Disclosure: I received this book complimentary for review purposes. All opinions are my own.

I love a good dystopian novel. So, when I received an email from Black Spot Books’ PR person, giving me access to many of their books to review, I chose, without hesitation, The Absolved by Matthew Binder.

A dystopian novel set in the near future (2036), the story eerily foretells what the future could look like if we continued to develop technologies that replaced human occupations. In 2036, this has already happened. Through the main character Henri, we witness the consequences of our overreliance on technology, and it ain’t pretty. 

Black Spot Books is an independent small press publishing house that focuses on printing speculative fiction by US-based authors. 

MY THOUGHTS ON THE ABSOLVED
I had two reactions while reading this novel:

1 - the political dystopian world the author created is fantastic and foreboding
2 - character development is lacking in many ways. 

The way this book was written reminded me of the type of stories that make great film noir movies, such as Sin City. It’s filled with pessimism and menace about our future, yet there is still a little inkling of humanity left. 

What If Robots Actually Took Over?

“Unfortunately, there’s just no way to make a human as productive as a robot. It’s almost hard to remember now, but there was a time when a person could make a decent living doing all sorts of different things: construction worker, fireman, dog groomer. But the list of occupations that earn a livable wage is shrinking all the time”

Matthew Binder’s dystopian story is anxiety-ridden if you enjoy your freedom to do what you will with your life. At the beginning of the book, the main character, Henri, is lucky to be in one of the few occupations that haven’t been completely replaced by robots – oncology. For much of the rest of the population, they are unemployed and lost. 

This sounds like a nightmare to me that a government, though fictional, would allow and promote this. Humanity is abandoned in the novel. Without purpose, a.k.a. work, humans became unhappy and discontented. 

One group of people in the novel, known as The Futile, are the lowest of society. Before robots, they were the panhandlers of society, collecting bottles and cans to earn enough to get by. However, in the novel, they can’t even do that since robots collect recyclables and beggars are banned from the streets.

Is this a cautionary tale about the direction we’re going? I would argue yes. 

A Post-Trump World

There are some instances in the novel that hint at the current political climate in the United States and its aftermath in 2036. 

“Ten years ago, when The Wall came down, a surge of immigrants from Mexico and Central America poured across the border. Spanish is actually now the predominant language in more than fifty percent of California’s homes. And with this influx, many of the touchstones of Latin sports culture have also made their way to the States. The most welcome of these are the “sports songs” and “chants”. In perfect harmony, the entire metro is loudly singing one tune after the other. Julian knows every lyric, and sings delightful Spanish accent.”

This eerily reminds me of Donald Trump’s priority to build a wall to stop illegal immigration from Mexico. In the novel, by 2036, apparently the wall is down and Latin culture integrates with American culture. I can’t help but wonder if the author was putting a finger at Trump, or if it’s just a coincidence. 

Change Gone too Far?

Oddly, it’s not just robots replacing jobs that are threatening humanity, it’s also the ignorance and laws put in place by their own government. 

Throughout the novel, we see a competitive political climate between opposing parties, with divided support from the public. There is the party that supports the move to integrate more technology, which is unpopular with the lower public, and a party who wants to overthrow all robots. 

It’s not surprising that there is political tension. In 2036, probably to promote the new era of technology, it is illegal for humans to do any labor. 

“It’s not uncommon, in fact, for endangerment charges to be brought against any parent who exposes their child to labor, if there is so much as a modicum of danger involved”

Could you imagine? I know I wouldn’t be able to put up with a government who infringed on my life as strongly as this fictional one has. 

Despite the residents’ objections towards technology encroaching into every aspect of their lives, the government moves forward with the way they want the new world to be. 

I think the lesson here is that progress isn’t always positive, governments don’t always have their peoples interests in mind, and we need to put down our smartphones every so often to look around at the world and appreciate it. 

Lack-Luster Characters

I mentioned earlier that one of the reactions I had to The Absolved was its underwhelming characters. If anything this book should be read for the story, the dystopian world the characters are set in, and not their development. The characters fell flat in my opinion, but it didn’t ruin the book for me. 

