I cannot make up my mind whether this is a 4-star, "favourites" shelf book, rather than a failed attempt at a novel. Gloriously so, mind.

On one side, I was expecting brain chewing-gum, and I was surprised by the chillingly rich world-building and by the dry, exact writing; not to mention the scathing social commentary. Also, I am a sucker for episodic, apparently scattered novels that come together in a bigger narrative: those little details appearing in a character's story in an early flash-chapter, and becoming ominously significant in the dénouement of another character's arc, a hundred pages later.

On the other side, this episodic nature is also the undoing of the novel itself. The episodes never come to a satisfying narrative unity, character are unevenly carved, some come to life, some remain a bit of a sketch; especially the conclusion, while satisfying by a plot point of view, comes too early in the intertwining of the episodes and leaves the stories unresolved. It is a pity, since motivations and - when developed - characters are convincing.

A beautiful failure, I would say, stimulating, entertaining, intelligent and worth reading; I am of half a mind about buying a copy for my bookshelf. ( )

Series of linked vignettes about life under the Bell Corporation, which replaced the Indian and other governments with its supposedly meritocratic rule that twenty percent are full citizens, seventy percent partial, and ten percent Analogs who can be harvested for their organs, or much worse. (We eventually learn that “ten percent” is a myth; they just don’t count any kids born to the ten percent, but you can be dumped into the ten percent for being insufficiently Bell-oriented.) It has many of the beats you’d expect with rebels trying to take the system down, but there are some interesting moments with some of the slice-of-life stories, especially the musician struggling between computerized perfection and actual playing. ( )

when I found this ARC in NetGalley I had to request it, my first contact with this author was in best in world SF volume 2, that I actually also read here in NetGalley, ok going back to the story, I was introduced to the first chapter of this story in that book, and in the end it was one of the few stories (on said book) that ended up living rent free on my head, so I really had to read the whole book, basically we have several short stories that come alive in this city, giving a continuation from one story to the other, without a direct link. In geral I did like it, but the story that gives the name to this book is one of the best in the book, some of the stories felt a bit disconnected, but that of course is a personal opinion, I will still recommend this book as an interesting take in a dystopian world being brought to life through short stories.

And I definitely will want to read more of this author in the future.

Thank you NetGalley and Rebellion, Solaris for the free ARC and this is my honest opinion. ( )