Of course, there was a certain amount of confusion for me, with the PR mechanic. Some people were completely outside of PR, Clarity-native, and they seemed to be invisible to the people in PR, but not always? Then there were some who could see in Clarity, but could also alter their appearances in PR and take part in everyday PR life. Did Liberty wind up looking like she was talking to herself when she talked with Clarity folks, or was she also projecting a non-crazy avatar sometimes? Seems like she wasn't, a lot of the time. The rules were a bit difficult to follow, and who was visible and audible to whom was a bit muddled. That could be on me as much as Hicks, though.
Also I would have expected a lot more abuse from the Clarity-native cops, but that's just me. I sort of got the idea, in the lieutenant's interaction with Liberty, that they had become very complacent and lazy when dealing with the PR sheeple because the civilians didn't really think, didn't do anything outside the lines, and were basically completely open and vulnerable to authorities who could literally see through them. But I would have expected worse. And the existence of have-nots on the other side of the river, I would have expected to be a bigger deal.
I am not certain how even PR managed to maintain an illusion of safety and health, furthermore, when everything was broken and falling apart. There were references to minimal health facilities and minimal need for them, but people would forever be cutting themselves on jagged and rusty shit, falling off busted furniture or out of houses, and let's not even start on the "food". How people weren't dropping like flies is a bit of a mystery.
Anyway, it was all very cool.
Sex-o-meter
None. No sex in this one, and only the lightest hint of romance. It's not really a needed part of this story anyway, although the groundwork was all nicely set and I imagine it will become more focal in later stories. Clarity gets a Trinity getting on a motorbike out of a possible hilariously photoshopped Trinity getting on a motorbike and showing her massive curvaceous badonkadonk on the sex-o-meter.
Gore-o-meter
Again, nothing much in the violence stakes although there was plenty of action, and a lot of psychological violence and grossness - mainly centred around disgusting food. Still, this wasn't a gory one. Half a quivering flesh-gobbet out of a possible five, although I suppose half a gobbet is still really a gobbet, just a smaller gobbet than usual. Makes you think.
WTF-o-meter
Plenty of action on the WTF-o-meter in this one, as one would expect with a story based in an augmented-reality-hidden dystopia. Aside from the questions of mechanics and consistency, the very idea of an artificially imposed fake reality to keep people from self-destructing (or tearing down the authorities who doomed them) over climate collapse is ... mmm, what a perfect concept. A narwhal in VR goggles swimming with crocodiles in VR goggles out of a possible human in VR goggles swimming with crocodiles that are not wearing VR goggles. Also there's a narwhal there.
My Final Verdict
Great story, really well told and with highly enjoyable imagination and visuals. Four stars!
This solid character setup immediately takes a creepy turn when we find out that basically nothing is what it seems. The overwhelming majority of the population is installed with "personal reality", PR, an extreme form of augmented reality that affects sight, taste, and to a certain degree touch to basically overwrite everything in the community's immediate environment with a utopian world of peace, plenty and beauty. The second that system switches off, the world is revealed as grimy, rotten, falling-apart and slowly bleaching itself to death under a burning sun and degenerating atmosphere.
Told from the first-person perspective of Liberty, we watch as she is brought into the world of "Clarity" by her tech-activist father and begins to realise that living without illusions is really fucking hard, actually. Especially when almost everyone else prefers the illusion to reality, and even a lot of the people with Clarity (like the cops, and assorted grifters) are not on board with upsetting the sheeple.
There's more to it, and the story unfolds chapter by chapter in intriguing, often-disgusting, increasingly-complex ways. The history and the fate of the world, the shady organisations behind the scenes taking advantage of the illusion-wrapped livestock, and the very close-to-home question of how we got there from here - all present themselves as part of Liberty's harrowing journey of discovery.
The tech of PR is largely not stated in much detail, but is understood to be implanted and centrally controlled by way of a network coverage type deal. You don't really need to know how it works, just what it does. I was reminded of the cyberpunk book ARvekt, which also handled an all-pervasive augmented-reality culture and what happens when you switch off the integrated headset. Clarity shows this contrast really well, and the human element of willing self-delusion is perfectly captured.
