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by Aaron Brady.
Original Post: Moxyland (Book Review)
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I’ve finished Moxyland, continuting my tradition of reading too quickly and being left with nothing for the aeroplane trip back, other than the sheer terror of man-made flight.
I bought the book as I shopped by cover-art at the Borders that was closing down in Blanchardstown (this would be after finishing Snow Crash too quickly). The cover looked ‘punky’ and mentioned that it was ‘like Snow Crash’ - so that pretty much ticked two boxes for me.
The book I was looking for, by the way, Little Brother - appears to be impossible to get a hold of in airport or Dublin bookshops, despite being an awardwinning book by a now-mainstream author. Annoying. Plus, it means I find myself checking the teenage fiction aisles (which it stands a good chance of being filed in), making me self concious. (Sorry: Young Adult. Hey! I’m a young adult!)
Anyway, the book IS punky, it’s got no problem with swearing and sex, though it still actually feels a little like teenage fiction (which I don’t believe it’s supposed to be). It’s quite didactic in places, like it’s drumming a lesson into you about how the future could be; other reviews have likened it to a cyberpunk 1984.
The premise is that in future South Africa, the country has been left with a mass of un- or under-parented youths (due to AIDS deaths, in part), and the only solution to the social violence problem has been to institude the equivalent of ‘checking one’s papers’, which involves scanning their phone.
These future phones are used for everything from currency to communication to ID, which doesn’t seem far-fetched or really all that bad. They do have a taser built in which will shock the owner if the police set it off though, so look for that feature from O2 in the near future.
Without spoilng things too much, you follow four characters (I only managed any kind of empathy for one) in this future, a genetically modified artist, a trustafarian journo, a programmer at a zaibatsu-like organisation, and a gay revolutionary. Writing it out like that, it doesn’t sound great, but it is an enjoyable story.
Where the book falls down, I think, is that that’s all it really is. There’s a twist, it’s not insanely surprising, it feels like a screenplay in places, it’s quite short, ends abruptly and I’m not quite sure what point it’s made.
I don’t like to be overly critical of other people’s work, as, well, they’re other people, and I imagine being an author is tough, but I think that in trying to be politically motivated, the book followed revolved around the revolutionary too much, and any of the other three characters had more interesting backgrounds to explore: The book opens with the concept of sponsored genetic alteration, but that really has a very small bearing on the story, all things considered.
I am however left with the feeling that I’m quite glad I don’t live in South Africa, either of the present or the future. For a book which was part-funded by the SA Arts Council, I’m sure their tourism board isn’t too thrilled.
On the whole, it’s a good read, though in a comparison to Snow Crash, it comes off poorer in almost every way.
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