' Moxyland does lots of things, masterfully, that lots of sf never even guesses that it *could* be doing. Very, very good.'
- William Gibson
'A rare treat. Reminiscent at times of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash , Moxyland is funny, gritty, imaginative and, ultimately, deeply disturbing. A politically charged urban speculative thriller that will leave you wanting more.'
- Obrigado
' Moxyland makes a refreshing and thought-provoking debut. It shares the jazzy language associated with early masters like Gibson and Sterling, but the technology in her world is necessary for survival, sometimes a point of pride, and often dangerous.'
- Strange Horizons
'Moxyland is bewilderingly fast-paced, slick; a nextgeneration cyberpunk that gets the heart pounding. I can't wait to read the next one... definitely a must-read.'
- Hub
'Lean, sharp, and tightly written, Moxyland keeps raising the stakes, from the opening chapter to the uncompromising finale. And with its electronic panopticon, it gives us a dystopia to rival 1984 or Stand On Zanzibar a future horrifying for its very plausibility.'
- Gareth L Powell
'A brilliant debut that paints a harsh but strangely realistic portrait of tomorrow with a grace rarely seen in comparable works. Make no mistake: Moxyland is a work of art.'
- Stomping on Yeti
' Beukes has taken a hundred interesting ideas, about the politics of oppression and subversion, the pervasiveness of technology, the conflation of virtual and actual identities, and created a plausible future.'
- Bureau 42
' Moxyland is a highly charged, imaginative and emphatic story that manages to both impress and disturb at the same time.'
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
'A superlative narrative blending GMOs, ICT, drugs, nanotech, bio-weapons while remaining ultra-hip and humane. The dazzling denouement was credible. I can't wait to read what Lauren Beukes comes up with next.'
- Slowhub
'M oxyland is what you get when you take your classic 80s deracinated corporate alienation sensibility, detonate about six kilos of Semtex under it, and scatter the smoking wreckage across 21st century South Africa full of unselfconscious spiky originality, the larval form of a new kind of SF munching its way out of the intestines of the wasp-paralysed caterpillar of cyberpunk.'
- Charles Stross
LAUREN BEUKES
Moxyland
ANGRY ROBOT
A member of the Osprey Group
Lace Market House,
54-56 High Pavement,
Nottingham
NG1 1HW, UK
www.angryrobotbooks.com
Your government lies
Originally published in South Africa by Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd 2008
Copyright 2008 by Lauren Beukes
Cover art by Joey HiFi
All rights reserved.
Angry Robot is a registered trademark and the Angry Robot icon a
trademark of Angry Robot Ltd.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are
the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living
or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 978-0-85766-005-3
For Keitu
Kendra
It's nothing. An injectable. A prick. No hospital involved. Like a booster shot with added boost.
Just keep telling yourself.
The corporate line shushes through the tunnels on a skin of seawater, overflow from the tide drives put to practical use in the clanking watery bowels of Cape Town like all the effluent in this city. Like me. Art school dropout reinvented as shiny brand ambassador. Sponsor baby. Ghost girl.
I could get used to this, seats unmarked by the pocked craters of cigarette burns, no blaring adboards, no gangsters checking you out. But elevated status is not part of the program. Only allocated for the day, to get me in and out again. Wouldn't want civilians hanging around.
As the train slows, pulling into the Waterfront Exec station, it sends plumes of seawater arcing up the sides. In my defence, it's automatic; I lift my camera, firing off three shots through the latticed residue of salt crusted over the windows. I don't think about the legal restrictions on documenting corporate space, that this might be provocation enough to revoke the special access pass Andile loaded onto my phone for the occasion.
'They don't like that, you know,' says the guy sitting across the way from me. He doesn't look like he belongs here either, with his scruffy beard and hair plastered into wet tufts. Older than me, maybe twenty-seven, twenty-eight. He's wearing a damp neoprene surf peel, a surfboard slung casually at his feet, half blocking the aisle.
'Then I'll delete it,' I snap. It's impossible, of course. I'm using my F2, picked up cheap-cheap along with my Hasselblad at the Milnerton market during the last big outbreak, when everyone thought this was really it. It's oldschool. Film. You'd have to rip it out the back, expose it to the light. But no one's ever sharp enough to notice that it's analogue.
'Kit kat,' he says, 'I was just saying. They're sensitive round these parts. All the proprietary tech.'
'No, thanks. Really. I appreciate it.' I make a show of fiddling with the back of the camera before I shove it in my bag, trying not to think that I'm included in that definition now just as much proprietary technology.
'See you around,' he says, like it's a sure thing, standing up as the doors open with an asthmatic hiss. He's left a damp patch on the seat.
'Yeah, sure,' I say, trying to sound friendly as I step onto the station platform. But the encounter has made me edgy, reinforced just how out of place I am here. It's enough to make me duck my head as I pass the station cop at the entrance behaviour the cameras are poised to look for, not to mention the dogs. The Aito sitting alert and panting at the cop's feet spares me a glance over its snout, no more, not picking up any incriminating chem scents, no suspiciously spiked adrenalin levels or residue of police mace. His operator doesn't even bother to look at me, just waves me through the checkpoint with a cursory scan of my phone, verifying my bioID, the temporary access pass.
It's only six blocks but my pass isn't valid for walking rights, so Andile has arranged an agency car, already waiting for me on the concourse. I nearly miss it, because it's marked only by a VUKANI MEDIA licence plate. The name means 'Awake! Arise! Fight!', which makes me wonder who they're supposed to be fighting. The driver chuckles wryly when I ask her, but doesn't offer up a theory. We travel in cool professional silence.
Although my hand itches for my camera, I manage to restrain myself as we pass between the rows of filter trees lining Vukani's driveway, sucking up sunlight and the buffeting wind to power the building. You don't see filter forests much, or at least I don't. They're too expensive to maintain outside the corporate havens.
Inside, the receptionist explains that she'd love to offer me a drink, but it's not recommended just before the procedure. Would I like to have a seat? Andile will be only a minute. And would I mind checking my camera and any other recording devices? I don't have to worry about my phone: they've got app blockers in place to prevent unauthorised activity.
