![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
Nothing has happened. Not yet, anyway. This is how all things begin.
Welcome to Apex City, formerly Bangalore, where everything is decided by the mathematically perfect Bell Curve.
With the right image, values and opinions you can ascend to the glittering heights of the Twenty Percent - the Virtual elite - and have the world at your feet. Without, you risk falling to the precarious Ten Percent, and deportation to the ranks of the Analogs, with no access to electricity, running water - even your own humanity.
The system has no flaws. Until the elusive “Ten Percent Thief” steals a single jacaranda seed from the Virtual city and plants a revolution in the barren soil of the Analog world.
It’s a couple of hundred years in the future.
Apex City used to be known as Bangalore. Now it belongs to Bell Corporation, a Singapore-based company that uses the mathematically perfect Bell Curve to map the status of the city’s inhabitants. Transactions are carried out in BellCoin, which is earned from working from Bell Corporation or from other activities, e.g. running a successful influencer channel on Woof or InstaSnap. All residents in Apex City have an implanted Biochip together with an OmniPort that lets them access the virtual technology they need to go about their daily lives, from ordering groceries to watching the VR game leagues like Battle Arena or watching shows like Clash of Empires and listen to neo-Acousta music. But the Biochip also monitors its user, taking readings of biometrics, what they eat and drink and how they react to different situations in order to keep tabs on their productivity.
The residents who perform best against the Bell Curve’s metrics, i.e. the ones who are the most productive, who have the right opinions, appreciate the right culture and keep themselves in the best shape form the top Twenty Percent and are the most privileged, getting the best jobs, the best apartments and the best access to the kind of technology that will help them retain their position. The bulk of the population - the Seventy Percent - hustle and work to get themselves admitted to the heights of the Twenty Percent but above all, they want to avoid dropping into the bottom Ten Percent, whose numbers are subjected to limitations on the technology and resources available to them as the Bell Curve encourages them to become productive again.
Those who fail to climb out of the Ten Percent risk, at best, being thrown out of the City and forced to join the Analogs (people with no access to technology at all, who are viewed as abnormal failures and are only allowed into the city to work for the Virtuals under tight conditions). At worst, unproductive people are harvested (taken to clinics where their organs are extracted for use by the more deserving). A total harvest is something that everyone fears.
But something is brewing in Apex City. As residents like John Alvares try to make the jump to the Twenty Percent while Anita (a former business rival of John’s) tries to climb out of the Ten Percent and Nina (an Analog and talented pianist adopted by a Twenty Percent couple) waits to see if she’s passed her citizenship test and her Demi-Virtuoso (an exam that will propel her to giving concerts and international stardom), the Analogs have been planning. Analogs like the notorious Ten Percent Thief have been stealing bits of technology and seeds from the Virtuals for years and Suzerain Rasae (the leader of one of the Analog tribes) is ready to make her move and hit Apex City right in its beating heart …
Originally published as ANALOGUE/VIRTUAL, Lavanya Lakshminarayan’s debut SF novel is an ambitious read that examines its corporate owned, techno-state through interconnected short stories rather than following a single protagonist. That won’t be to everyone’s tastes and it is a little heavy-handed at the beginning, but this is a refreshing take on the genre with a sharp satirical eye and I look forward to reading Lakshminarayan’s next book.
Lakshminarayan’s book is unusual because there is no central protagonist here who the reader follows. There are some recurring characters - John, Nina and Suzerain Rasae being the main ones - but for the most part this book consists of short chapters, each exploring a specific element of Apex City and what life in this apparent technological utopia dedicated to capitalist objectives actually involves. In this respect it reminded me of a similar narrative device used in THEN WE CAME TO THE END by Joshua Ferris (albeit that used a first person plural style of narration rather than the mix of third person and first person narration used here).
Because there is no central character, I did find the book a little heavy handed as it starts out because Lakshminarayan has to do a lot of heavy exposition to set out the world in which the reader finds themselves and how that works. As a bit of a spoiler, I’m also going to say that for a book named after one of the characters - the Ten Percent Thief - it is frustrating to never find out who this person is, particularly as they only make an appearance in a couple of the chapters. To be honest, on finishing this book I really didn’t understand why the title was changed from ANALOGUE/VIRTUAL (which would have been a more accurate one for the way the story unfolds) because THE TEN PERCENT THIEF sets up an expectation that simply isn’t met within the text (although I will stress that this is in no way the fault of the author - it’s a weird editing/marketing decision).
