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INDIVIDUTOPIA: A novel set in a neoliberal dystopia Hardcover – August 23, 2018

by Joss Sheldon (Author)

3.8 501 ratings

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THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SOCIETY!!!

Beloved friend,

The year is 2084, and that famous Margaret Thatcher quote has become a reality: There really is no such thing as society. No one speaks to anyone else. No one looks at anyone else. People don't collaborate, they only compete.

I hate to admit it, but this has had tragic consequences. Unable to satisfy their social urges, the population has fallen into a pit of depression and anxiety. Suicide has become the norm.

It all sounds rather morbid, does it not? But please don't despair, there is hope, and it comes in the form of our hero: Renee Ann Blanca. Wishing to fill the society-shaped hole in her life, our Renee does the unthinkable: She goes in search of human company! It's a radical act and an enormous challenge. But that, I suppose, is why her tale's worth recounting. It's as gripping as it is touching, and I think you're going to love it...

Your trusty narrator,

PP
***

Praise for Individutopia:

"Gloriously colourful" - The Canary
"An exciting tale" - The Dallas Sun
"Outstanding" - We Art Friends
"Riveting" - Publishers Weekly
"An epiphany" - The Avenger
"A must-read" - The Bay Net
"So relevant" - Medium

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Print length

176 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Joss Sheldon
Publication date

August 23, 2018
Dimensions

5.98 x 0.56 x 9.02 inches
ISBN-10

178926359X
ISBN-13

978-1789263596
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Sheldon's gloriously colourful writing makes leaping from our world to Individutopia's wholly believable... (It's) like the book is speaking to you, and you alone... The roller coaster ride it creates is stomach churning. Suffice to say, Sheldon has once again created a fictional masterpiece grounded in an unnerving reality. Engaging, thought-provoking, and morally arousing, Individutopia serves as a stark warning about where we'll end up if we don't change... One of the most important books of 2018"
THE CANARY

"Time will tell if Sheldon's prophesies come to pass. The novel will do well to predict the future as well as novels such as 1984. But one thing is for certain, even now. This rebellious author has spun an exciting tale, filled with twists and turns that will make you want to finish this book in a single sitting. The plot is as well-formed, short and snappy, as any of the great works which have come before it. It really is a modern classic in the making."
THE DALLAS SUN

"Dystopian novels, whilst set in the future, are designed to reflect the present... That's why Joss Sheldon's new novel, Individutopia, is so relevant. Unlike the great works that came before it, it doesn't contain a big state or dictator. It's set in a neoliberal dystopia; a world in which there is no such thing as society, no-one talks or looks at anyone else, and everyone competes to be the best. Everyone has become their own dictator...Individutopia is one of those books you'll want to read again and again. You'll take something new from it each time you do, scratch your head, and say "Oh... Yeah... Oh yeah!""
MEDIUM

"The author has built an incredibly rich and well-developed dystopian world... It's very hard to write a sympathetic character in a world where no sympathy exists, but Renee's evolution and eventual exit from Individutopia are believable, and her slow discovery of her humanity is riveting."
THE BOOKLIFE PRIZE, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

"What follows is an exhilarating ride, as the story ratchets through the gears. Just when it seems one thing will happen, something unexpected changes the course of the narrative. There are more twists and turns than in a piece of fusilli, but it all comes together, and makes sense, right up until the very last, tear-jerking line of the book...A must-read for fans of the genre."
THE BAY NET

"Joss Sheldon's outstanding dystopian novel "Individutopia" makes the reader think twice about the 21st century cult to individualism and shows what it would be to live in I-person world... The main hero - Renee Ann Blanca, reveals the author's skill at masterful characterization. Renee and the transformation she goes through in the novel are a source of hope that mankind will not be lost forever in a vortex of insignificant tasks."
WE ART FRIENDS

"It's fiction. But it's believable and it feels like a glimpse into the future... (Renee's) hopes, dreams and fears were easily identifiable... An epiphany in a book!"
THE AVENGER

"An enjoyable read with a touch of dystopia, some humor, and a very strange romance."
READERS' FAVOURITE

"

From the Back Cover

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SOCIETY!!!

Beloved friend,

The year is 2084, and that famous Margaret Thatcher quote has become a reality: There really is no such thing as society. No one speaks to anyone else. No one looks at anyone else. People don't collaborate, they only compete.

I hate to admit it, but this has had tragic consequences. Unable to satisfy their social urges, the population has fallen into a pit of depression and anxiety. Suicide has become the norm.

It all sounds rather morbid, does it not? But please don't despair, there is hope, and it comes in the form of our hero: Renee Ann Blanca. Wishing to fill the society-shaped hole in her life, our Renee does the unthinkable: She goes in search of human company! It's a radical act and an enormous challenge. But that, I suppose, is why her tale's worth recounting. It's as gripping as it is touching, and I think you're going to love it...

