Ben Ellis’ novel In A Right State has recently been shortlisted for the SFBook Book of the Year 2014. Self-published in June last year, this well-written and well-received dystopian tale is certainly one of the more unique and exciting stories of its genre from the past few years:
Your information is being sold. And guess who’s paying for it?
It’s 2066, and living in a country where big corporations are constantly undressing you with their spies isn’t much fun for Duncan. He remembers the days when information was protected, not sold to the highest bidder. When his illegal organic vegetable trade is discovered at the bottom of his garden in the town of Wigthorn, the tomatoes really hit the fan.
Amy works for Pharmara, the biggest pharmaceutical company in the UK, analysing user data. Yes, it’s as boring as it sounds but she believes a little corporate access to personal information is a small price to pay to live in a post-tax, post-carbon, post-poverty world.
After all, if you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear … right?
Poppy lives in Shaded Vale, a town rich enough to stay off the radar. Her father has some big plans to shake up the industrial power balance.
Thrown together by circumstance, Duncan, Amy and Poppy become tangled in a dangerous quest for truth with Pharmara Security hot on their heels. But if knowledge is power, how is it that those in power are such idiots?
Dystopic have been kindly provided with an excerpt of the novel that you can read below.
If you would like to get a copy of In A Right State click here to be taken to Ben Ellis’ Amazon page.
IN A RIGHT STATE
By Ben Ellis
Estelle calmly paced around the lounge of Duncan’s house, scrolling through a media display deconstructing his reading and listening material, drawing a mental picture of his family life from photographs. She walked into the garden to go through the debris left behind by the shredder; roots, pots and mangled gardening tools lay strewn about the lawn and solar panels. Estelle picked up part of a pot that still had a thick mass of soil stuck to the inside. Dropping it onto the concrete patio, she awaited the appearance of the copyright infringement.
Brightly coloured seeds could be seen against the dark brown soil, still intact and damp from having been freshly watered. Estelle pulled out a handkerchief from her handbag and slowly bent down to see these rare objects for herself, having never seen one up close. Simpler than a microchip and yet able to contain so much more than mere data, Estelle held one in the palm of her hand and closed her eyes to see if she could feel any sign of life.
What she held in her hand represented DIY food production – something that could cause a huge part of Pharmara’s sister companies to collapse, as well as threaten the superiority of the UK economy. The seed’s miraculous simplicity to reproduce and to infect hybrid seeds was reason enough for Pharmara to hunt this agricultural terrorist down and submit him to the fullest extent of Pharmara’s corporate punishment.
Estelle kept the seed in her hand to dispose of as she walked back into the house.
“Where are they, Gerard?”
Gerard looked up from the media display, where Rogers was still frantically working away. “We stopped a car and got a drone clamped to it which managed to get a brief scan before being partly disabled, but no sign of Duncan Hartley – just the car’s registered owner, Carol Ford, and another unidentified female.”
Estelle walked over to the oven. “Who’s Carol Ford?”
“No idea. She emigrated to The Florida Isles three years ago. The thing is, though, the car has disappeared. There’s no road power but it was still able to move a few hundred metres down the motorway before disappearing just here.”
Estelle turned around to view Gerard’s finger on the map. “Good.”
“Good?”
“Yes. Good.” Estelle turned back, switched on an oven hob and watched it quickly glow red-hot.
“There’re only fields surrounding a restricted iPatch sector. We can’t follow them.”
Estelle dropped the seed onto the burning surface, watching it shrivel and char, the heat corrupting its blueprints, data and replicating processes. Then she glided out the kitchen. “Gerard, get a team down here to clean this place up. We’re leaving.”
“Where to?”
“Shaded Vale.”
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