Joanna Kavenna’s Zed was a satirical and Orwellian look at what the future might be, If we give in to the posturing of large corporations. Already they control so much of our lives, and this warns us not to let it go too far. The story begins through the eyes of a police officer whose job is to be the liaison between Beetle and the police (representing the government). As the book goes on, she opens her eyes and fights back against unfair decisions she sees AI’s make, killing people whose murders are again and again ruled human error. Can it be a mistake that all of them are Beetles enemies?

This book’s voice is very philosophical, focusing on rebellion from society and how although Beetle says they ‘can’ opt out of using their tech, working a Beetle job, or any other aspect of society controlled by Beetle (or their many, many, spin offs), ultimately they have no choice unless they want to be put into prison or not earn any money. A part of this reminds me of the movie “Minority Review”, where people are arrested before they have even committed the crime. However, Beetle is even more corrupt than that, and begins using the system to put away people who disagree with them. Who will take this society down?

But as the gap between perfection and reality widens, and errors start happening more and more frequently to beetle AI’s, they cannot pass each case off as human error anymore, and this data gap is named Zed.

Zed is hilarious, beautiful read thats variance in point of views lends itself many insights and intricacies. I urge you to read it, as we might not be in a ‘big brother’ situation quite yet, but this is an appropriate reminder that in the age of technology, there needs to be limits on what can be controlled.

ARC via NetGalley. Zed is being published by Doubleday books and will be released on January 14, 2020.

The topics covered in this novel are very timely and deserve exposure and thought. Most people aren't aware of how curated their information they consume on a daily basis is. Taken to the logical extreme in this novel illustrates the danger of when we let corporations and governments merge into one, giving them too much power on deciding how their populace should conduct themselves.
However, I do feel that the writing style detracted from conveying the messages and themes overall. I realize that the flippant/glib style lightens the tone of the message into a type of satire, but it seemed to distance itself from the reader.

This was a DNF at around 23%. I enjoyed the writing style and the thought of a totally enterprise controlled society is intriguing, very Orwellian, but the pace was very slow, I was lost most of the time, and while I enjoyed some of the characters, they didn't stand out enough for me to continue with the story.

Joanna Kavenna’s Zed is a pitch-dark comedy about an Orwellian future where Big Brother is not only watching but controls every aspect of society. Imagine if Google merged with the NSA, CIA, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple, as well as owned almost every media channel and newspaper in the country. This is Beetle. Everything is constantly filmed, everyone is forced to wear a smartwatch that keeps telling you what to do, your refrigerator tries to control what you eat, and personal assistants called Veeps–an A.I. comparable to a super-advanced Alexa--monitors you and reports everything to Beetle. The dominant form of money is a cryptocurrency created and maintained by Beetle, and around 90% of the population works for the company, or a subsidiary of it. If something negative were to befall the company, then the public would never hear about it. Why? Well, it would be a matter of national security, as the issue would have to be first treated as a potential terrorist threat. And the good of society must come first, of course! Keep in mind, there’s freedom of choice. This is a free society, after all. No one is forced use Beetle’s technology. It’s just that if they didn't use Beetle tech, they would be labeled "unverified," so they wouldn’t have access to any Beetle jobs. Or transportation. Or money. But its their choice!

Nightmarish, right? That’s not the worst part. The company has developed something called a lifechain, which is series of algorithms that predicts all possibilities of what a person might do on any given day. Probabilities are calculated with these lifechains and they are so accurate that Beetle has been able to influence the government to enact a law to “pre-arrest” someone before they commit a crime. The lifechain says they’re going to, so why wait until they do it? This saves everyone lots of time and grief! (This theme also appears in Philip K Dick’s short story, “Minority Report.”) Beetle has also invented ANT’s, which are headless droids, armed with guns, who are perfectly programmed to arrest and secure their targets, and in no way can anything go wrong, since lifechains and Beetle’s AI are perfect. What a perfect society! Guy Matthias, the head of Beetle, just keeps making society better and better! Citizen’s faces have become completely blank over the years so as not to express any kind of feeling in front of cameras or machines, and Guy is so proud that citizens are now able to live in a society without offending anyone!

But, what’s this? Something starts to go wrong. The lifechain seems to have some errors. People commit horrible crimes without the lifechain predicting them. ANT’s start shooting innocents without provocation. Since the AI’s and lifechains are perfectly programmed, then it all must be attributed to human error, of course. Despite Beetle’s efforts, this error gap between perfection and reality starts to widen. This gap is called Zed, named after the last letter of the alphabet, representing all things that don’t quite fit within every paradigm. Undefinable, unquantifiable things, things that shouldn’t be. And Zed keeps getting bigger.

Kavenna’s wry wit shines throughout the story; the humor is both sharp and depressing as it feels like some form of this future isn’t far off from becoming a reality. We view this society through the lens of several different characters: the head of Beetle, the nervous lackey, a tech-hating employee who sees through all the bullshit, a top newspaper reporter, a protesting citizen, and various A.I. Veeps. One of the most humorous and depressingly real scenarios is the adoption of something called Bespoke. Guy Matthias, the head of Beetle, was once part of a conversation where someone much smarter than him was using words that he didn’t understand. In response, he now wants to make communication simple enough for everyone to understand, so he invents a system that dumbs down vocabulary into fewer phrases to make it easier for everyone to communicate. It’s hilarious and frightening and hits too close for comfort.

Zed is a satirical comedy of errors, hilarious and poignant and horrifyingly relevant. It is an extreme example of the direction our larger companies, government, and privacy laws are headed, and if left unchecked, it could lead to some form what this book portrays. Even if you just take this story at face value, it is still an entertaining, intelligent, and thoughtful read.

ARC via NetGalley. Zed is being published by Doubleday Books and will be released on January 14, 2020.