MY RATING OF THE ABSOLVED

I gave The Absolved 3 out of 5 stars. The dystopian narrative was the best part of the novel, however, I didn’t fall in love with the characters, so it lost two stars. 

As a book published by an independent publisher, I was surprised that I enjoyed it. I don’t normally read books by authors I’ve never heard of and this book has changed my opinion on that.

I've long been fascinated by AI and the possibilities of robotics and technology of the future. Just in my lifetime, massive strides have been taken, and I can only imagine what the world will look like in another 20 or so years. I recently read "21 Lessons for the 21st Century" by Yuval Noah Harari, which is a study and look into the future of AI and the potential it has on our lives, jobs, personal lives, religions, etc. It was an incredibly interesting and anxiety-inducing read. 

"The Absolved" felt to me like Harari's book put to fiction. Matthew Binder incorporated several of the elements that Harari mentioned, such as technology diagnosing medical patients rather than human doctors, or AI creating pop hits based on the chords studies show are most pleasing to our ears. It was cool to see some of this not-so-future world put into story-form. I just wish I had liked the main character at all. 

Henri's a butt, plain and simple. His attitude about his marriage and his opinions on fidelity were pretty shady if I'm being honest. He claims that the dalliances that he has with other women strength his marital bond and renews his fidelity. Excuse me? If it renewed your fidelity so much, then why do you still feel the need to cheat on your wife?

I'm very a-sympathetic toward characters that are terrible or have affairs, so it was difficult to me to become invested or care about Henri at all. Simple as that. 

An interesting look into a possible future, but the unflattering main character was a big blow.

Matthew Binder deserves a lot of credit for what he has attempted to do with The Absolved. Like any good piece of speculative fiction, even though it takes place in the future (the near future), it is really more about what is happening today. And what is happening today is that we have an unlikely autocrat elected to the highest office in the land on the strength of a working class that feels it has been left behind by the socio-economic elite.

Using social satire and dark comedy, Binder envisions a near future where automation renders much of the population unemployed and unemployable, "absolved" of having to work by a government that then ensures that they have basic income, health care and the like -- everything except any sense of pride, self-respect, or self-fulfillment. Meanwhile, those that are still employed, like our main character Henri, an oncologist, and his boss Serena, a billionaire CEO, are privileged and wealthy beyond belief -- except that they too lack any sense of self-respect and are so bored out of their minds that they have nothing better to do than sleep around.

There are two problems, however, with Binder's dystopian vision, one just a minor quibble possibly unique to me, the other a major obstacle to anyone and everyone, at least according to some of the other reviews I've read. This big issue is that every character, especially Henri, is (in a word) detestable. I get that that's exactly the point, that Henri is so privileged and bored that he is, uh, detestable. But since we're in his head in the first-person present-tense, we have to live his detestable life in our mind's narration. That's difficult, it's not very much fun, it's a good reason to give up on this book in the early going.

I read it all the way through, since I agreed to do review it in exchange for the advance reader's copy I got from NetGalley. I'm glad I did, because it does get better, and it does come together -- although it comes together just barely, as there is in reality very little going on from start to finish other than Henri slowly and gradually bumbling his way out of his cushy life and into the life of the absolved. The ending is far-fetched (except in one important respect that reflects our present reality), but is nevertheless in line with the social satire.

The other problem that may be unique to me is that I've read this book before -- a dark satire of a world where automation has rendered the working class obsolete, segregated into their own slums and brimming with dissatisfaction and eventually rebellion, while the rich privileged class live a life of luxury in a world of their own, where the main character loses his life of privilege (and his beautiful wife) and joins the working class revolt. It's called Player Piano, and it was written by one Kurt Vonnegut in the 1950s -- I just reread it a few months ago. Kudos to Binder for trying, but that's too much for anyone to live up to.

There is an unexpected upside to the Player Piano parallel. Some of what Vonnegut was satirizing 60+ years ago has come to pass -- mainly, the economic inequalities that have wracked our nation for its entire history -- but not to the calamitous degree he envisioned. Vonnegut could not foresee that Luddite jobs rendered obsolete by industrial automation would be replaced by more rewarding tech jobs, and so we don't have large swaths of idle, rebellious working folks (only small pockets, which is a persistent problem, but on a much different scale).