The story is riddled with tiny moments that allow the reader to follow a thread in their own imaginations, and what the implications are for the PR swaddled world. "Probably a peep" was a perfect and horrible little moment like that. When everybody else is seeing another world entirely, the potential for abuse can be communal or intimate. Another one was Graceon, the barely-mentioned retirement village where I am willing to bet old people are Soylent Green'd.
Of course, there was a certain amount of confusion for me, with the PR mechanic. Some people were completely outside of PR, Clarity-native, and they seemed to be invisible to the people in PR, but not always? Then there were some who could see in Clarity, but could also alter their appearances in PR and take part in everyday PR life. Did Liberty wind up looking like she was talking to herself when she talked with Clarity folks, or was she also projecting a non-crazy avatar sometimes? Seems like she wasn't, a lot of the time. The rules were a bit difficult to follow, and who was visible and audible to whom was a bit muddled. That could be on me as much as Hicks, though.
Also I would have expected a lot more abuse from the Clarity-native cops, but that's just me. I sort of got the idea, in the lieutenant's interaction with Liberty, that they had become very complacent and lazy when dealing with the PR sheeple because the civilians didn't really think, didn't do anything outside the lines, and were basically completely open and vulnerable to authorities who could literally see through them. But I would have expected worse. And the existence of have-nots on the other side of the river, I would have expected to be a bigger deal.
I am not certain how even PR managed to maintain an illusion of safety and health, furthermore, when everything was broken and falling apart. There were references to minimal health facilities and minimal need for them, but people would forever be cutting themselves on jagged and rusty shit, falling off busted furniture or out of houses, and let's not even start on the "food". How people weren't dropping like flies is a bit of a mystery.
Anyway, it was all very cool.
Sex-o-meter
None. No sex in this one, and only the lightest hint of romance. It's not really a needed part of this story anyway, although the groundwork was all nicely set and I imagine it will become more focal in later stories. Clarity gets a Trinity getting on a motorbike out of a possible hilariously photoshopped Trinity getting on a motorbike and showing her massive curvaceous badonkadonk on the sex-o-meter.
Gore-o-meter
Again, nothing much in the violence stakes although there was plenty of action, and a lot of psychological violence and grossness - mainly centred around disgusting food. Still, this wasn't a gory one. Half a quivering flesh-gobbet out of a possible five, although I suppose half a gobbet is still really a gobbet, just a smaller gobbet than usual. Makes you think.
WTF-o-meter
Plenty of action on the WTF-o-meter in this one, as one would expect with a story based in an augmented-reality-hidden dystopia. Aside from the questions of mechanics and consistency, the very idea of an artificially imposed fake reality to keep people from self-destructing (or tearing down the authorities who doomed them) over climate collapse is ... mmm, what a perfect concept. A narwhal in VR goggles swimming with crocodiles in VR goggles out of a possible human in VR goggles swimming with crocodiles that are not wearing VR goggles. Also there's a narwhal there.
My Final Verdict
Great story, really well told and with highly enjoyable imagination and visuals. Four stars!
October 4, 2022
Disclaimer - I received a free copy of this book to review for the Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC).
Once again participating in the SPSFC has presented me with a YA book to read. Clarity by J Lynn Hicks
is definitely directed toward the twelve to eighteen age range with Liberty, the protagonist, fitting right in as a seventeen year old.
Liberty’s perfect world with delicious food, bright fashions, and beautiful scenery is not as it seems. Liberty’s father gives her a crystal pendant to wear that strips away the fantasy and she is faced with the stark reality that she lives in an apocalyptic world. During the resulting confusion her father disappears and she is left with her crazy mother and a lot of questions of who and what to trust. With some similarities to the plot of The Matrix and dueling realities, Hicks’ book is full of mystery and danger and the action never stops.
