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489 pages, Hardcover
First published March 3, 2020
(And it’s also SO NOT science fiction, despite Tor publishing it. Forget Dociline - the mind-control drug used to “benevolently” create willing slaves in this debt-heavy near-future society, as aside from that McGuffin science-fictional elements are nonexistent. As is worldbuilding and such, but that’s not the point of this book.)
“You see, Alex had no fucking clue what to do with a real human being. Someone with feelings and instincts and a family. Someone with agency. He only knew he had to gain control, to protect himself and to please his family and the Board. That’s what Dociline’s all about—that’s what the ODR is about.”
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“The Docile system exists to give the wealthy control over debtors. To satisfy that need for control, Alex forced Elisha into submission by threatening to stop the stipend, stipulated in their contract, to his family. He used that leverage in a calculated fashion to establish rules and enforce corporal and emotional punishments. He called it training, but Alex brainwashed Elisha, slowly, over a period of six months.
You asked me if Alex changed; they both did. Alex changed because he began to view Elisha as a person he cared about while those around him viewed him as a cocksucking robot. Elisha changed because his behavior was forcibly modified.”
... despite excellent pacing and a gripping narrative, Szpara fails to address the history of slavery in America—a history that is race-based and continues to shape the nation. This is a story with fully realized queer characters that is unafraid to ask complicated questions; as a parable, it functions well. But without addressing this important aspect of the nation and economic structures within which it takes place, it cannot succeed in its takedown of oppressive systems.
-KIRKUS
“There is no consent under capitalism”