Similarly, Binder's vision fails to imagine what may rise to take the place of jobs that may be rendered obsolete by robotics and AI. History teaches us that something always replaces the obsolete -- no one is mourning all the Kodak employees who became obsolete due to phone-based digital photography or the toll booth employees sidelined by EZPass, etc. (somehow, only coal workers, doing one of the most difficult and dangerous jobs ever, are lamented, but that's strictly political).

Especially since Binder's world has been ravaged by global warming (as may be our own). Notwithstanding that he doesn't delve into this problem as much as he attacks income inequality, what he really misses out on is that global warming will increasingly drive job creation as its effects increasingly require mitigation. In the world he envisions, especially in the United States, people are never going to be absolved of the need to work when there is that much work to be done just in combating global warming.

So there you see the virtue of The Absolved, it definitely gets you thinking about these issues. But having to get through the mind of an awful character like Henri is going to turn people off. I admire Binder for focusing his world-building and social satire through the lens of character -- unfortunately, the nature of his character makes that really difficult to take.

I kind of feel like this was a well written novel about a robotic dystopian society that just kind of flew over my head. The characters seemed well developed but I had a hard time really connecting and caring about the outcome of this story.

It's not difficult to imagine the premise of The Absolved coming true. A world where most jobs are performed by robots. If you lose your job, you are absolved. This is the story of an oncologist with a job. The story revolves around the premise that robots will eventually rule the world. It's a convincing argument. A good read overall. Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

The Absolved is a dystopian novel set in 2036, when most jobs are done by robots, and the unemployed are described as 'The Absolved' - a fate that most try and fail to avoid. Henri, the main character, is an oncologist who is one of the few lucky people to still have a job. The novel follows the lead-up to an election, as tensions between robots and humans continue to escalate. The Absolved serves as a cautionary tale of the reliance on technology and a darkly funny satire of a not unimaginable and not so distant future. I enjoyed reading it!

This is a dystopian novel with an interesting premise that unfortunately was not working for me. While the concept, a world almost totally taken over by robots and the digital world - and people fighting back against the growing unemployment of actual humans, was a good one, I felt almost no connection to this plot or the characters. The novel did not add anything new to this familiar story of our future, and in terms of suspense, that did not do much: the goodreads summary of this book describes 90% of it already. And the rest, the ending, seemed rushed and incomprehensible. I liked the writing style well enough, especially the creative description of quite a number of new inventions and ideas about the development of the world. But I think this novel would have profited from starting in a different place and prioritizing different things.

In 2036 automation has made most jobs redundant. Henri is a cancer physician and one of the few left who have a job. Most people are paid not to work. They are ‘The Absolved’.

Sounds pretty good in theory, right? This is the ‘universal basic income’ argument – it’s fine to automate more and more jobs and put more people out of work so long as they still have enough money to get by. It’s just like a lifelong holiday.

In practice, it can be thoroughly dehumanising.

The Absolved has all the ingredients you’d expect of a future dystopia – increased automation, record high temperatures, almost non existent rainfall forcing use of desalination plants, which has driven up water prices. But instead of spending time with the depressing dystopia, we get to hang out with Henri and the other successful (though morally void) world of the 1 per cent.

The whole book feels like a really big ‘F%&# you’ to 2018’s denial of climate change and increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence. It has a similar feel to American Psycho‘s chilling indictment of the 1980s yuppie’s obsession with wealth, though without the horrific violence.

Henri is very immature, almost childlike, following his desires from home to an affair to the nearest bar. His job as a cancer physician is so prescribed and automated it requires little innovation from him. Although as the narrative progresses you get the feeling that, in a different context, he might have turned out to be a different kind of person. Then again, couldn’t the same be said of all of us?

His friend, Serena, is the ultimate anti-empath, focused solely on the bottom dollar and happy to fire entire hospital departments once she can automate their tasks. Society considers her massively successful.

