Thursday, January 5, 2023

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Ten Percent Thief by Lavanya Lakshminarayan

 



Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC Audiobook (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on March 28, 2023 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.


The Ten Percent Thief is a novel that was originally published in India as Analog/Virtual in 2020 and which is now being published in the West by Solaris/Rebellion in March 2023. The novel was hyped up by a few authors I like, and carries a dystopian science fiction premise: what if, in the future, a society/city is organized as per a bell curve, with privileges and technology - particularly technology based upon internet and virtual tech - offered foremost to those higher on the curve - your top 20%ers (or higher) - and almost everything denied to the bottom ten percent. So of course society is organized as per "merit"....but who decides what is meritorious and how is it all enforced is of course the devil in the details.

It's a fascinating book, told in chapters that are each their own vignettes, such that the book tells a number of stories even as it moves overall general story of the city, Apex City, forward from one story to another. And this works tremendously well as it shows the dystopian ways Apex City keeps and tries to keep its citizens both "productive" and socially desirable according to its preconcieved notions and shows how the people cast out of it, the Analogs, struggle to survive, build their own society under its noses, and to resist. Not any part of this story is subtle, but the book's stories cover an incredibly wide scope as it examines society, satirizes attributes of our own society in hilarious but dark ways. The result is really really good, and I highly recommend this.


-----------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------
Apex City is the ideal society, a society that has come through the dark days of the past to be based solely upon merit, with society's benefits going towards those who most deserve them. The top one percent most meritous - as determined by an algorithm judging productivity and social tastes - have access to the best technology and privileges, the remaining members of the top twenty percent have access to most of this tech and privileges, and the next seventy percent - everyone above the bottom 10% - gets to live under the technology of the Sunshield Umbrella, protecting them all from UV radiation and the Earth's harsh climate, all the while they stil get to enjoy most of the benefits of the latest in virtual and cyber technology. They are the Virtuals, and as long as they keep their merit above that of the bottom 10%, they will prosper.

And then there are the bottom ten percent, the Analogs, people who are not productive or valuable to society, who are cast off or left to be born and live outside the Umbrella, in the suffering heat, with no access to virtual technology...and who are forced to make do with things like paper money, old cell phones (if they still work), dangerous water, cassette tapes, and outdated medicine. The Analogs continue to exist thanks to the mercy of civilized society...and to serve as laborers and to be harvested as punishment for their organs or body parts for the use by Virtuals who deserve them more.

Apex City is a truly Just and Wondrous society. And yet despite that, Nayaka, the Analog woman known as the Ten Percent Thief, is about to make her most daring heist of Virtual technology yet - a tree that she plants at the center of Analog society. And alongside that tree will grow a spark, a spark that will give birth to a revolution like no Virtual could ever expect, which will result in a drastic shift in society to come.....
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I spend so much time talking about the setup and setting in the plot summary above because The Ten Percent Thief doesn't really have one overarching plotline. The story is split into 20 vignettes/short-stories, taking place on both sides of the Meridian that divides the Virtuals and Analogs, with each story generally showing some new aspect to life in the two versions of society that reflects the system and the injustice that centers it. The overall story does move forward with each story, with characters from one story recurring as more minor characters in later ones, and the events at the heart of each story being affected by events in prior ones, such that the ending of the story is (and this is hardly a surprise so I don't mind "spoiling") the revolution that is sparked by the first chapter and mentioned as major parts of middle and later chapters, but that overall arc of things is honestly less interesting or even the point than how each chapter dissects the injustice of a society built like this...a society that can easily be seen as the endpoint of certain human trends or ideas by certain oligarchs or billionaires (and well, how it seems an extension of caste systems like India's is almost certainly not a coincidence).

And these stories cover so so so much in each chapter. So the first covers of course the titular Thief and how she tries her best to be a robin hood like character in stealing from the Virtuals for the sake of the Analogs, which is far easier than it should be. And then you've got a story about how a technology given to a person who has analog roots but wants to rise in Virtual society is a robot that electroshocks him whenever he starts having bad ideas or thoughts, such that his personal tastes match that of the centralized ideal at the end of it (divergence in even those of course is unacceptable). You have the Virtual member of the middle 70% whose productivity drops after their mother dies, leading them to be forced to have a taste of analog life - oh my god having to physically go out and exert oneself to get food and thrive - as a way to ensure he doesn't fall further and be cast out; You have a girl forced to take virtual children on an automated tram tour through Analog society so she can make what she knows is false propaganda about them to ensure they don't become Analog sypathtizers; you have an Analog girl adopted by a Virtual set of parents who is not allowed to use the technology and finds herself shunned and discriminated against as she tries to pass the tests to get full privileges...and to become an accomplished pianist without the musical aids that other virtual kids have...and she has it better by far than other adoptees.

I could list all 20 scenarios here but finding out what is next and what are the next concepts is just as fascinating as reading them, because while each short vignette doesn't last long, and isn't necessarily followed up on (although they are followed up on in less direct ways), they are all done so incredibly well at exploring pretty much every result of this society being put into place. And they're both entertaining and sometimes funny all the while being horrifying at the same time, like the best dystopian satires (a chapter involving two different technologies and ideas, one social and one meant to save the environment, is utterly outrageously funny such that I do not want to spoil it by giving any hint as to its premise). Most books with dystopian settings do not really explore the implications of how these societies must work and how they function, or how they affect various peoples at various levels - The Ten Percent Thief tries to explore all of them and it does so so so well. The way it explores technology and privilege and oppression in the name of merit is all incredibly relatable, applicable and understandable to the modern reader, and the book cuts no corners in exploring and showing how this could be built, how horrifying it can be, how it could come crumbling down...and how it might come rising back up again through no bad intent whatsoever.

Not sure how to say more here without spoiling parts of the experience, so I'll just say: An absolute stunner and a Must Read, and an easy recommend for basically everyone.

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