Three Days Breathing, by Mike Maguire.
I received a free copy of this audio book in
exchange for an honest review.
This was a very good book. I really enjoyed this
novel. With how the novel is structured, following Corim, it allows you to be
submerged in the society and see how it is completely accepted, which is a
breath of fresh air when compared to other post-apocalypse novels as the
society generally has a feeling of resentment and longing to change.
It follows the life of Corim, a member of the
General Order. The General Order is the lowest rung of the social order. Corim
is an inquisitive person, inherited from his father, which leads him to
question the system they are in; why are there more men in the General Order
than women? Why do people have to expire at specific ages? (Men at thirty six,
women at thirty seven) Why are couples only allowed one child?
Corim enters school at age eight, and at age
thirteen his class is introduced to the soft rooms, and taught how to have sex.
Those who are the best at this are invited to brothel interviews. Being invited
to work at a brothel is seen as one of the highest honours in the General Order
as they received better wages and can afford better food and clothes. Corim’s
wife Kiri, after finishing school, becomes a brothel worker while Corim becomes
a system architect, a job which just makes me think of Tetris, as they just
have to move coloured blocks around a screen.
The plot only really kicks off halfway through the
novel, as Kiri is murdered on the job by a member of the Administrative Order,
which is a rung higher than the General Order. The Administrative Order is
allowed to live to 85. Kiri is given the choice to let her murderer off and be
given back her full life span (the bots within the General Order are capable of
returning murder victims to life for three days) or to die at the end of the
three days and possibly convict.
As a consequence of the trial, Corim is able to
discover the secrets of the system. Corim, his best friend Raf and his son Ian,
break out of the area allowed for the General Order, setting off for an area
that allows them to break free of the influence of the bots within the General
Order before breaking back into the General Order and attempting to lead people
away from the system. While they are able to coerce a few people into joining
them, the vast majority of people they talk to cannot be convince and do not
want to break out of the system.
I felt very conflicted regarding the ending, as on
one hand, I wanted them to lead people away and break the General Order and
stop the highest rank from manipulating those lower and using them as almost
reality TV (I imagined it much like a series of Big Brother, only for the
entire life of the General Order), but on the other hand, the ending felt very
much in line with the direction of the novel. Throughout the novel, not many
people question the system, and the ending very much reflects that. It felt
very insidious the way that it was just accepted and nobody really cared about
changing the system.
I also felt conflicted regarding Ian, Corim and
Kiri’s son. Because the novel revolves around Corim, and unlike Kiri and Raf
who were there from the beginning of the novel, Ian is born halfway through the
novel and I feel he’s somewhat of a non-entity, used more as a plot device for
Corim more than a character in his own right.
Rating = 4 / 5 stars.