Henri’s musings on prioritising cost-cutting over caring should have anyone working in a large bureaucracy doing a little fist pump in solidarity:

‘When I became a doctor, I harbored grand notions about what a difference I’d make, and all of the people I’d help, and all of the generous contributions I’d bestow on the world. But the truth is, the benevolence gets quickly overshadowed by the stress, the hardship, the heartbreak, and most of all the bureaucracy. It’s hard to fathom the hours I’ve wasted in meetings, discussing cost-saving efforts, tedious administrative requirements, and ways to improve organizational efficiency. I’d estimate that as much as half a doctor’s time is spent occupied with this type of work rather than with patients. And now I can’t even remember this person I managed to save.’

Can automation and AI go too far?

In The Absolved, embeddable tech is government subsidised. Every child is fitted with a ‘gram’ (short for hologram), inserted into the finger. At any time you can create a hologram screen and access anything you want. It’s basically a smartphone that you never lose and never runs out of data.

AI has progressed to the point where even music is written by algorithms:

“The machines are superior to man in almost every way imaginable,” she once said. “Why else would we have turned over all of life’s most important functions to them?”

And yet, nobody seems particularly bothered. It all sounds rather horribly familiar:

“Our increasing technological advances have driven greater and greater inequality. For decades, this didn’t seem to bother the politicians. Just as long as the overall economy kept growing, they didn’t care who was benefiting.”

Would a universal basic income solve all our problems?

No, not if you believe the future that might be waiting for us as presented in The Absolved.

Simply paying people a subsistence wage without expecting anything in return fails to provide any sort of purpose or sense of achievement. Just existing is not enough. Which in itself struck me as odd – surely we’re the only animal species on the earth for whom survival is not an achievement in and of itself?

Book club bonus

If you’re reading this for a book club, consider discussing this passage:

‘… humanity has lost a great deal from its abandonment of physical work. Even in today’s factories, workers no longer build anything. They only service the machines and software that do. Yet there is dignity in making things with your hands that will never be found in more cerebral work.’

This book is a look at where we could be headed in the near future. Most people have lost their jobs to robots. These people are referred to as The Absolved. Once they have been declared Absolved it is almost impossible to find employment again. 

While the book is well written, I had a hard time getting through it. I really couldn't stand the main character, Henri. I just could not muster up any feeling for him. He is an oncologist with a beautiful wife and son and a girlfriend on the side. The women in the story are very one sided.  I felt no connection to any of the characters, which made this a hard read for me.

While not for me, I could see how those who like darkly funny satire could enjoy this book. 

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of this book.

THE ABSOLVED, by Matthew Binder, follows Henri, an oncologist, in near future dystopia where automation is overwhelming the world, particularly on the labor front.  Most people live as the Absolved class of people, where jobs they can do are obsolete and they are given a government-issued income that is enough to survive on but leaving them aimless and unmotivated to do much of anything.  Henri is among the elite, he still has a job, and one that pays well.  He lives the decadent life, but as the book progresses, Henri come to find out there is more to life that money, power, and status.
    Binder has created a world that is a plausible (although 2036 is a little sooner than I would think) reality that society will have to struggle with.  Binder tackles issues of class, political division, automation vs humanity, amongst others and provides a thought-provoking look at where our world could be in the future.  Using a heavily flawed elite member of this world was a shift from most dystopian novels, where the reader is attached to mostly the struggling class, and I found it refreshingly different.  Henri, protagonist of the book, was hard to relate to though.  Several times, I found myself thinking that I was supposed to feel sorry for him or agree with his travels toward his internal truths, but I just didn't find him likable enough.  It didn't seem like he loved much of anything and resented almost everything.  And maybe that's what Binder is hinting at, that if we are not careful, humanity's passion for life will be squashed too.
    Binder's commentary on society is strong and clear and at the same leaves the reader wondering what they would want to see our society become.  I enjoyed THE ABSOLVED and I am interested in reading Binder's other work.

