Oppressive regimes in recent SFF
In Vox by Christina Dalcher, America has been taken over by fundamentalist right-wing Christians: a woman's place is once more in the home. Only this time, she's only allowed to speak 100 words a day. The Dark Gifts trilogy by Vic James is set in contemporary Britain with an alternative history, where only people with magic in their blood are full citizens with acknowledged human rights. Quite different styles and settings, but both give well-crafted and thought-provoking portrayals of oppressive regimes and how people react to them.
Vox has been on prominent display in three for two offers and the like at WHSmith and Waterstones on and off for months. It's been in bestseller lists, and praised as a new Handmaid's Tale left, right and centre. Which is why I'd delayed reading it, even though Christina is one of the flash fiction crowd I chat to on Twitter and I'd been so excited when she first announced her novel was going to be A Real Thing. Sci-fi that appeals to people who don't read sci-fi is rarely satisfactory to those that do, in my experience (see my review of The Bees). I'm so glad that Vox turned out to be chilling, thrilling, near-future sociological SF with a healthy dose of science in it, and I can honestly say I really enjoyed it.
It's hard to say much about Vox without giving away plot-twists. I thought the idea of the slippery slope was handled brilliantly, the glimpses of the path they'd gone down to get to the current state. At what point does behaviour cross a line between being the preserve of a weird minority it's safe to ignore, and prominent enough that right-minded liberals (as the phrase would probably go, in the USA) should react against it? Can a person look back and pinpoint the moment they should have stood up for their (or someone else's) rights, their last chance to change the course of society? What about if someone you love edges step by step along a path you abhor, following one seemingly reasonable (in isolation) argument after another? Then there's the science element, laced with ambition and ethics. It's all biology/medicine so I have no idea how real or plausible any of it is, but it did make me think about the way lots of scientific research can be used for good or ill, and all we can do is trust that it won't be weaponised.
My one reservation is the epilogue; I personally would have preferred the book to end after the climax and do away with the hindsight summarising. However, I have similar views on the Jeff Vandermeer novel Borne, but that didn't stop me loving the novel and recommending it. I'm happy to recommend Vox too.
I've only read the first two of the Dark Gifts trilogy so far (Gilded Cage and Tarnished City), though the third is lurking on my Kobo ready for me to dive into when I've finished the book I'm reading just now (Christmas-themed, therefore timebound). The main characters are the children of two very different families, ranging in age from ten to mid-twenties, with much of the action revolving around two boys in their late teens who end up bonded by circumstance in a fascinating (and not at all friendly) way.
Britain is powered by slaves; every non-magical person must do a ten-year stretch. Meanwhile the magical aristocracy (the 'Equals') live on their country estates in luxury, and the country is ruled by the heads of these powerful families. A mixture of propaganda and the silence of the traumatised ensures that the wider public never hear about, or simply don't believe, the treatment of slaves in some parts of the country. When the Hadleys opt to do their slave-days as a family, on an aristocratic estate, their belief in the basic fairness of the system and the inevitability of slavery begins to wobble. Of course, even within the Equal society, some are more equal than others, and the tensions between and within families play out on a large scale.
Gilded Cage is very good on how ordinary people either turn a blind eye or simply miss the hints that all is not well - with busy lives and faith in basic decency they don't want to rock the boat and assume the nastiest rumours are trouble-causing nonsense. It also portrays complexity and grey areas well, and the way that individuals don't necessarily align with the group you expect them to. There are some fabulous characters in the trilogy, Silyen Jardine in particular keeps wrong-footing me and revealing yet another facet. Tarnished City kept the pace and tension and developed some of the characters in interesting ways, I'm looking forward to reading Bright Ruin, the final instalment.