Lakshminarayan has clearly put a lot of thought into the world building here and I found it quite a chilling look at the way societies could go in the future as technology and capitalism intertwine with authoritarianism and eugenics. The way in which the Virtuals are raised from birth to view Analogs as sub-human creatures who deserve their fate could be argued to have sinister connections with the current way in which western media treats refugees and those in poor countries. The chapter WELCOME TO THE MACHINE which follows Teresa Fernandes (a guide for the MagLev train that takes children on tours of the Analog world to encourage them to be good citizens) is particularly well done, not least because Teresa has a sister (a Virtual scientist who was scapegoated for a space disaster and ended up cast out into the Analog world) who she hopes to catch sight of. In the same vein, ÉTUDES, which follows Nina (an Analog girl and gifted pianist who is a adopted by Twenty Percenters but is still treated with prejudice and suspicion, denied technology until she passes her citizenship test) shows a different facet of this - notably how the discrimination is reinforced and habitual and how the focus is on her to demonstrate her worth, even though she is clearly disadvantaged in terms of her place in society.
Lakshminarayan also looks at what it means to be productive in this hyper capitalist society. TIME shows that even the elderly are still expected to contribute to productivity, passing on their knowledge as they spend time in what’s essentially a care home, with ANALOG/VIRTUAL highlighting what happens when you slip into the Ten Percent and stand to lose everything while …INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT suggests the cold brutality that awaits you if you fail to turn your life around. On the flip side, MONSTERS UNDER THE BED shows what it takes to transfer from the Seventy Percent to the Twenty Percent as John literally uses a robot to wipe and mould his mind and personality so that he has the opinions and tastes needed to secure a promotion and THE PERSONA POLICE shows the pressures involved in being in that Twenty Percent and how conformity is valued above everything (although I would have liked it has Lakshminarayan returned to Tanvi at some point so that it’s clearer what happens to her after she takes the decision she makes). And even given all this, Lakshminarayan shows that Bell Corporation still wants more with THE SEVEN-YEAR GLITCH following Aditi, a young Seventy Percenter who volunteered to have a new and experimental programme called M.I.M.E.S.I.S. uploaded to her BioChip not knowing that the programme is designed to take her to the Twenty Percent whether she wants to or not and will do whatever it takes - including nudging her life decisions - in order to do so.
If all this seems a bit too serious, Lakshminarayan does have a sharp eye for satire. AVATARS follows 3 social media influencer stars of the future who are all nominated for a prestigious award that requires them to reveal their real (i.e. non virtual) selves and each has a reason for not wanting to do so. I thought this was sharply written and genuinely made me chuckle as each tries to come up with a solution to their predicament (with varying results) and yet again, the parallel here to the current issues of unreality in social media influencers comes across very strongly.
Although the book is strong in regard to the chapters focused on Apex City, those chapters that seek to draw out the Analog world outside it didn’t work quite as well in comparison. That’s not to say that they’re bad, but they are patchier and more disjointed. For example, FULL METAL FOREST BREATHING indicates that there’s some kind of plot going on but the storyline doesn’t really begin to come through until the final quarter when Suzerain Rasae steps up to the fore in THE TINDERBOX, CODENAME: DISSENTIENT and you learn more about how the Analogs are organised into different tribes and what they have been planning (with the final few chapters showing how this all plays out). Personally, I’d have happily taken 100 more pages of book that fleshed out the Analog world more to fill in some of these gaps - especially when it comes to the Ten Percent thief of the title because I really wasn’t sure how that played in with the overall plot. Similarly, the end of the book is quite abrupt and doesn’t quite pull everything together that it needs to with the result that it isn’t the satisfying full stop that it could be.
My criticisms aside, I did find this a really interesting read that held my attention from beginning to end thanks to its different perspective on themes that are very common to this type of cyber-future SF novel and ambition. This book will not be to everyone’s tastes but I really think that Lakshminarayan is a SF writer to watch and I am very much looking forward to reading what she does next.
The Verdict:
Originally published as ANALOGUE/VIRTUAL, Lavanya Lakshminarayan’s debut SF novel is an ambitious read that examines its corporate owned, techno-state through interconnected short stories rather than following a single protagonist. That won’t be to everyone’s tastes and it is a little heavy-handed at the beginning, but this is a refreshing take on the genre with a sharp satirical eye and I look forward to reading Lakshminarayan’s next book.
THE TEN PERCENT THIEF was released in the United States on 28th March 2023 and in the United Kingdom on 30th March 2023. Thanks to Rebellion Publishing for the review copy of this book.