A clever and thought provoking character study set in a not so distant future, both chronologically  and in terms of how technology is developing. 
The year is 2036, only a few, more crucial, skilled jobs remain in human hands, technology takes care of the rest. The Absolved of the title make up the majority of the population, living in enforced idleness, and being paid to do  so., but we follow the story of Henri , an oncologist, wealthy, unfaithful to his wife and generally a pretty smug and unlikeable guy.  The first half of the book is spent introducing us to his world, his wife and son, his mistress, his work colleagues and even the patrons and staff at a bar he likes to frequent. When  it becomes apparent that  his job is no longer safe, and he becomes one of the Absolved, his life starts to lose all meaning, Soon he is drawn into a plan to buy his old drinking hole, but all is not as it seems, and he soon finds that he is the scapegoat for a terrorist attack that changes the political face of the country, and seems likely to bring them back to a pre technology age. 
It is strange to be enthralled by such an unlikeable man as Henri and yet I found myself turning page after page , eager to see what would happen next. I loved how the author presented Henri's world , and found his descriptions of what the future may hold , to be both believable and terrifying. 
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

Thankyou to NetGalley, Black Spot Books and the author, Matthew Binder, for the opportunity to read an advanced readers copy of The Absolved in exchange for an honest, unbiased opinion.
I thought this book was well written. I was intrigued from the beginning. definitely an author I would read again.

The Absolved by Matthew Binder is set in a new too distant future where technology has taken over so much of our lives, that most of society has no reason to work. It's upon this backdrop that the book's protagonist, an oncologist, tries to figure out his place in the world and what he wants for himself and his family.

I received a pre-publication copy of this book for review purposes. Overall, I enjoyed the book. Although the plot is linear, I had no idea where the book was going at any given time. When I look at where the book started and where the book ended, I definitely wouldn't have guessed where the author was heading. I enjoyed the majority of the book, but I do think the ending was a bit awkward and seemed to come almost out of left field (don't worry, no spoilers). 

As far as writing, I found the book well written. I definitely think this book is a good read and would encourage it for anyone who likes reading about dystopian futures that are eerily way too close to where things could actually be heading.

In the year 2036, self driving cars have replaced manual cars. It is the law. When Henri's car hits a streetlight, his insurance company faults him, until it is proven that the accident happened due to his software failing to properly update. Welcome to a techno dystopian world twenty years from now! Henri, our narrator, lives in a world where pens and paper are passe. Open your hologram, interact with society.

So many things are rapidly changing. Most decisions are based on Algorithms and Artificial Intelligence. Ask Henri, a prominent oncologist, an elitist among the top 1% wage earners. His boss Serena has written an algorithm she hopes will quantify the value of human life. (Human Life Valuation Tool) If medical decisions are made subjectively, not compassionately, spending will be cut saving trillions of dollars.

A new jobless social class, The Absolved, is exponentially growing. These members of society, unable to contribute to a high-tech work force, are provided with "Basic Income" that barely covers the cost of food, low income housing and healthcare. Self esteem is at an all time low and boredom is rampant. No wonder a Progressive group called the Luddites shout "Death to the Machines!" "Turn back the Hands of Time!"

Henri, a philanderer, as well as the other players in this tome of speculative fiction are unlikable wheeler dealers. The concept of displacement, one's livelihood usurped by robots and teaching machines, is very unsettling. Machine learning algorithms, rewriting themselves continually, can and do make mistakes as in the case of Henri's car accident. Henri was accused of making a modification to his car, a punishable felony when in fact, the incident was the result of a software glitch.

"The Absolved" by Matthew Binder was an uncomfortable read populated by underdeveloped, despicable characters. There are those readers who might find the novel to be darkly funny, but, this reader did not see much humor in this futuristic work.

Thank you Black Spot Books and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "The Absolved".

I had a realization while reading this book: I hate reading about stupid characters. I can handle unlikable or flawed, which certainly both apply to The Absolved's Henri, but his sexism, egotism, and most of all his stupidity made this book an unpleasant read. Unnatural dialogue, unnecessary crudity, and an unfocused plot did the rest of the work.

I honestly had a lot of problems with the book. I felt at times it was almost trying to be an overt satire, but it didn't quite reach that level. The timeframe felt wrong to me - Henri was born in 1990, which means he would be 28 years old *now*, and his description of his childhood/young adult experiences didn't ring true. I had a sense of the author saying "Look what I can do!" every time another facet of society was revealed, showing how quirks of our current culture were taken to the extreme. But it wasn't realistic to me. A really good near-future dystopia should scare me when thinking how close we could be. This book didn't rise to the challenge.

