May 22, 2019
Note: I rarely write book reviews, but activist writer Derek Cressman has written a novel which so speaks to me as it portrays a future born of today's media manipulations. Find it at Amazon.
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Derek Cressman’s REALITY ™ 2048 is a modern day horror tale disguised as a
futuristic thriller.
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Cressman’s novel is written in the same vein as George
Orwell’s 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty Four, but by the time the calendar turned
to 1984, little of what Orwell predicted actually existed.
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REALITY ™ 2048, on the other hand, offers an entirely
realistic dystopian future which projects just past modern day headlines to a
society brainwashed by corporate/ government propaganda which has traded
security for freedom. It chillingly takes us into post-nuclear Los Angeles, but
is at core an indictment of modern day media manipulation and indoctrination.
Vera works for Globalia’s Department of Information as a
researcher tasked with condensing complex history lessons into 20 words or
less; accuracy is demanded, but she finds truth is often lost. As a member of
the Establishment, her brain has been chipped with MyndScreen virtual reality
and apps with familiar names like Noodle and Chatter. She has rare intellectual
curiosity, but is aware her mind is constantly data mined and if she delves too
deeply into truths, she will leave metadata tracks to follow. If caught, they will upgrade her brain chip, and
34 year old Vera will retire well cared for in a home but brainfed a 24-7 diet
of Gladiators or Big Mother reality shows, unable to turn off the channel.
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Still, in a world that tells her “Advertising Frees Speech,”
she yearns for the Pre-Globalian principle of real free speech, so finds ways
to trick the data collectors so she can freely research. She falls in love with
Chase, a kindred spirit who takes her on outings to rural areas beyond metadata
reach and frees her mind – and body - for the first time.
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Vera is so changed she talks Chase in to risking it all to
join the underground group the Sisterhood to overthrow the mind numbing
Establishment. She says, “we are so inundated with episodes and jingles and ads
and facts and flavors and gladiators and chatter and news programs and
celebrities and lies and fashion and music and even the truth that we have lost
the capacity to think for ourselves. It’s not so much that we want to join the Sisterhood, but that we
need to.”
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The Sisterhood teaches them the ignored history of nuclear
war and all that had occurred since the 20th century to create the culture
of 2048.
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What happens next is breathtaking and entirely
unpredictable… or then again, perhaps it is the only possible outcome.
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The ultimate question Cressman asks is what happens if
people know they are misled but they just don’t care? As one character says, “A
fact is a fact. They have nothing to do with reality.”
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Especially when Reality is trademarked.
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Derek Cressman’s REALITY ™ 2048 is a novel of great consequence, one from which
I will not easily escape.
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