I've had Company Town by Madeline Ashby on my list for a while now. I think I was originally drawn to it via a warm recommendation from Charles Stross. I wasn't sure what to expect, as I wasn't familiar with the author and wasn't even sure exactly what genre it was. It ended up being a fun, exciting and thought-provoking read.
MINI SPOILERS
Like many of my favorite books in speculative fiction, the worldbuilding in Company Town is almost all implicit: nobody sits you down and says "This is How Things Are and How They Got To Be This Way". Over the course of the book, though, you gradually figure out the setting, in parallel with getting to know the characters and the actual plot.
So, laying down my impression, which is much more linear than the actual book:
Company Town is set in the mid-future: I'd guess a couple of generations from now, not multiple centuries. Nations still exist, but mostly as geographic descriptors, not political entities. This book takes place in what used to be Canada. The titular town is a massive offshore oil rig. Its primary economy is extracting oil, but there's a whole town that has grown up around that industry, which is larger than the work itself.
A few years before this book opens, a disaster occurred that killed many people in the town. They were able to rebuild, but at enormous expense, which has resulted in the town being sold to the Lynch Corporation. This is a wealthy and comparatively benevolent family concern, headed by the elder Lynch who has been pursuing life-extending treatments and so is overseeing multiple generations of his progeny.
The overall technology of this world is recognizable, with a few particular innovations standing out to me. Genetic screening and modification have recently become widespread and socially accepted, so parents will select their childrens' traits in advance. People are also significantly augmented, with bio-engineered limbic upgrades and eye enhancements and such. And speaking of eye enhancements, most people participate in a sort of shared augmented-reality version of the world: they select what image they want to project to others, and decide what images they want to receive. In general this allows people to edit out parts of their vision that they don't want to see or replace it with something more palatable.
The protagonist, Hwa, is kind of an oddity in this world. She was born near the tail end of non-genetically-selected humans. She has a birth defect that would horrify some people, except that since everyone else has selective vision, they don't see anything wrong with her. And she has, out of pride or poverty, rejected implants, making her way through life with just her own strength.
It took me a while to realize that Hwa is also a high-schooler. She comes across as significantly older in the opening chapters. One of the major industries in the town is prostitution, and Hwa is a bodyguard who escorts the escorts, picking them up from clients and making sure everything is consensual and safe. Many of the characters in this novel are prostitutes, and overall it seems to be pretty sex-work-positive, although there's also a lot of danger shown in the profession.
For most of the novel, Hwa's job is protecting the young Lynch scion, putting her bodyguard skills to use protecting him from an unknown enemy; they also attend class together, collaborate on science projects and go to a dance. Hwa also grows closer to Daniel, a protector/enforcer for the Lynches, which turns into a pretty great slow-burning romance.
MEGA SPOILERS
The brutal murders continue to pile up as the novel progresses. There's a pretty fun twist near the end, when you realize that all along the killer has been trying to stop Hwa, not murder Joel Lynch. I was surprised by who the killer actually turns out to be, although we've spent fairly little time outside of the main cast and so I struggled to remember what we knew about him.
The book definitely seems to set up a sequel when it ends, particularly with the revelation that the killer(s) were not the entity that had sent the threatening notes about Joel. I have no idea what to make of that.
END SPOILERS
I really enjoyed this book - I read it during a vacation, and it was a great place to lose myself during long flights and while nestled in quiet spaces. As far as I can tell it doesn't look like there's a sequel, but the author has written several other books and I'll likely be looking for them in the future. Overall it was a fun read with good action, some really witty dialogue, nicely twisty plotting, and an intriguing world to reveal.
No comments:
Post a Comment