“If you took the wrong turning off the A32222 Earth-Mars highway (via Dewsbury) you ended up among the Dolestars.”
I’ve been reading an awful lot of murder mysteries recently, so I thought it might be time to slip into a comedic science fiction hole instead to get as far away from creepy country houses as possible. It can’t be good for the anxiety. I ended up thousands of years in the future where life as we know it has changed immensely.
In the distant future, machines gained sentience and decided that humans were doing such a terrible job of running things that they should take over, leaving humans to do menial tasks like cleaning and offering charging points. When Darren’s charging point gets knocked off the highway and into space, he thinks things can’t get any worse and must go to the Job Temple to seek new work, since an unemployed human is the worst taboo. After a bad experience there with a sentient hairdryer, he gets caught in an area he shouldn’t be, where stranger Kelly vouches for him – that is until he accidentally end-of-lifes a sentient lamppost and its security camera catches her face as it shuts down.
Elsewhere, a sentient breadmaker called Pam is asked by her boss (a power-crazed smartphone) to take a trip into the Internet to find something for him, a task that they both know is expressly forbidden, as no one is supposed to use the Internet at all anymore. When her boss double crosses her, it seems that she’s not going to have much of a good day either. The three of them are now on the run and soon uncover a plot that will spell disaster for all humankind, unless they can stop it in time.
The setting is a great idea, and McCrudden seems to take great joy in exploring what technology might one day become. Every machine we see is descended from something that exists now, usually with them doing a job that was related to their earlier use. Dictaphones and keyboards have become journalists, cameras are of course photographers, and tasers and pistols are security guards. Drones, however, have been reduced to begging for scraps and now act more like the feral pigeons of our time. I also enjoy the fact that they can upload their consciousness into other machines (Pam at one point becomes a motorcycle), and it allows for a new take on death and life after it.
The characters, however, are a bit thin, and the plot fast-paced and somewhat predictable. Countdowns run to the very last second, people climb through sewers and seem to be able to evade an Orwellian, omnipotent government. A lot of it feels like a prolonged set up for the sequel where the story might start for real. That’s not to say it’s entirely a bad novel. It’s funny and fast, and the worldbuilding is great, but it just lacked a certain sparkle for me.
While not threatening to Douglas Adams’ legacy, it’s a solid three out of five with some funny insights, quick jokes and intelligent worldbuilding.
Not only do I review things, but I’ve also written books too! If you fancy a blackly comic tale about the end of the world via an alien invasion, then try The Third Wheel. If you want some trivia and to test your grey matter, try my quiz book Questioning Your Sanity. I hope you enjoy them!