Miranda France
Very Plausible Dystopia
Imagine if you asked a friend ‘how’s life?’ and got the response, ‘In general it’s about a 3.7 star rating. Some days are more like 4.4 or 4.5 but then others go down to 2.8 so I’d say the aggregate is mid- to high 3s.’
Welcome to Zed, Joanna Kavenna’s sixth novel, about a dystopia where algorithms rule and most of life’s unpredictability has been successfully eliminated thanks to a global media conglomerate called Beetle. Most citizens now wear a BeetleBand, which monitors their moods and state of health and regularly asks if they are ok. Appliances in the home keep up an irritating patter. The television may ask how you are ‘this fine morning’. The fridge may chide you for unhealthy life choices, not just nutritional ones.
Other innovations include the Very Intelligent Personal Assistant (or Veep) to take care of all your administrative jobs. Veeps can be ‘stationed’ in your BeetleBand or ‘embodied’ so that they look like humans, only better. There’s one excellent development: if you are summoned to a meeting, you can
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'Within hours, the news spread. A grimy gang of desperadoes had been captured just in time to stop them setting out on an assassination plot of shocking audacity.'
@katheder on the Cato Street Conspiracy of 1820.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/butchers-knives-treason-and-plot
'It is the ... sketches of the local and the overlooked that lend this book its density and drive, and emphasise Britain’s mostly low-key riches – if only you can be bothered to buy an anorak and seek.'
Jonathan Meades on the beauty of brutalism.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/castles-of-concrete
'Cruickshank’s history reveals an extraordinary eclecticism of architectural styles and buildings, from Dutch Revivalism to Arts and Crafts experimentation, from Georgian terraces to Victorian mansion blocks.'
William Boyd on the architecture of Chelsea.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/where-george-eliot-meets-mick-jagger