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Summary
Summary
From award-winning, New York Times bestselling novelist Ben H. Winters comes a mind-bending novel set in a world governed by absolute truth, where lies are as dangerous as murder.
In a strange alternate society that values law and truth above all else, Laszlo Ratesic is a nineteen-year veteran of the Speculative Service. He lives in the Golden State, a nation standing where California once did, a place where like-minded Americans retreated after the erosion of truth and the spread of lies made public life and governance impossible.
In the Golden State, knowingly contradicting the truth is the greatest crime -- and stopping those crimes is Laz's job. In its service, he is one of the few individuals permitted to harbor untruths, to "speculate" on what might have happened.
But the Golden State is less of a paradise than its name might suggest. To monitor, verify, and enforce the truth requires a veritable panopticon of surveillance and recording. And when those in control of the facts twist them for nefarious means, the Speculators are the only ones with the power to fight back.
Author Notes
Writer Ben H. Winters graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri in 1998. He is a journalist and playwright as well as an author, and he co-wrote the New York Times bestseller Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
This disappointing postapocalyptic thriller from Edgar winner Winters (Underground Airlines) boasts an irresistible setup: in the near future, California is a sovereign state governed by absolute truth, and telling a lie can result in jail time or worse. Laszlo Ratesic, a veteran police officer whose innate ability to know when someone is lying helps him piece together unsolved crimes, investigates the death of a construction worker who fell off of a roof during a job. The seemingly accidental fatality is filled with anomalies, which leads Ratesic and the young female officer he's mentoring to uncover a grand-scale conspiracy with staggering implications. While the story, in which every second of the populace's lives is meticulously recorded, is tonally comparable to Orwell's 1984, the thematic impact simply isn't there. Some of the societal elements seem contrived, such as how every citizen must archive every single life event in a journal, and the reveal at the end is too nebulous to be completely effective. Winters's exploration into the nature of truth will grip many readers, but this ambitious novel misses the mark. Agent: Joelle Delbourgo, Joelle Delbourgo Assoc. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Guardian Review
InGolden State(Century, £14.99), Ben H Winters posits a dystopian future California where the notion of truth is all important; anyone caught lying faces a lengthy jail sentence or exile. Citizens document their daily lives, state surveillance is ever present and recreational fictions have ceased to exist: instead people watch documentary TV. Laszlo Ratesic is a jaded fiftysomething with a talent for sniffing out lies in his role as a law enforcement agent with the Speculative Service. When he is called on to investigate after a worker falls from a roof, it looks like a simple case of accidental death - but Laszlo soon finds himself involved in a complex plot where the truth proves to be a slippery concept. He's compelled to question everything he's taken for granted, including the very idea of objective reality. InGolden State, Winters has fashioned a wry commentary on our current era of fake news. Iain Reid's follow-up to his well receivedI'm Thinking of Ending Things is the short, shocking psychological three-handerFoe(Scribner, £14.99). Junior and Henrietta live on a remote farmstead in a near-future North America (the location is never revealed). Their lives are catastrophically disrupted by the arrival of Terrance, a representative of the OuterMore organisation, who informs Junior that he has been selected to take part in a lottery: if successful, he will be initiated into a space programme - and Junior has no say in the matter. What follows is the detailed exploration of Junior and Henrietta's relationship in light of this harrowing news, with recriminations and insecurities threatening to blight their marriage. The narrative is so eerie and disturbing because so much about the future world is left unexplained, fuelling the reader's unease; and Reid pulls off a wonderful twist in the tail. Samantha Shannon, author of the bestselling Bone Season series, turns her considerable storytelling ability to epic fantasy with added dragons in the 800-page blockbusterThe Priory of the Orange Tree(Bloomsbury Circus, £16.99). We enter a world founded on the legend of the Nameless One, an evil dragon that was consigned to the Abyss 1,000 years ago but threatens to escape, with terrible consequences for humankind. Three empires have conflicting beliefs and rituals, and the destiny of the world is in the hands of three women: Queen Sabran, whose existence some believe is paramount in keeping the Nameless One and its spawn from ravaging the world; Ead, her lady-in-waiting, who is charged with protecting her queen from assassins; and Tané, a sparky dragon-rider from the east. Shannon's strengths are her graphic world-building and the presentation of the queendoms, their different traditions and beliefs; her control of a large cast of characters; and the skill with which she brings the intersecting storylines to a satisfying climax. Edinburgh-based Shoreline of Infinity won a 2018 British Fantasy Society award for best SF magazine, and in celebration Noel Chidwick has edited a selection of stories from the first 10 issues.Shoreline of Infinity: The Chosen from the First Age(Shoreline of Infinity, £4.95) collects a dozen tales taking in virtual reality, alien superheroes, robots and apocalyptic nightmares ... as well as a Shaker side table time-machine, and much more. It's a strong collection from an international lineup of authors, and standouts include two stories exploring the theme of virtual reality. M Luke McDonell's "See You Later" is a poignant account of how personalised VR can be used and misused in a failing marriage, while in "The Pink Life (La Vie En Rose)" by Nathan Susnik, the protagonist gradually becomes aware of the lie promulgated by his hi-tech reality overlay. Pick of the bunch is "The Stilt-Men of the Lunar Swamps" by Andrew J Wilson, a hilarious steampunk-flavoured account of a 1930s trip to the moon, which reads like a crazed collaboration between PG Wodehouse and Conan Doyle. The Revenant Express(Titan, £7.99) is the fifth book in George Mann's Newbury and Hobbes series, set in an alternative London at the start of the 20th century. It sees the supernatural investigators up against the threat of plague-infected revenants - zombies, basically - and members of the Cabal of the Horned Beast. Veronica Hobbes and Scotland Yard's Inspector Bainbridge venture into the mean streets of London's slums to investigate an outbreak of a mysterious plague targeting the undead, while Sir Maurice Newbury and Veronica's sister Amelia are aboard a train bound for St Petersburg. There they hope to enlist the aid of Fabergé in obtaining a mechanical heart for the ailing Veronica - if only they can outwit the hordes of revenants and other foes. It's a lip-smackingly macabre romp with a surfeit of blood and thrills, but best appreciated if the reader is familiar with earlier volumes.
