Rating: 5 Stars 
Welcome to a world after the Genetic Revolution. Where the “Enhanced” are engineered from birth as the leaders of industry, government, society, and culture while the “Naturals” are forced into lives of lifelong drudgery training the AIs that will inevitably replace them. Where your platform is your life and your identity is your keywords. Where your very access to water depends on maintaining a fragile social credit score. Where every interaction, word, and relationship is part of a carefully-constructed facade for maximizing points.
Lee Urban is a Natural secretly adopted by an Enhanced family in New Beijing. She has been trained her entire life to pose as one of them. They have mapped out a safe path for her, one where she can remain below the radar and carve out a secure existence. But against their wishes, she enrolls in Peking University to fulfill her dream of becoming an artist. The odds are stacked against her. She needs an almost unheard of social score of 80 to make the Artisan track–and the last Natural to enroll at Peking was murdered by Enhanced supremacists. If anyone discovers her secret she could die. And someone already knows…
If I were to summarize this book in a key phrase, it would be “Gattaca meets The Hunger Games—in China.” Some parts also reminded me of classic cyberpunk like Blade Runner. The story is a vividly compelling, sometimes humorous, and frequently terrifying examination of transhumanism. The “Enhanced” are engineered with such a wide range of (often frivolous) abilities and characteristics as to be an almost separate species–not just from “Naturals” but from each other. At the same time, this element of the story is seamlessly combined with an extrapolation of real-world trends in social media that I found just as disturbing. The “social credit” system featured in the book is already a reality in China and quickly extending beyond its borders.
The narrative has a solid opening that immediately starts off the world-building by revealing details about the setting slowly and naturally. I really enjoyed the Asian milieu with its accompanying terminology, but it might be confusing for some readers, especially when they have to learn about real-world Chinese culture along with an imaginary futuristic setting. There are a lot of overlapping terms and categories that give the story a true-to-life richness but can be a lot to absorb. One thing I found particularly disorienting were the multiple shifts between actual and virtual reality–especially since the more outlandish details of the “real” setting made them hard to distinguish at times.
At the same time, this is all balanced by a taut and fast-paced storyline that maintains its tension throughout and also contains some pulse-pounding action scenes. The main character also felt three-dimensional and real, with a driven, hard-edged personality that is nonetheless balanced with key moments of human sympathy. This all culminated in a twist ending that whets the reader’s appetite for a sequel.
The book left me with a haunting question: Could I survive in this world? Will I have to someday?
Content Ratings:
Heat: No sexual content and one romance that remains platonic.
Profanity: None.
Violence: Several scenes of violence and peril with some description of injuries.
Genre: Science Fiction/Dystopian
Age recommendation: 16 and up due to violence.
Availability: This book is available on Amazon.
Reviewed by A.K. Preston
A.K. Preston is the author of The Tombs of Elysium (available for free downoload) and has published short stories in The Unseen Anthology and The Untold Podcast. You can find him on Substack as well as his website, AKPreston.com. In his spare time, he likes to read classic literature, history, and speculative fiction of all types.
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