Ersatz Nation by Tim Kenyon
The totalitarian world of Unation is ruled over by the omnipresent Mother Necessity. In this rigidly hierarchical society people carry out their duty as designated by Mother in order to climb the ladder of status levels and be materially rewarded. Against this dystopian background Ersatz Nation tells the story of two citizens who find themselves deeply alienated from this conformist state.
Patrick Dolan has spent the last twelve years abducting people from Earth and bringing them back to Unation. Since the death of his wife and daughter in childbirth he has thrown himself into his work but the stress of his occupation is starting to take its toll on him. He lives in constant fear of his returns to Unation, he starts to hallucinate and even begins to question the reality of Earth itself.
Selmar Rayburne has been stuck at Status Level Seven for the last ten years. This is punishment for the fact that many years ago his father lead an insurrection against Mother. It means the Rayburne and his wife are unable to have children as progeny passes are only available to SL8s. When his promotion finally does arrive however it does not have the joyous consequences he foresaw.
It is hard to think about the society of Unation without simultaneously thinking about that of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, the definitive literary dystopia. Certainly Kenyon employs the trope to make similar points about the real world. Equally Ersatz Nation shares that novel's crushing depiction of the futility of the individual, that, to borrow Marx's phrase, everyone is "a mere appendage of flesh on a machine of iron." Stylistically however, the novel is more strongly reminiscent of Philip K. Dick. Dick's name is increasingly bandied about in relation to other authors but there is no doubting he was incredibly influential and here the comparison seems justified. At its core Ersatz Nation is concerned with the nature and the perception of reality, the subject that obsessed Dick throughout his career. Even more so the paranoia and confusion of the protagonists, often verging on mental illness, is redolent of Dick's later work from what you might call his Gnostic period, such as VALIS and The Divine Invasion. When Dolan comments "I've seen too much to know what's real anymore" he is making explicit the dilemma of all Dick's protagonists.
From the very start of the novel the reader is pitched straight in at the deep end of Dolan's nervous breakdown. As such the reader is immediately disoriented (echoing Dolan's own mind-state) and remains that way for much of the novel. Only when Dolan and Rayburne are drawn together some time later do the shifting ambiguities of Kenyon's novel start to cohere. This is a fairly bold move but it is one that pays off and marks Ersatz Nation as an impressively assured debut.
It's a shame to end this review on a negative note, especially one that is out of the author's control, I do think that Big Engine really need to do something about their design process. Whilst the book is produced to a high standard the cover is simply dreadful, seemingly photocopied and then coloured in by a five year old with a few crayons. It is an awful advert for this subtle, intelligent novel.
This review originally appeared in The Alien Online September 2002.
Patrick Dolan has spent the last twelve years abducting people from Earth and bringing them back to Unation. Since the death of his wife and daughter in childbirth he has thrown himself into his work but the stress of his occupation is starting to take its toll on him. He lives in constant fear of his returns to Unation, he starts to hallucinate and even begins to question the reality of Earth itself.
Selmar Rayburne has been stuck at Status Level Seven for the last ten years. This is punishment for the fact that many years ago his father lead an insurrection against Mother. It means the Rayburne and his wife are unable to have children as progeny passes are only available to SL8s. When his promotion finally does arrive however it does not have the joyous consequences he foresaw.
It is hard to think about the society of Unation without simultaneously thinking about that of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, the definitive literary dystopia. Certainly Kenyon employs the trope to make similar points about the real world. Equally Ersatz Nation shares that novel's crushing depiction of the futility of the individual, that, to borrow Marx's phrase, everyone is "a mere appendage of flesh on a machine of iron." Stylistically however, the novel is more strongly reminiscent of Philip K. Dick. Dick's name is increasingly bandied about in relation to other authors but there is no doubting he was incredibly influential and here the comparison seems justified. At its core Ersatz Nation is concerned with the nature and the perception of reality, the subject that obsessed Dick throughout his career. Even more so the paranoia and confusion of the protagonists, often verging on mental illness, is redolent of Dick's later work from what you might call his Gnostic period, such as VALIS and The Divine Invasion. When Dolan comments "I've seen too much to know what's real anymore" he is making explicit the dilemma of all Dick's protagonists.
From the very start of the novel the reader is pitched straight in at the deep end of Dolan's nervous breakdown. As such the reader is immediately disoriented (echoing Dolan's own mind-state) and remains that way for much of the novel. Only when Dolan and Rayburne are drawn together some time later do the shifting ambiguities of Kenyon's novel start to cohere. This is a fairly bold move but it is one that pays off and marks Ersatz Nation as an impressively assured debut.
It's a shame to end this review on a negative note, especially one that is out of the author's control, I do think that Big Engine really need to do something about their design process. Whilst the book is produced to a high standard the cover is simply dreadful, seemingly photocopied and then coloured in by a five year old with a few crayons. It is an awful advert for this subtle, intelligent novel.
This review originally appeared in The Alien Online September 2002.