Ratings11
Average rating3.8
A frighteningly persuasive, high-tech fable, this novel follows the lives of four narrators living in an alternative futuristic Cape Town, South Africa. Kendra, an art-school dropout, brands herself for a nanotech marketing program; Lerato, an ambitious AIDS baby, plots to defect from her corporate employers; Tendeka, a hot-headed activist, is becoming increasingly rabid; and Toby, a roguish blogger, discovers that the video games he plays for cash are much more than they seem. On a collision course that will rewire their lives, this story crackles with bold and infectious ideas, connecting a ruthless corporate-apartheid government with video games, biotech attack dogs, slippery online identities, a township soccer school, shocking cell phones, addictive branding, and genetically modified art. Taking hedonistic trends in society to their ultimate conclusions, this tale paints anything but a forecasted utopia, satirically undermining the reified idea of progress as society's white knight.
Reviews with the most likes.
Whenever I read something by Beukes, I'm always reminded of Gibson's first rule - that “The future's already arrived, it's just not evenly distributed”. That's definitely the case in Moxyland - it's set in a dystopian future, but between the role mobile phones play in the narrative, the commercialization of art and “cool”, and the presentation as a tool of liberation and oppression, it feels more like an amplified version of today than it does tomorrow.
Moxyland is sleek, it's hip, it's hard to put down once you're into it.