Your trusty narrator,

PP

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Joss Sheldon (August 23, 2018)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 176 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 178926359X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1789263596
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.98 x 0.56 x 9.02 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #5,475,534 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #11,854 in Political Fiction (Books)
- #22,336 in Dystopian Fiction (Books)
- #27,273 in Fiction Satire

Customer Reviews:
3.8 501 ratings

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Joss Sheldon

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Joss Sheldon is a scruffy nomad, unchained free-thinker, and post-modernist radical. Born in 1982, he was brought up in one of the anonymous suburbs which wrap themselves around London's beating heart. Then he escaped!

With a degree from the London School of Economics to his name, Sheldon had spells selling falafel at music festivals, being a ski-bum, and failing to turn the English Midlands into a haven of rugby league.

Then, in 2013, he stumbled upon McLeod Ganj; an Indian village which plays home to thousands of angry monkeys, hundreds of Tibetan refugees, and the Dalai Lama himself. It was there that Sheldon wrote his debut novel, 'Involution & Evolution'.

With several positive reviews to his name, Sheldon had caught the writing bug. He visited Palestine and Kurdistan, to research his second novel, 'Occupied'; a book which is like nothing you've ever read before.

But it was with his third novel, 'The Little Voice', that Sheldon really hit the big time; topping the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, and gaining widespread critical acclaim.

In 2017, he wrote 'Money Power Love'; a love story that charts the rise of the British Empire, and the way in which bankers, with the power to create money out of nothing, were able to shape the world we live in today.

A year later, he released what is arguably his greatest story to date, 'INDIVIDUTOPIA: A novel set in a neoliberal dystopia'. Fans of 1984 will love this fast-paced classic, set in a world in which corporations rule supreme.

Sheldon returned with his first work of non-fiction. 'DEMOCRACY: A User's Guide', combines his conversational tone with a series of entertaining anecdotes and thought-provoking ideas; asking what can be done to make our political systems, economies, schools, media, police forces and armies that bit more democratic.

Now he's back again with "Other Worlds Were Possible"; a literary masterpiece, which dramatises the effects of European imperialism; reminding us that there was a time before nations, private property, hierarchy and money...

Customer reviews

3.8 out of 5

501 global ratings

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Lynn M.

Makes You Think,Think, Think!

Reviewed in the United States on January 22, 2019

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Joss Sheldon’s Individutopia is hinged on Margaret Thatcher’s famous words, “There is no such thing as society.” Sheldon takes a futuristic look at what life will look like in 2084, about 65 tears from now.
Renee is a 24-year old Londoner is extremely self-indulged. Her entire life is surrounded by her own improved image, and she even wakes up to the sound recording of her own voice. She is oblivious to the existence of others and sees everyone else as her competition.
Her entire days are spent in pursuit of short- term jobs and she does not see how she can ever pay off her debt. She has avatars and other tech devises to help her function and was even raised by a robot after being abandoned by her mother.
She represents everyone else who strives to get ahead in the city. Every time, she leaves her pod, she is even further in debt. She moves in a stark world where there is little contact with others, but this is the only life she knows until something happens.
She wanders outside the city limits and gets lost. She sees trees and hears birds for the first time and yes, even meets other human beings. This all so foreign to her but will she like it? Will she stay and learn that maybe there is a society? Can she even cope with this strange, new world?
Read Joss Sheldon’s Individutopia and see how things turn out for our Renee. This book will make you see parts of your own life and certainly make you think, think, think!

32 people found this helpful

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Katie

A fantastic portrayal a new Dystopian World!

Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2018

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Are you a fan of “classical” dystopian novels? Oh? What do I mean by classical? Huxley, Orwell, Vonnegut, you name it, they are one of my favourites and then after supernatural and YA dystopian novels, on a different place all together stands Joss Sheldon! I’ve read most of his books, and I loved them all. He always brings something to his books that make them so real and so relatable that you walk on the street, see something and the first things that comes to your mid it: “doesn’t it remind me of something?”
This time Sheldon takes upon himself to bring us to the world that may soon become ours. A world where society doesn’t exists, a world where individual is the supreme, and reach for someone is an outrage. I was very intrigued by the story from the beginning as it’s not easy to portray human’s darkest secrets and individualism. But Sheldon doesn’t disappoint once again. He brings us the characters that are bound to make us think, analyse and criticise even ourselves and the world we live in.
What is an individual? Are you ready to go on a journey to find yourself? Or maybe you just want to see the world that resembles our current but is different altogether? Well, I’m not holding you here!

