HER GILDED VOICE

In Aegis’ YA SF novel set in a dystopian future, a teenage girl must survive a deadly game of riddles and outwit the tech that’s hard-wired to her mind.

Decades from now, technology has advanced, and everyone has a “neuro-net” wired into their brain from an early age. This provides each person with a “voyce” inside their head that offers advice that guides and ostensibly protects them; as teen Lacey Clarke puts it: “Voyces helped us all make the right decisions. They gave us reason….Voyces were like barriers. They protected us from outside chaos. And in some cases, they protected us from ourselves.” In this republic, Lacey and her older sister, Yadira, barely make ends meet, and their lives are about to get worse when they discover they must pay off their late father’s debt and that Lacey has been marked to become a Puzzler in a brainteaser competition in which losers are killed. Alina, Lacey’s voyce, reassures her everything will be fine if they only follow the rules, but when an encounter with Ogden Oliver, a powerful Elite, ends with Alina being temporarily deactivated, Lacey is left alone with her own thoughts for the first time and able to perceive the world as it actually is—without augmented-reality illusions. As Lacey navigates the competition, she realizes she may be a pawn but one that has hitherto unknown power. Aegis’ stand-alone SF tale is framed by Lacey’s conversation with an anonymous auditor, and she starts telling her story with a riddle (“What must you lose in order to find?”) that thoughtfully informs most of the story to come, which features a bit of romance and a touch of Hunger Games–style competition. Lacey’s coming-of-age feels very personal and individual, but the author never loses sight of the fact that the protagonist exists in the world of a wider story—one that examines and fully addresses themes of oppression, social stratification, dissent, and agency. The ending feels rushed, but it doesn’t negate the novel’s successful depictions of some of the messy, emotional, error-prone aspects of humankind.

A compelling and thought-provoking speculative novel.