Review: Sharp Satire About the Power of Technology to Corrupt
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 8, 2014
“Furtl” is a satire of our technology-obsessed culture, as well as a cautionary tale of how deeply governments can abuse the technology that we rely on so much (in real life, the recent Snowden controversy makes this book even more on point and topical).The novel begins with a trio of vapid teenage girls giggling about boys and school, and sets up a switch from the dominant technology (furtl, used by the less wealthy girl in the group) and the Chinese-developed Holospace technology. Since youth are generally the fastest adopters of new technology, it seems the death knell has rung for furtl—and as the book flashes to furtl headquarters and a very tense business meeting, this feeling is confirmed.Furtl is struggling to maintain its hold on the market, and while the creator (Manny) is against accepting a government contract to sell user information, most of the rest of the company sees only dollar signs and tries to strongarm him into accepting it. This leads Manny on a journey that takes him from isolation to contact with others working to reverse the damage technology has done to America as a whole, and soon he’s working for that cause in his own way, throwing himself into politics. It proves more dangerous than he expected, and underscores the high stakes technology can bring to the game.Readers who enjoy sharp-witted satires will find a lot to like in “Furtl,” both in the veiled references to current political and social events and in the progression of Manny, the book’s main character. While he’s really the only character who gets described in depth, the point of the book is not character development but social commentary; his relationship with Mindy does add some emotional resonance on the personal front. It is also a well-written and fully-realized world that doesn’t seem far removed from our own—seeing our own technological developments written about as fairly primitive reminds you how far we can (and probably will) go with technology, and the end results of letting it go to far. Recommended to fans of satire, and even science fiction and adventure, as there’s a bit of both in the novel.