I decided to review this book because I enjoy reading science fiction, and it's a useful way to get exposed to the technology driven changes that await society. The book was a fantastic read on both counts. The book is also hilarious, something that I wasn't expecting when I started reading it. The author does a masterful job of using humor to shed light on human strengths and weaknesses, and a number of important dilemmas that are posed by important technological trends.

Book takes place in near future in San Fransico area.  Henri, is a doctor and is part of the one percent of population working.  Since he is working, he has access to everything society has to offer.  The rest of people, The Absolved, receive an allowance to live on.  The Absolved live a dreary life.    Robots have taken over almost all jobs.  Henri, is then like the Twilight Zone episode, declared obsolete.  He becomes Absolved.  And the story changes...  It's a well written book.

The Absolved extrapolates society's current advances in automation to a dystopian future where the eponymous Absolved are a class of workers whose jobs were replaced by robots and are granted Universal Basic Income. Binder builds a world filled with detail that reads like a more cynical version of Mike Judge's Idiocracy.

While the details filling this speculative fiction are rich and plentiful, Binder's protagonist is, well, a bit of a miserable piece of crap. Henri is an egomaniac physician with a bored wife, hot goth mistress, and a spoiled son. Most of the dramatis personae similarly reflect the devolution of character that accompanies the boredom, obscene wealth and dilettanteism in Binder's technofuture. Henri's point of view, told through matter of fact narration, nods to Bret Easton Ellis's Patrick Bateman - if Bateman's only crimes were adultery and tax evasion. He's a hard to root for character in an interesting thought experiment about where we could be going, technologically speaking.

The difficult thing about writing anything scifi is explaining the rules of the game and how things work. That said, I wanted more show and less tell spelling out the realities of Binder's brave new world. I pushed through to the second quarter of the book and it picked up from there.

When I started reading this novel, I was not sure if I wouldn’t stop reading it after a few pages. I'm not fond of serial philanderers or men who hang out all the time in bars, rather than looking after their family while claiming that they love it immensely. And this is precisely the portrait that the author gives us of Henri, his MC and a wealthy physician, one of the exceptions who still have a job.

But that was before I realized that this novel is a social criticism in the form of a techno-dystopia. His MC’s flaws are intentional. They mirror those of humankind. The author anticipates that, if we go on as we started, there will soon be only the machines that will work (automation, artificial intelligence and other technological advancements) and most of us, humans, will have become the Absolved, those who aren’t forced to work because we'd be absolved of the citizen duty to contribute to the nation's wealth and well-being, but who are consequently idle, poor and without a sense of purpose and personal fulfillment.

This novel reminded me a little of The Matrix, as in both stories the human species become entirely dependent on the Machine (computers, robots, etc.) to cater to all its needs and that only a few people are sufficiently conscious to understand that their "leisure society" is actually a society of depressive slaves, “victims to boredom and vice”, as predicts Binder.

The author presents us with a funny version of the last American election; a candidate from a radical fringe party called the Luddites is calling for an end to the “Divine Rights of Machines.” And most of the Absolved thus believe to elect a savior, who will go back to old values and provide them with jobs, wealth and happiness.

Meanwhile, two Luddite sympathizers, whom Henri has befriended at his local bar, frame him for an anti-technology terrorist act. The prospect of Henri’s salvation comes at the cost of foregoing his guiding principles in life: not to rebel against the machine and risk to lose his job. He is then given the opportunity to become a hero or villain. And it's where the funny, fast-paced action starts.

Henri hopes that this new vision for the world will prove better than the technological advancements that, paradoxically, led humanity to its decline.

As Binder said, “The Absolved doesn’t purport to provide answers, only to detail the unsustainability of a system that does not work for the majority of the people it serves.”

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC of this book.

Thank you for this early copy!

I would recommend this to anyone who loves a well-written science fiction novel. I will be checking out more from this author in the future!