Recently, I’ve been looking for some fiction to read to pass the time and relax a bit from the thoughts swarming in my head. I read fiction quite rarely, as, you know, I’m a ‘productive’ person .
I’ve been looking for something easy to swallow yet relatable, so I’ve searched for some softcore sci-fi in a modern setting. Browsing through some top-tens lists, I’ve found the Broadcast written by Liam Brown.
The premise looks simple: David, a YouTube vlogger, gets an offer from a crazy technical prodigy to implant a chip that will broadcast rare thoughts to the outside world. Easy money, easy fame. As you may expect, the story goes full-blown HUMANCENTiPAD pretty quick (no spoilers).
The book is easily digestible (I’ve read it in 2 days of a pretty lazy reading) yet engaging to follow. If you’ve watched any single episode of the Black Mirror - that’s precisely it in a book format. Dystopian tech corporations with leaders searching for a revolution and the evolution of humankind, not without a smirk about the pile of money? You got them. Questions of what constitutes you as a human being? Sure. Uncertainty about a loss of authentic self in technology, tiredness of endless content streams, and an infinite sea of social media narcissism? You ask.
The ideas of this book are not new. You’ve already watched Truman Show, you’ve likely seen the Black Mirror and read the Flashback, you kinda know where the story goes, but the author adds even more gruesome notes to the technical apocalypse, mocking the mindfulness movement or any other possibility to outrun and escape the marching doom. You will become the ad yourself; there’s nowhere to hide from the ever-watching big brother, and there’s no need to. We’re in the Brave New World, you’re no John, and there’re no Falkland Islands to escape to.
8 / 10.