Welcome to Apex City, formerly Bangalore, where everything is decided by the mathematically perfect Bell Curve.
With the right image, values and opinions you can ascend to the glittering heights of the Twenty Percent - the Virtual elite - and have the world at your feet. Without, you risk falling to the precarious Ten Percent, and deportation to the ranks of the Analogs, with no access to electricity, running water - even your own humanity.
The system has no flaws. Until the elusive “Ten Percent Thief” steals a single jacaranda seed from the Virtual city and plants a revolution in the barren soil of the Analog world.
It’s a couple of hundred years in the future.
Apex City used to be known as Bangalore. Now it belongs to Bell Corporation, a Singapore-based company that uses the mathematically perfect Bell Curve to map the status of the city’s inhabitants. Transactions are carried out in BellCoin, which is earned from working from Bell Corporation or from other activities, e.g. running a successful influencer channel on Woof or InstaSnap. All residents in Apex City have an implanted Biochip together with an OmniPort that lets them access the virtual technology they need to go about their daily lives, from ordering groceries to watching the VR game leagues like Battle Arena or watching shows like Clash of Empires and listen to neo-Acousta music. But the Biochip also monitors its user, taking readings of biometrics, what they eat and drink and how they react to different situations in order to keep tabs on their productivity.
The residents who perform best against the Bell Curve’s metrics, i.e. the ones who are the most productive, who have the right opinions, appreciate the right culture and keep themselves in the best shape form the top Twenty Percent and are the most privileged, getting the best jobs, the best apartments and the best access to the kind of technology that will help them retain their position. The bulk of the population - the Seventy Percent - hustle and work to get themselves admitted to the heights of the Twenty Percent but above all, they want to avoid dropping into the bottom Ten Percent, whose numbers are subjected to limitations on the technology and resources available to them as the Bell Curve encourages them to become productive again.
Those who fail to climb out of the Ten Percent risk, at best, being thrown out of the City and forced to join the Analogs (people with no access to technology at all, who are viewed as abnormal failures and are only allowed into the city to work for the Virtuals under tight conditions). At worst, unproductive people are harvested (taken to clinics where their organs are extracted for use by the more deserving). A total harvest is something that everyone fears.
But something is brewing in Apex City. As residents like John Alvares try to make the jump to the Twenty Percent while Anita (a former business rival of John’s) tries to climb out of the Ten Percent and Nina (an Analog and talented pianist adopted by a Twenty Percent couple) waits to see if she’s passed her citizenship test and her Demi-Virtuoso (an exam that will propel her to giving concerts and international stardom), the Analogs have been planning. Analogs like the notorious Ten Percent Thief have been stealing bits of technology and seeds from the Virtuals for years and Suzerain Rasae (the leader of one of the Analog tribes) is ready to make her move and hit Apex City right in its beating heart …
Originally published as ANALOGUE/VIRTUAL, Lavanya Lakshminarayan’s debut SF novel is an ambitious read that examines its corporate owned, techno-state through interconnected short stories rather than following a single protagonist. That won’t be to everyone’s tastes and it is a little heavy-handed at the beginning, but this is a refreshing take on the genre with a sharp satirical eye and I look forward to reading Lakshminarayan’s next book.
Lakshminarayan’s book is unusual because there is no central protagonist here who the reader follows. There are some recurring characters - John, Nina and Suzerain Rasae being the main ones - but for the most part this book consists of short chapters, each exploring a specific element of Apex City and what life in this apparent technological utopia dedicated to capitalist objectives actually involves. In this respect it reminded me of a similar narrative device used in THEN WE CAME TO THE END by Joshua Ferris (albeit that used a first person plural style of narration rather than the mix of third person and first person narration used here).
Because there is no central character, I did find the book a little heavy handed as it starts out because Lakshminarayan has to do a lot of heavy exposition to set out the world in which the reader finds themselves and how that works. As a bit of a spoiler, I’m also going to say that for a book named after one of the characters - the Ten Percent Thief - it is frustrating to never find out who this person is, particularly as they only make an appearance in a couple of the chapters. To be honest, on finishing this book I really didn’t understand why the title was changed from ANALOGUE/VIRTUAL (which would have been a more accurate one for the way the story unfolds) because THE TEN PERCENT THIEF sets up an expectation that simply isn’t met within the text (although I will stress that this is in no way the fault of the author - it’s a weird editing/marketing decision).