Kirkus Review
Tell a fib, a whopper, a confabulation in California, and, promises Winters (The Last Policeman, 2013, etc.), you'll wind up in a heap of trouble."Any assault on reality, any infusion of falsehood in the air can't be countenanced, no matter the source." Lying weakens trust, which damages society. It also spoils one's breakfast. Laszlo Ratesic is just tucking into his chicken and waffles as Winters' yarn opens, but then he, a noted "speculator" in the employ of the Speculative Service, happens to catch the tail end of a prevarication. "Somebody's telling lies in here," he pronounces, "and it's making it hard to eat." It's Ratesic's special skill, shared by only a few, to be able to ferret out lies as they're being hatched, in this case by a kid who's been stealing his mom's pills and takes it on the lam, to Ratesic's joy, since "it's the part I like: pure law enforcement, my feet in the boots and the boots on the ground, me breathing heavy and charging after a liar." Alas, even in the independent nation called Golden State, there are those who would adorn and adjust the truth, even when it comes close to Ratesicsay, in the matter of the deceased brother for whom he continues to mourn. And are things really all that horrific out in the country that lies beyond the Shangri-La of free California, where the vaunted "Objectively So" may differ in kind and degree? Well, the mind plays tricks, and so does the tongue, and Ratesic finds himself caught up in a web that even he couldn't foresee. In some details, Winters' story might have fallen out of a forgotten file drawer at Philip K. Dick's pad, though Winters takes a less bleak view of humankind than the master of bad-vibes future California; though somewhat less surprisingly inventive than the author's Underground Airlines (2016), it's still a skillful and swift-moving concoction.For those who like their dystopias with a dash of humor. No lie. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
The author of the Last Policeman trilogy and the stand-alone Underground Airlines (2016) adds another thought-provoking, genre-bending SF thriller to his bibliography. Set in an unspecified distant future, the book tells the story of Lazlo Ratesic, an operative of the Speculative Service (a law-enforcement agency that enforces laws against falsehood), whose pursuit of a murderer leads him to question some of his own deeply held truths. What's especially intriguing about the book is the way Winters dispenses information, dropping a hint here, a key sentence there, and letting us figure out what happened in the past that led to a society in which the punishment for telling a lie could be exile beyond the desert. Winters seems to have a real affection for unusually compelling premises the events of the Last Policeman trilogy take place as an asteroid is bearing down on the earth, and the annihilation of humanity is a certainty and he certainly knows how to bring those premises to life in a way that keeps readers flipping pages. Another fine novel from a writer whose imagination knows no bounds.--David Pitt Copyright 2018 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Speculator Lazlo Ratesic, a special agent of the Golden State, is charged with rooting out lies and deception and upholding the truth. He's given an assignment and an assistant on the same day, and what at first appears to be a routine investigation proves to have some disturbing anomalies. A roofer has fallen to his death while on the job, but when Lazlo probes deeper he discovers layers of deceit, leading him to conclude that something is rotten in the Golden State. This new work of speculative fiction by best-selling author Winters ("Last Policeman" trilogy) takes place in a fallen society that puts truth on a pedestal, fortified by foundations of precise and exhaustive documentation, and explores the dire consequences of doubt and a loss of faith in such a system. VERDICT Highly recommended for fans of dystopian fiction, especially those who enjoy classics of the genre, such as George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. [See Prepub Alert, 7/9/18.]-Karin Thogersen, Huntley Area P.L., IL © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.