24 people found this helpful

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P. Weiser

Quite an Eperience

Reviewed in the United States on January 3, 2019

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(This is for the Kindle edition) I'd rate this a star higher if they didn't insist on using the word "like" in titling the ratings. This book was not likable (to me), but it is well written, ingeniously contrived, and - in a real sense - enjoyable as welll as educational.

To summarize without spoiling, this is a Facebook(tm) dystopia with a sort of Shaker utopia. The dystopia is sadly believable and described with considerable verve; I found the utopia less credible and entertaining, but it provides insight into the author's likely ideology, or so I infer. It is good to know that someone of that persuasion understands where Facebook(tm) hell is trending, though without quite getting what a viable alternative or synthesis could look like.

Qualified recommendation: read it for the insights - especially the unintended ones.

43 people found this helpful

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No topias are good

Reviewed in the United States on November 22, 2020

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A fictional memoir of young woman who seemed to have lost herself and trying to regain her identity and meaning in society. But what, and where, is society? Is society a refuge or a prison? Renee Ann Blanca, robot-raised, searches for that we sometimes think we should have but cannot grasp – contentment. This book is short and moves at a fast, impatient, pace, setting the mood to making the reader more troubled at the end than the journey of reading the book itself.

One person found this helpful

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Amy's Bookshelf Reviews

Magnificent!

Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2018

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Individutopia is one of those books you can't help but read from beginning to end. Revolving around Margaret Thatcher's "seven words" of "There is no such thing as society" the story brings the reader to the year 2084. Now the land of the individual, where there were no groups, just the individuals. I like the way the story is told, it welcomes the reader to Individutopia, and explains the world as it is, and why it has been, and then, we meet Renee. There is growth within the characters, and how they interact or don't interact with each other. I really enjoyed this story, where I had to reread several parts again, because I liked how this story was told. There is an innovated imagination to this author and his thinking!

10 people found this helpful

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Steve

Interesting futuristic novel

Reviewed in the United States on October 20, 2018

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Sounded like SciFi, and in a sense it is - but not the outer space exploration/rocket ship sort of SciFi. Instead it was an "inner space" exploration, as to how the philosophical concept of individualism can be carried to its logical conclusion - not a pretty sight! And not a pretty place to be - individualism, per se, as expressed on this novel is a bleak, wilderness bereft of all that is good in life. I shall say no more in order not to give away any spoilers... I read it and was interested.

14 people found this helpful

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Sarah Mcintosh

Light hearted fable with somber message

Reviewed in the United States on September 11, 2020

Verified Purchase

Overall I enjoyed the book.
It made me question my own perspectives on personal responsibility vs circumstances.
At first I didn’t like that I felt strangely disconnected from the main character when she was the only subject of the story then I realized that was intentional in the story telling. It made her character development so much more meaningful.

2 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Lorna R

A Modern Classic

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 7, 2019

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This novel is a modern take on themes already explored by visionary, ahead of their time works such as Orwell's '1984' and Golding's 'Lord of the Flies'. The foreword reads 'This is a not a prophecy. This is a warning'.

This tale of warning is set in the year 2084, by which time in which the 'world has changed so much'. Like '1984', it is a thinly veiled critique of a political ideology, in this case Thatcherism and one of its alleged key elements, based around the quote 'There is no such thing as society', which itself led to the so-called Cult of the Individual. The author compares Thatcher to 'a colossus; half-machine, half-human, shoulder pads made of steel and a tongue which could fire off bullets'. Parallels can be seen in the lead character, Renee's appearance, which she had modified with plastic and Botox.

As in '1984', the first part of the book is used to describe the strange world which the lead character inhabits. In Renee's case, this is a society in which privatisation and competition replace personal relationships and artificial stimulants and anti-depressants become as necessary to sustenance as food. Which, by the way, is dispensed in pills and bars full of artificial nutrients. Oligarchs prospered and took over ownership of every asset imaginable, tangible and intangible. They created a social system where individuals were ranked on everything from appearance to sleep and calorie intake.

Renee, when we first meet her, is living in a 2m long, 1m wide pod, as do all workers. She wears electronic glasses, which edit the information her eyes send to her brain so that people do not have to look at one another. As in '1984', language is used to inform ideology - personal pronouns have fallen out of use and only used to refer to oneself. Renee was abandoned by her parents and raised by a robot. The human race is therefore dying, but Renee, in her pixelated, medicated world, accompanied only by avatars of herself, is unaware of the implications of this.

She fills her time by going for job interviews for ultra-short contract work of a pointless nature. The nature of work is taken to the height of pointlessness in describing Renee's jobs. In one, she travels to a former royal palace to smash to pieces works of art and furniture, only to labour to put them together again almost as soon as this is achieved. The parallel with the current day concept of going to work to achieve some abstract-seeming task, in order to make enough money to live near the source of work in an expensive area is all too clear. Likewise, Renee's attempts to improve upon what nature has given her are a farce - she has deformed her eye with self-applied Botox, done the same to one of her cheeks with plastic, and an attempt to put on false eyelashes results in her placing one, ludicrously, halfway down her cheek. She has no human interaction to give her feedback, after all.

