Freedom is, for humans, a slippery slope. We needn't look beyond the history of government to furnish ourselves with proof of this truth. What began as a means (democracy) of cohering individuals into a society that shared power among its constituents (a republic), instead of concentrating it in the hands of a despot (a monarchy), has morphed, over the centuries, into an institution whose elected leaders, in the name of ensuring the safety of their citizens, roll back individual freedoms until the state occupies every aspect of civilian life. Neither government, nor its agents, are evil; there are many honorable men and women who are attracted by public service. No, statism arises out of good intentions because we have not incentivized government to shed unnecessary power. We have allowed it, instead, to follow the inevitable path of all unchecked institutions, to take upon itself all the influence it can muster. Ms. Beukes has, here, slid down to the bottom of this slippery slope in an attempt to imagine the endgame of this dangerous accretion. What her imagination finds down there has the power to disturb.
The year is 2018 and South Africa, after enjoying a brief spell as a post-Apartheid, racially integrated democracy, has lapsed into a kind of corporate-infused security state in which the safety of the people has taken on paramount importance. In the name of battling terrorism in all its forms, from anarchism to fundamentalism, the government has deployed any number of technologies (a taser delivered via text messaging) and biologicals (modified viruses that force the afflicted to seek treatment at state-run health facilities) against its own citizens. Yes, innocents will be caught up in the wash, but isn't that a fair price to pay for ensuring the safety of the majority?
Into this world of corporate statism, in which advertising is ubiquitous and career success depends upon branding and loyalty, wade a handful of loosely affiliated protagonists who each, in their own way, resist the status quo while trying to advance in a hostile world. The aspiring photographer who agrees to be a corporate guinea pig for their genetic experiments, the corporate IT professional who hacks for her subversive friends, the young revolutionary trying to make the docile public sit up and take notice of the corruption around them, and the adrift slacker who refuses to listen... Driven by their hopes and dreams, they try to succeed, to fulfil themselves, in a world too distracted by its vices and its devices to realize that their freedoms are slipping away. It's little wonder then that life in this South Africa is an uphill climb towards anything like contentment.
Though Moxyland is, in the main, too impressed with itself, and though it manages, at times, to drag even though it is a brisk 300 pages, Ms. Beukes' tale of corporate power in the age of totalitarianism lays claim to one of the best endings to a Sci-Fi novel in some time. Narratively driven by four main characters, each of whom tell their stories in the first person, Moxyland is thematically in stride with the works of William Gibson and George Orwell, each of whom wrote masterfully about the dangers of corporations and governments respectively. Ms. Beukes has dusted off their 20th century concerns, updated them with some 21st century worries about the powers and distractions of social media, added a healthy splash of Clockwork Orange-style jargon and cooked up a work of quality science fiction. Yes, some of the concepts are a bit farfetched for 2018, and her attempts to create a new lingo fall somewhat flat, but I can forgive these sins when the author brings her story to such a powerful and appropriately merciless conclusion.
Alarmist? Yes. Fretful? Certainly. But Ms. Beukes knew, all along, where she was taking her readers. They will not be disappointed... (3/5 Stars)
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