An engaging cautionary tale of what could lie ahead in a tech-saturated world.
In Arlow’s dystopian novel, set in the near future, an algorithm aims to optimize and streamline every aspect of people’s lives.
The algorithm that rules this novel’s future society insinuates itself in everything from citizens’ emotional responses to their social interactions and work commutes—all with an aim of maximum efficiency. As a result, people no longer freely emote to one another for fear that they will be interpreted as nonproductive or, even worse, as a glitch in the system. The novel primarily follows Jordan Reese, whose mother was a pioneer of the system that now infests humans’ daily existence. After the algorithm made journalism obsolete, Jordan decided to switch careers and become a coder for what her mom had helped create. When Jordan notices an unprecedented bug in the system, the dark underpinnings of the code begin to become clearer; as her curiosity kicks in, she receives a mysterious and untraceable message asking her an intriguing, and chilling, question: “Are you ready to see beyond the algorithm?” Secrets are revealed as Jordan pulls at the threads of the reality that she’d begun to take for granted. Over the course of this speculative tale, Arlow cunningly reveals the exploitative foundations of a tech-dominated world. What makes the story so compelling, though, is that it isn’t merely concerned with the tech, but also with depicting the very real emotional and human consequences of losing one’s agency. Tech-savvy readers who tend to scroll a bit too long on their phones will find some familiar premises in this novel as Arlow peels back the layers of illusion that empower the real-life algorithms of today.
An engaging cautionary tale of what could lie ahead in a tech-saturated world.Pub Date: June 23, 2026
ISBN: 9798992570205
Page Count: 405
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.
Set in the future and reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones, this novel dramatizes a story of vengeance, warfare and the quest for power.
In the beginning, Darrow, the narrator, works in the mines on Mars, a life of drudgery and subservience. He’s a member of the Reds, an “inferior” class, though he’s happily married to Eo, an incipient rebel who wants to overthrow the existing social order, especially the Golds, who treat the lower-ranking orders cruelly. When Eo leads him to a mildly rebellious act, she’s caught and executed, and Darrow decides to exact vengeance on the perpetrators of this outrage. He’s recruited by a rebel cell and “becomes” a Gold by having painful surgery—he has golden wings grafted on his back—and taking an exam to launch himself into the academy that educates the ruling elite. Although he successfully infiltrates the Golds, he finds the social order is a cruel and confusing mash-up of deception and intrigue. Eventually, he leads one of the “houses” in war games that are all too real and becomes a guerrilla warrior leading a ragtag band of rebelliously minded men and women. Although it takes a while, the reader eventually gets used to the specialized vocabulary of this world, where warriors shoot “pulseFists” and are protected by “recoilArmor.” As with many similar worlds, the warrior culture depicted here has a primitive, even classical, feel to it, especially since the warriors sport names such as Augustus, Cassius, Apollo and Mercury.
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-345-53978-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
An unrelentingly dark and disquieting look at the way societies conform to committing atrocities.
A processing plant manager struggles with the grim realities of a society where cannibalism is the new normal.
Marcos Tejo is the boss’s son. Once, that meant taking over his father’s meat plant when the older man began to suffer from dementia and require nursing home care. But ever since the Transition, when animals became infected with a virus fatal to humans and had to be destroyed, society has been clamoring for a new source of meat, laboring under the belief, reinforced by media and government messaging, that plant proteins would result in malnutrition and ill effects. Now, as is true across the country, Marcos’ slaughterhouse deals in “special meat”—human beings. Though Marcos understands the moral horror of his job supervising the workers who stun, kill, flay, and butcher other humans, he doesn’t feel much since the crib death of his infant son. “One can get used to almost anything,” he muses, “except for the death of a child.” One day, the head of a breeding center sends Marcos a gift: an adult female FGP, a “First Generation Pure,” born and bred in captivity. As Marcos lives with his product, he gradually begins to awaken to the trauma of his past and the nightmare of his present. This is Bazterrica’s first novel to appear in America, though she is widely published in her native Argentina, and it could have been inelegant, using shock value to get across ideas about the inherent brutality of factory farming and the cruelty of governments and societies willing to sacrifice their citizenry for power and money. It is a testament to Bazterrica’s skill that such a bleak book can also be a page-turner.
An unrelentingly dark and disquieting look at the way societies conform to committing atrocities.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-982150-92-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2020
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