Adam Colclough lives and works in the West Midlands, he writes regularly for a number of websites, one day he will get round to writing a book for someone else to review.
In a land where telling the truth is a crime, Lex Ratesic is a cop who hunts liars; or more accurately he is a Speculator with a nose for smelling out the truth. Called in to determine the facts about the mysterious death of a man who falls from a roof - what he uncovers will throw his whole identity into question.
A world without lies sounds like utopia, who wouldn't want to live in a place where everything you see and hear is, literally, a matter of record? Ben H Winter’s future is a frightening dystopia.
The world he describes is a strange, and constrained place where being constantly truthful often requires tortuous mental gymnastics. The parallels between Golden State and 1984 are all too clear. This is a future where order has been established through the loss of freedom; while truth is the property of the authorities.
Unlike George Orwell, Winters doesn't bash his readers over the head with the political points he wishes to address. Instead he lets it slip out with a subtlety into the story, which soon becomes unsettling, rather than diatribe.
He makes his points about how 'fake news' has warped our sense of reality, public credulity toward issues such as immigration, and the long-standing American fear that unionisation will break down society. The result is a novel that is skilfully conceived, thought-provoking, and on occasion - truly disturbing.
Like insightful books a possible future, it is firmly rooted in the things we fear today, in our current reality.