Like many teenagers, Liberty does not feel like she fits in and is is insecure as to her looks and abilities. Now that she has seen the world as it is, while her peers see only the illusion, she is definitely on her own. As is often the case with this genre, we have an adolescent who needs to save the world from the damage the adults have done. Considering that we are leaving the next generation with a world full of viruses, extinctions, divided politics, and global warming these types of books might be just the ticket for preparing them for adulthood.
While Hicks’ book was exciting, I found that the storyline was limited and the science unbelievable. While there was a lot of action, the main characters were shallow. Overall, I feel like this book needed another rewrite. I’d like to give it a 3.5 but since Goodreads only does whole numbers I’ll have to go with a 3. There are three more books planned for the series; Tenacity, Authority, and Unity.
Once again participating in the SPSFC has presented me with a YA book to read. Clarity by J Lynn Hicks
is definitely directed toward the twelve to eighteen age range with Liberty, the protagonist, fitting right in as a seventeen year old.
Liberty’s perfect world with delicious food, bright fashions, and beautiful scenery is not as it seems. Liberty’s father gives her a crystal pendant to wear that strips away the fantasy and she is faced with the stark reality that she lives in an apocalyptic world. During the resulting confusion her father disappears and she is left with her crazy mother and a lot of questions of who and what to trust. With some similarities to the plot of The Matrix and dueling realities, Hicks’ book is full of mystery and danger and the action never stops.
Like many teenagers, Liberty does not feel like she fits in and is is insecure as to her looks and abilities. Now that she has seen the world as it is, while her peers see only the illusion, she is definitely on her own. As is often the case with this genre, we have an adolescent who needs to save the world from the damage the adults have done. Considering that we are leaving the next generation with a world full of viruses, extinctions, divided politics, and global warming these types of books might be just the ticket for preparing them for adulthood.
While Hicks’ book was exciting, I found that the storyline was limited and the science unbelievable. While there was a lot of action, the main characters were shallow. Overall, I feel like this book needed another rewrite. I’d like to give it a 3.5 but since Goodreads only does whole numbers I’ll have to go with a 3. There are three more books planned for the series; Tenacity, Authority, and Unity.
June 30, 2022
A well crafted read
While lacking the intensity of JLynn Hicks's other works, clarity is an enjoyable experience. I didn't want to put it down, but I didn't want it to end either.
When Liberty learns the technology used to enhance their lives is a lie, she's uncertain how to process this information. When her father goes missing, she has to unravel fiction from reality as she learns who she can trust and who is an enemy.
Hicks wove her world together in a way that seamlessly made me wonder what twist was going to happen next.
The best part, even though it is a four book series, it doesn't have an annoying cliffhanger with multiple loose ends. There's only one loose end and the question of how her society can possibly survive.
I was given a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review. I loved it so much I *had* to buy a copy.
While lacking the intensity of JLynn Hicks's other works, clarity is an enjoyable experience. I didn't want to put it down, but I didn't want it to end either.
When Liberty learns the technology used to enhance their lives is a lie, she's uncertain how to process this information. When her father goes missing, she has to unravel fiction from reality as she learns who she can trust and who is an enemy.
Hicks wove her world together in a way that seamlessly made me wonder what twist was going to happen next.
The best part, even though it is a four book series, it doesn't have an annoying cliffhanger with multiple loose ends. There's only one loose end and the question of how her society can possibly survive.
I was given a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review. I loved it so much I *had* to buy a copy.
August 15, 2022
Clarity, book 1 of the Clarity Chronicles written by J Lynn Hicks, was immediately engaging. With me being fairly new to this genre, Clarity had me thinking about the story long after reading time was up. I couldn’t wait to get back to the story. I loved the creativity and descriptions that helped me visualize the people, places, and things so well in this story. Hicks is a wonderful story teller and I look forward to book 2. I recommend reading Clarity.
June 25, 2023
Clsrity
Definitely a unique dystopian world. Pretty scary though. Not too farfetched as reality seems to be tracking that way. Characters are good and the growth is huge. Good read.
Definitely a unique dystopian world. Pretty scary though. Not too farfetched as reality seems to be tracking that way. Characters are good and the growth is huge. Good read.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews