Adrian is a man who wasn’t born. He was produced, created to be a protector of the public (something similar to a police officer) in an sealed city-state with a deteriorating eco system all its own. Instead of a government, the city/state is run by the company that originally owned it, and the citizenry is tolerated according to the value they bring to the company. Adrian is a member of the city’s Hero Division. As such, he is a perfect physical specimen, infused with special nano-augments, and programmed to instinctively protect and serve the public. This altruistic function of serving the public is a hold-over from earlier times, and does not fit in with the Company’s current philosophy.
Lydecker uses Adrian’s Journey through the book to give us a tour of this enclosed world, and he uses the enclosed world to offer some hard summations of our own. There are plenty of action scenes in this book, plenty of moments of beautiful writing, and plenty of dazzling visual concepts, but there isn’t as much escapism as you might expect - these characters are all dealing with the nightmares we feel nipping at our heels even now - corrupt government, economic insecurity, citizenship in a society that feels more like a trap than a home. The moments of heroic violence in the book come across as a relief.
When Adrian’s Hero division is dissolved, most of its members move over to the city’s Enforcer class. Lydecker uses this moment to move Adrian to the top of this world - a great tiered structure with a literal social hierarchy - Company Executives live in the top tiers, the middle classes live in the middle, and the abandoned live at the bottom. Adrian becomes the bodyguard of one of the Corporate Executives at the top of the city, and takes to the assignment with little problem. The Executive, however, is not a moral person. He thinks he has hired a bodyguard who will also function as a goon. Adrian has no problem guarding the executive, but he won’t do the Executive’s dirty work - with Adrian’s ingrained programming, he might not even be CAPABLE of doing the Executive’s dirty work. Their relationship doesn’t exist long without conflict, and the Executive soon orders Adrian killed.
Lydecker does a great trick with the rest of the book, Adrian escapes, and his descent through all of the city’s layers is also his ascension. As Adrian escapes through the lower levels, we get a great tour of this dystopian world - from the pleasures of the affluent, to the miseries of the poor. But all the time Adrian is moving, his eyes are getting opened, his naivete is getting beaten off of him, and he is getting a truer vision of the world he lives in. This is a hard journey, full of violence and double-crosses. (Adrian has valuable augments all throughout his body, and plenty of people are willing to kill him for them).
This book is complete. It has a beginning, a middle and an end. Adrian has an arc. He does not end in the same place he started. That said, this is also a book that builds a fascinating world for its readers, with injustice at its top, and wild social Darwinism at its bottom (the lowest shadows are full of “Flesh Hackers”, serious body-modders, capable of offering ANY kind of character to the reader). Overthrowing this system is something the reader wants and expects, but it doesn’t turn out to be the point of the book, suggesting that we may return to this world in future publications.
Adrian may return as well -- but that isn’t guaranteed.
End notes: The writing in the book is very smooth. When I needed to, I listened to some of this book using text-to-speech, and it survived that difficulty very well. The Flesh Hackers are a fantastic concept, full of great invention, and despite the horrors of this world, there are still small touches of grace that find a way to push through - like when a character looks out a train window at a swirl of pollution - it’s existence is awful, but the character can still be captivated by its beauty.
A terrific novel. Five Stars. Let’s see more!
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