The This

The This by Adam Roberts (2022 Gollancz hardcover 296pp)

 

This recent novel by Adam Roberts is said to be his attempt to bring alive the philosophical thinking of Hegel – as I have limited knowledge of such things that angle pretty much right over my head and whooshed past.

After a sort of experimental opening chapter set in the “Bardo” where an individual seems to have to relive all other human lifetimes, the book settles down to two main story threads to, the first concerns a young man called Rich in a near future London (2026 I think). Rich lives a life of isolation, making money as a freelance writer taking jobs via an app. He has lost many of his friends to a new social media network known as TheThis. Signing up with TheThis involves a surgical procedure where an implant is placed in the roof of your mouth and eventually links up with your brain. Its defenders explain it as “just hands-free Twitter” but it’s becoming clear that it’s more of a dangerous cult. Rich accepts a job to interview and write about an executive at TheThis and from then on, he’s pursued by them, hounded to become a member. Former friends and attractive women come out of the woodwork all trying to get him to join up. He is approached by others opposed to the apparent cult and soon finds himself enlisted as a ‘Trojan Horse’ against them.

The second thread is set decades further into the future. TheThis has turned into a dangerous hive-mind entity and is in open conflict with normal mankind. We are introduced to another young man called Adan. In his world, people have intense relationships with their “Phenes” a cross between a smart phone and a sex-robot. Adan’s Phene experiences a mysterious glitch and it’s used by a stranger to contact him and leave him a cryptic message. Soon Adan falls on hard times and joins the Army to survive. After training he’s sent on dangerous missions against the hive-mind's robot hordes. On one such mission he discovers he may have the key to halting the enemy forces. But can he stop thinking about his Phene long enough save mankind?

There’s also a random George Orwell 1984 pastiche chapter which is interesting but seems a little out of place here.

Even without the philosophy framework this is an interesting novel. I was a little disappointed that we didn’t spend more time with Rich and his pre–Trojan Horse life, I identified more with that character than anyone else in the book. Things are left a little up in the air and I felt some frustration that the ‘good-guys’ didn’t always win but that perhaps is just like real life.