Starred review from October 7, 2024
Septuagenarian ex-lovers and their AI child are forced to make some heart-wrenching decisions in this brilliant dystopian novel from Swyler (Light from Other Stars). The postapocalyptic city-state of Bulwark is run by the penny-pinching algorithm Parallax, which divides limited resources between workers and the privileged “Sainted,” members of Bulwark’s oldest families. Heroine Enita, aka “Saint Stitch-Skin,” has devoted her life to growing body parts from nanofilaments for workers who regularly lose limbs, but can’t afford to be treated in the hospital. When one of her fellow Sainted is found murdered, Enita’s ex, Helen, a historian, reads the writing on the wall and begins planning her and Enita’s escape from a city on the brink of revolt. Complicating matters is Nix, the android Enita fashioned in Helen’s image who is both her scientific legacy (Nix has already mastered the art of growing feet in fish tanks filled with exotic gel) and a stand-in child. Then lounge singer Neren is maimed in an accident. Enita repairs her, not realizing that Neren is a “Body Martyr,” with fanatical beliefs and ties to the revolutionary underground—and she takes an intense interest in Nix. Swyler’s elegant, polyphonic narrative juggles many themes, foremost among them human-robot convergence, through ever-shifting perspectives. Nix’s voice as they describe their burgeoning consciousness is especially impressive. This is a powerhouse.
November 1, 2024
Bestselling Swyler (Light from Other Stars) pens a future dystopian tale. After a series of cataclysms, the walled city of Bulwark, run by an AI, was founded to house and protect human survivors. But now a war is brewing that could upend the order that has been established, and bio-prosthetic surgeon Enita and her personal AI are being drawn into it. Prepub Alert.
Copyright 2024 Library Journal
Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from November 1, 2024
A murder reveals the faults in an allegedly optimized far-future society. Bulwark is a walled city in the desert, built centuries ago by survivors of an apocalypse. Early residents sacrificed greatly to make the settlement habitable, and in recognition, they were venerated as Saints--a heritable title. Saints were also exorbitantly compensated in "life hours," the continuing basis for Bulwark's economy, which values goods and services according to the time and effort necessary for production. Life-hour totals are now tracked by Parallax, Bulwark's Avataristic AI, whose primary purpose is to "ensure a basic quality and value of life, that everyone is cared for and no one needlessly suffers." At present, however, Saints' descendants are using their ancestors' unused life-hour balances to live isolated lives of luxury, while everyone else toils tirelessly just to fall further behind. Sexagenarian bioprosthetist Saint Enita Malovis is only peripherally aware of Bulwark's growing societal inequity thanks to her preoccupation with creating a body for Nix, the AI who runs her household and assists with her work. Then, someone kills one of her peers, Saint Lucius Ohno. Nix's queries to Parallax for information about the crime return "a glut of junk code," and Nix also starts noticing unsettling voids in Bulwark's data grid. Enita's on-again, off-again partner, historian Saint Helen Vinter, believes everything that's happening is connected. She's not sure how or to what end, but feels certain that neither she nor Enita is safe. Swyler achieves a seemingly impossible amount of sophisticated worldbuilding using an economy of vibrant, graceful prose. The story transports and transforms, alchemizing a combination of mystery, romance, and science fiction into an impactful exploration of the importance of connection, the evolutionary nature of identity, and the inevitability of revolution. Affecting relationships and a sinuous, kaleidoscopic third-person narrative further define and develop the exquisitely rendered characters. Singularly stunning and stunningly singular.
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December 1, 2024
Swyler's third novel, following the sublime Light from Other Stars (2019), is an engrossing work of speculative fiction about a deeply stratified society. On the cusp of turning 70, Enita Malovis has lived all her life as a Saint, one of the privileged descendants of those whose contributions were deemed essential to the city of Bulwark. While most in the city toil away, accruing debt that will long outlive them, Enita and the other Saints live in comfort and financial security. A scientist who has dedicated her life to artificial limb and organ repair that most of her society eschews--opting instead to use donations from living volunteers known as Body Martyrs--Enita's only heir is Nix, the AI entity who powers her abode. Enita has been building Nix a human body to inhabit, but as Nix's understanding of the physical world grows, so does their knowledge of a burgeoning threat to the Saints, a coming revolution that will remake society. Lovers of dystopian literature will find much to enjoy in Swyler's cerebral and richly envisioned, timely and relevant tale.
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