Olivia Chadha’s heartfelt, adroit, brisk and thoughtful debut novel proves that everything old is new again. While its “Clutian Real Year” (i.e., the headspace and zeitgeist that birthed it and which provided its themes) is definitely 2020, its soul and blood and sinews are somewhere back in 1985, with the nascent
Neuromancer. It’s nth-generation cyberpunk, with all of that mode’s glistening surfaces, rotting underbelly, streetlife tech and callous unethical Powers That Be. It’s wonderful and amazing and somewhat delightful how that flavor of SF, now some 35 years old, remains powerful and useful and potent, infinitely adaptable to new realities and able to shine its laser light on old-new inequities and iniquities. Of course, it also remains sexy and captivating on a narrative, SFX level. The pioneers of this subgenre built well.