Book Review: Cash Crash Jubilee by Eli K. P. William

A review copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Cash Crash Jubilee by Eli K. P. William

Genre: Science Fiction

Series: Book 1 of The Jubilee Cycle

Publisher: Talos (May 5, 2015)

Author Information: Website | Twitter

Mogsy’s Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Imagine living in an ultra-high-tech society, so deeply ingrained in virtual reality and cyberspace that all the actions you make are logged and billed for. Every time you blink, breathe a sigh, shout a swear word, grit your teeth, kiss a loved one, or even just relax in a resting position of your choice – all that information is being recorded into the BodyBank, a computer system implanted in each of our bodies. All your movements are monitored in real time, so that the corporations who own the rights to those actions – whether it be as simple as scratching your head or as intimate as sexual intercourse – can be paid their licensing fees.

Oh, and it’s a perfect process, completely automated and indefatigable, and it doesn’t make mistakes. So don’t even think about cheating the system. You can’t.

Just as you’d expect, living in a world like this ain’t cheap. People go bankrupt or “cash crash” every day, caught unawares by their expensive habits or finding themselves overwhelmed by the incurring charges on everyday actions, i.e. by simply just living. Before that can even happen though, Liquidators like our protagonist Amon Kenzaki are already waiting in the wings, ready to swoop down and capture these “discreditable” citizens, take out their BodyBank, and banish them to BankDeath Camps where they are forever removed from the economy and disconnected from the ImmaNet, a three-dimensional audio-visual overlay that would normally replace our perceptions of the mundane world.

Your life is virtually over if you cash crash, basically.

As someone who knows better than most exactly how this system works, Amon himself lives an extraordinarily frugal life. He scrimps and saves in whatever ways he can, typing messages in nigh indecipherable script so that he doesn’t get charged for using licensed words, even going as far as taking instructional courses on how to blink less or breathe less. His attention to details does not go unnoticed by his superiors, who inform Amon that he is being considered for a promotion. Everything is going well, until one day, Amon notices an incredibly expensive charge called “jubilee” on his BodyBank account, an action he is completely unfamiliar with and is sure he did not perform. But how could this be? After all, the system doesn’t make mistakes.

Right?

The whole story behind Cash Crash Jubilee could almost be humorous if it weren’t also so damn scary. Eli K. P. William does a fantastic job here creating his vision of a futuristic Tokyo, a cyber-dystopian society at its most extreme. Apparently it’s not enough just to watch our every move, but they’ve found a way to make it profitable too. Everyone is so obsessed with technology and corporate branding that almost every shred of humanity and emotion has gone out the window. The concept of Free Will has been distorted, for it is not free will at all if you have to think and calculate the cost of every action before deciding to perform it.

On the other hand, might it be possible to find a sliver of a positive side to this gloomy situation? Citizens are probably less likely to do and say things they would regret, if they have to stop to think twice before actually doing it, versus simply acting on impulse. How many wayward spouses might we see, for example, if a pre-nup in your BodyBank authorizes an automatic and immediate transfer of half or all of your funds to your other half the moment you commit infidelity?

Yeah, probably not a lot, is my guess.

Cash Crash Jubilee is utterly fascinating, from cover to cover. The premise is disconcerting, with details that sometimes bordered on the absurd, but it did make me think. Nothing delights me more than a book that gets my brain juices flowing, and I could even overlook the slow introduction to this story, simply because I found myself so completely absorbed in the sights and sounds of William’s dystopic Tokyo. It’s a trove of insanity and wonder, all in one place.

You might also recall a while ago in another review, I wrote about my feelings on cyberpunk. As a subgenre of sci-fi, I’ve definitely experienced more misses than hits when it comes to recent offerings. When I looked at Cash Crash Jubilee though, I saw a very different kind of cyberpunk. The author uses a lot of familiar elements in this story, but the way he rendered the ideas made them unique and stand out. And rather than going through my usual mental gymnastics trying to piece together all the abstract concepts commonly found in this genre, I found William’s descriptions of the ImmaNet overlays extremely intricate and detailed, but at the same time also very easy to visualize. The mystery plot was genuinely interesting, with the suspense and action in all the right places.

In short? This one scored a major hit in my books. It deserves a lot more attention, let’s hope it gets it.

All told, Cash Crash Jubilee is an eye-opening, eyebrow-raising, grip-the-edge-of-your-seat read. Good thing I don’t live in Amon Kenzaki’s world, because if I had been charged for all the times I performed those actions, pretty sure I’d be bankrupt many times over by now.