The book describes Renee's eventual escape, through self-realisation, to a small colony of people living outwith London and her rejection of the romantic advances in favour of yet another farcically unattractive choice. The pathos of her choices is both ridiculous and saddening. Renee's journey is a triumph of basic innate human mortality in the face of hopelessness. The themes this novel raises are familiar yet powerful all the same, in this modern form incorporating elements that threaten society today and raise fears for the future.

9 people found this helpful

Tulip

This book is worth reading.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 7, 2018

Verified Purchase

This futuristic book is about a girl who lives in a tragic fairy tale. It is a very relevant subject for the individualistic societies, especially for people has to re-revives their predicaments in this superb era! This book has made me rethink-even harder- what is the most important thing to have after all in life. I just wondered if being lonesome is the worse thing to happen to an individual -even though his or her basic needs are being met- or having a fulfilling relationship with others is the biggest power to possess for an individual to have so they could achieve even better if the society let them redirect their Limitless Brainpower among themselves.

Just recently, I have some valuable experiences in helping others at both work and private life. The experience made me realize that they found themselves lost a bit how to deal with a genuine help. Should they take advance of it even more as they may notice a helpful action is a bit unfamiliar trend in our recent societies?

Dealing with people on a daily basis, I have no doubt that the society we are dealing has been formed algorithmically. The recent book “Individutopia” explains the issues around this so perfectly so I had to reconsider my personal opinion about Individualism as a result. Individualism is being responsible for your own actions but it is not necessarily mean individuals can do what they want to. Most people are recognizing that their expectations have unquestionable limits within their societies. For example; the rich could inspire the poor by using fear and loneliness instead of love and support, which is working perfectly in this book. Making them feel they are in charge of their choices but in reality, those people might end up committing mass suicides.

It is a simple fact that an individual doesn’t evolve but the generations do for them. So, what happens next if those generations will be demolished by time? Should we still believe in natural selection? Who would select the human selection to progress in the future?

This Individutopia book will make you decide what’s worth to live for.

14 people found this helpful

A. O'Brien

I've read a lot of books and this one is really dreadful

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 10, 2022

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I'm a literature teacher and obviously read a lot. I have managed to get through some pretty dreadful novels in my time, as well as stories written by my students who range from 9 years old to 16. Despite the slim size of this book I have found it completely impossible to finish. I think I ground to a halt around 100 pages, so I gave it a good whack. All the time I was trying to read a voice in my head kept saying "This is garbage, I hate this!" over and over until eventually I would throw it to the side again. It's honestly the worst thing I have ever read. As dystopian novels go there is nothing particularly clever or interesting here, my students regularly come up with more interesting concepts, and the writing is painfully repetitive. The attempt to "invent" some new words in the manner of Orwell or Burgess consist of adding the word "I" to everything, which again becomes annoying and repetitive. I will never find out if it gets better at the end, but all I can say is that every second with this book was painful. I imagine the writer is better at self-publishing and advertising than writing, which is a skill in itself that they can monetise - and should monetise as writing is not for them - as I've no idea how this piece of junk has got so many decent reviews

19 people found this helpful

GYLNW

Enjoyable as a Short Story

Reviewed in Canada on April 27, 2020

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Simple and quick read with valuable lessons. Beginning is a bit political. The author tries to defend their political standpoint by saying its worth while for the story, but it really wasn’t needed. Maybe just a filler for an otherwise short story. But that’s ok, it wasn’t damaging to the overall adventurous story.
It could come across as an all-ages book but many details within the book may not be suitable for a child (suicide, sex, killing, bestiality...? ). I’m not one to tell another parent what to allow their child to read, watch or play, but to make your own judgement, I would suggest reading the book first before allowing your child to.

2 people found this helpful

fd

A quasi mirror of society

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 17, 2020

Verified Purchase

General interest and teaching adults English.
In terms of interest, it was of a good standard,in the way it mirrored current society. The written word was easily approachable. Used in my adult literacy class, the students were interested enough to be persuaded to buy it and to finish it. A success.
On a personal level, the ending I found a bit disappointing, it slowed the action down , but I did not really find the relevancy and correlation.
The reason I do not say superb is given to the sense of freedom away from individutopia, it doesn’t totally bring this alive. It seems to sink into another cliche’ area.

2 people found this helpful

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INDIVIDUTOPIA: A novel set in a neoliberal dystopia Hardcover – August 23, 2018

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