Docile

by K M Szpara

[jamiereadthis]

So many thoughts. So many ways this could have fulfilled its potential. So many questions where I go, “Wait, but… WHY?”

The worldbuilding is a half-baked thing after the feast of Ada Palmer. It’s your standard-issue made-to-order near-future dystopia with no sense of history or larger context, or even logic within its own world. It’s like our world… but it’s not. Cool tech is just there to be cool or fill plot holes.* Elisha is all enlightened about BDSM and polyamory but doesn’t know what “giving head” is at 21 years old. His IQ (or experience?) changes, I can only presume, based on what a scene needs because there’s no consistent indication of what’s changed in this world. He doesn’t know what a plaintiff is— why? This actually has bearing on the story. Because he’s brainwashed? Because he’s undereducated? Because he’s dirt poor, even as he’s supposed to be exceptionally smart? Is he actually exceptionally dumb? How far in the future is this world? Is that word unheard of for the lowest classes because of generations of oppression— which is a stretch to erase the concept itself. Yet there’s still your standard bureaucracy in place and news radio and billboards on the highway and EDM and preppy clothes are the hot trends? How? Why? WTF?

It doesn’t even discuss slavery in regards to slavery. In Maryland, of all places. (Why Maryland? Why Baltimore? To say Preakness a lot? How is the city so white?)** It mentions Rome once, but only to donate the word “nexus” to the concept of indentured servitude. What makes debtor’s prison the worse option? What are the laws in other states? How enforced are state lines? If this is all enacted at the state level, what keeps people from moving elsewhere? What happens at the federal level? What happens in other countries? Would there be a mass exodus, or would there be an influx to Maryland for those who want Dociline? (It is a drug, after all. Is there a black market? How do you not ask this in Baltimore?) If there’s perfect racial and gender equality— there’s no mention of race except for descriptions of (minor) characters; ditto gender, and sex is all very inclusive— then how did this society achieve unprecedented social progress yet remain complacent with persecuting extreme economic inequality? How is one group, funded in secret by one guy— employed by the “bad guys,” no less— the only form of opposition? How do they— Bishop Labs, or Alex himself— not even think to look for other potential victims like Elisha’s mother, if only to cover the scandal up? The list goes on, and on and on. For a short story, or for fanfic, you could paint in broad strokes. For a 500-page novel, it begs for solid worldbuilding so the actions add up.

I think that’s the thing; Szpara doesn’t have to have those answers. It could be fluffy fic or do one dynamic well. But either Szpara or the marketing team have positioned Docile to take these big issues seriously. Okay then. Capitalism. Slavery. Debt crisis. Class warfare. It NEEDS the context. There should be major waves rocking this world, and instead it’s a very self-centered story that wants Alex,*** the ‘trillionaire,’ to wake up to the fact there’s a larger world out there, but then defeats its own purpose by ignoring the world beyond his and Elisha’s small circle. And what is within that circle is often nonsensical.

The potential is there. I wanted to see it unlocked. Characters to invest in, concepts to tackle, boundaries to push. Instead, it’s a pretty stock parable with predictable politics and a few sex scenes that forfeit most of their power because the characters are blank slates.

More dialogue about exploitation, agency, consumerism, power— that’s always a good thing. But this book doesn’t push nearly as hard at the system as it thinks it does. Tiffany Reisz, C.S. Pacat, Ada Palmer;**** the examples are plenty of what can be done with sex, power, and politics. Tochi Onyebuchi or P. Djeli Clark for the battle cry a well-built dystopia can be. I hate to say it, because I wanted another smart, complex book to rock my worldview, but the real questions here are the ones the book ducks.

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*Physical objects can materialize out of a glass “smart table” but you still need a doorman or laundromat to call a car or wash clothes? Why is the doorman a job, not a drone, if businesses can own Dociles? If smart phones are stuck to the roof of your mouth (!!), how does that not affect everything, not just the fact that Elisha accidentally calls Alex when he’s going to kill himself?

**I lived in Baltimore briefly; it’s unrecognizable.

***I kept picturing Alex as Pete on Mad Men, so yeah, not great, Bob, but I’m sticking with it because not enough evidence to confirm or disprove.

****I did the unwise thing of switching last night to my re-read of Too Like The Lightning, the scene at Ganymede’s party where Sniper gets introduced. The worldbuilding packed into those few pages was not the contrast I needed. Cry-laugh emoji. Distraught face emoji. Heart-heart.