Orwellian and updated for the latest US election (President Triumph making things great again). This is a serial intro that provides the back-story of the economic/political environment of the Lutalica, the 5th Earth-launched tube colony. The story centers around Sofia, a near HS graduate in Sector 6, which is a bleak environment, but better than Sectors 7 and 8. She has drugs and Sex (career) to look forward to. Staying true to the Orwellian template, those with power have money and the best life (Sector 1). It combines part blood-line and part segregation; Hilter was right...just wrong in method is the theme, with Triumph using genetics to make things great again. I can't tell if the author is a Leftist or simply playing on current affairs to paint a rather dystopian environment for the off-Terra humans, but it is fairly forthright in which direction this series will take. I assume Sofia will rise above and lead a revolution to destroy the Caste system of off-world living; toppling the regime, and bringing about a Utopian setting for future generations. This is just a guess though as the installment concludes with a great deal of the story left untold. Media is controlled, history is written by the privileged, and the police-state keeps people in line and in their sector. In all, it was a short, entertaining jaunt. The writing is pretty good. The environment is wonderfully bleak. 3.4 Stars for me. If I stumble across part two, I may pick it up. The characters have potential and I'd like more insight into Clue.
3 of 5 stars. From the Publisher:
Ash-mixed whips of air rise to Center Sky. Looking up, you think you see the soft green fields through the filth. The white lattice of wealth sprawled along the verdant curve of Bright Side. Families and love live there. The seats of power. But for you that place is a dream—you live in Cupid. Sector 6 slum to be exact. Your education in sex work and drug usage finishes this semester. And at eighteen, it’s time to enter the working world at last. Still, it’s a better life than sectors 7 and 8. Things might change though. Douglas Triumph has just been elected President of Lutalica (the 5th Earth-launched tube colony). He’s won on the promise that he will make the tube great again. Make things as good as they are back on Earth. But you and everyone else in Sector 6 know he’s talking about one side of the tube—the Bright Side. He’s on TV again tonight. Announcing that at last he’s implementing his first promise—to bring capitalism back onto its proper course—encouragement of competition at the genetic level. The world was proud of its eugenics programs back in the early 1900s, he says through the screen. Great names—the Rockefellers, Roosevelt, Churchill—they were thwarted before the full fruit of capitalism came to bear. Prevented by a historical overreaction to one man—Hitler. Hitler went about it all wrong, but we can’t let his mistake taint our progress any longer, he says. And as Triumph begins a sermon, explaining how the roundup will occur, how the gutters will be cleared, how he will put a stop to all unlawful movement between Sectors—send the illegals back to 6, 7, and 8—you turn off the TV. Because Dad wants to have a cake for Mom’s birthday. She’s been dead for 3 years, but he doesn’t care. You still celebrate. She died on the job. HTR. The Helen Trigger Retrovirus. They taught you the statistics in school. Sex workers can mitigate their risks by following the rules. Obeying the law. Doing the right mix of drugs. You do your best to listen. You know she didn’t, but you still loved her. And so did Dad. But something is hanging in the air. A gloom over the candles. The palpable reek of Triumph’s words. Dad says that the roundup will be nothing like what he’s broadcasting on TV. That he’s out to cull the population and overload us here. That they’re not just going to dump the trash from their side into the high sectors. That they’ll be deselecting in Sector 6 too. Content Warning: This is a serial work of fiction. The full novel is being published as the author writes it. Each part makes up a 20 to 25k word segment of the story.