Lakshminarayan has clearly put a lot of thought into the world building here and I found it quite a chilling look at the way societies could go in the future as technology and capitalism intertwine with authoritarianism and eugenics. The way in which the Virtuals are raised from birth to view Analogs as sub-human creatures who deserve their fate could be argued to have sinister connections with the current way in which western media treats refugees and those in poor countries. The chapter WELCOME TO THE MACHINE which follows Teresa Fernandes (a guide for the MagLev train that takes children on tours of the Analog world to encourage them to be good citizens) is particularly well done, not least because Teresa has a sister (a Virtual scientist who was scapegoated for a space disaster and ended up cast out into the Analog world) who she hopes to catch sight of. In the same vein, ÉTUDES, which follows Nina (an Analog girl and gifted pianist who is a adopted by Twenty Percenters but is still treated with prejudice and suspicion, denied technology until she passes her citizenship test) shows a different facet of this - notably how the discrimination is reinforced and habitual and how the focus is on her to demonstrate her worth, even though she is clearly disadvantaged in terms of her place in society.
Lakshminarayan also looks at what it means to be productive in this hyper capitalist society. TIME shows that even the elderly are still expected to contribute to productivity, passing on their knowledge as they spend time in what’s essentially a care home, with ANALOG/VIRTUAL highlighting what happens when you slip into the Ten Percent and stand to lose everything while …INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT suggests the cold brutality that awaits you if you fail to turn your life around. On the flip side, MONSTERS UNDER THE BED shows what it takes to transfer from the Seventy Percent to the Twenty Percent as John literally uses a robot to wipe and mould his mind and personality so that he has the opinions and tastes needed to secure a promotion and THE PERSONA POLICE shows the pressures involved in being in that Twenty Percent and how conformity is valued above everything (although I would have liked it has Lakshminarayan returned to Tanvi at some point so that it’s clearer what happens to her after she takes the decision she makes). And even given all this, Lakshminarayan shows that Bell Corporation still wants more with THE SEVEN-YEAR GLITCH following Aditi, a young Seventy Percenter who volunteered to have a new and experimental programme called M.I.M.E.S.I.S. uploaded to her BioChip not knowing that the programme is designed to take her to the Twenty Percent whether she wants to or not and will do whatever it takes - including nudging her life decisions - in order to do so.
If all this seems a bit too serious, Lakshminarayan does have a sharp eye for satire. AVATARS follows 3 social media influencer stars of the future who are all nominated for a prestigious award that requires them to reveal their real (i.e. non virtual) selves and each has a reason for not wanting to do so. I thought this was sharply written and genuinely made me chuckle as each tries to come up with a solution to their predicament (with varying results) and yet again, the parallel here to the current issues of unreality in social media influencers comes across very strongly.
Although the book is strong in regard to the chapters focused on Apex City, those chapters that seek to draw out the Analog world outside it didn’t work quite as well in comparison. That’s not to say that they’re bad, but they are patchier and more disjointed. For example, FULL METAL FOREST BREATHING indicates that there’s some kind of plot going on but the storyline doesn’t really begin to come through until the final quarter when Suzerain Rasae steps up to the fore in THE TINDERBOX, CODENAME: DISSENTIENT and you learn more about how the Analogs are organised into different tribes and what they have been planning (with the final few chapters showing how this all plays out). Personally, I’d have happily taken 100 more pages of book that fleshed out the Analog world more to fill in some of these gaps - especially when it comes to the Ten Percent thief of the title because I really wasn’t sure how that played in with the overall plot. Similarly, the end of the book is quite abrupt and doesn’t quite pull everything together that it needs to with the result that it isn’t the satisfying full stop that it could be.
My criticisms aside, I did find this a really interesting read that held my attention from beginning to end thanks to its different perspective on themes that are very common to this type of cyber-future SF novel and ambition. This book will not be to everyone’s tastes but I really think that Lakshminarayan is a SF writer to watch and I am very much looking forward to reading what she does next.
The Verdict:
Originally published as ANALOGUE/VIRTUAL, Lavanya Lakshminarayan’s debut SF novel is an ambitious read that examines its corporate owned, techno-state through interconnected short stories rather than following a single protagonist. That won’t be to everyone’s tastes and it is a little heavy-handed at the beginning, but this is a refreshing take on the genre with a sharp satirical eye and I look forward to reading Lakshminarayan’s next book.
THE TEN PERCENT THIEF was released in the United States on 28th March 2023 and in the United Kingdom on 30th March 2023. Thanks to Rebellion Publishing for the review copy of this book.
