Somehow I have missed out on reading Erika Swyler‘s short fiction and her two previous novels, The Book of Speculation and Light from Other Stars. So I came fresh to her new book (being released Jan. 14), We Lived on the Horizon. I was strongly drawn by the premise: An artisanal bio-prosthetist and her personal house AI become aware of growing data gaps in a post-cataclysmic city run by an artificial intelligence system, precipitated by the murder of an acquaintance and the subsequent erasure of facts about the victim and his death. I am happy to say that the book lives up to its promise: It’s a fascinating exploration of character, identity, memory, morality, choice, body horror, kinds of love, and utopia/dystopia. Some decisions that characters make are distressing, and the ending is bittersweet, but I am glad to have read this; I’ll be thinking about it for a long time.
I appreciate that this book is not afraid to start with an infodump-prologue, although later events reveal that significant action is happening even during this description of how the city of Bulwark is run by its system, Parallax, and why Parallax continually edits its own code. I also appreciate that the overt action of the book starts, not with the murder, not in the middle of an action scene as so many books start these days, but in the middle of a conversation between two old friends/lovers/frenemies. I understand the marketing motivation behind in medias res openings, but too often, readers are presented with a jumble of things happening without any context of why they should care.
Here, Swyler takes the time to introduce us to Saint Enita Malovis and Saint Helen Vinter; they’re a bit quarrelsome, but they clearly care about each other. They’re enjoying a mild dispute over how they spend their time: Helen has lots of history students, and Enita creates and installs artificial body parts to help the injured and sick, for free. Helen thinks Enita should socialize more and take on an apprentice instead of teaching Nix, the artificial physical avatar of her house AI, how to do her work.
Neither Enita nor Helen works for a living; their Saint status means that their ancestors worked so hard and sacrificed so much in the founding of Bulwark that they have nearly infinite social credit. Some Saints just party all the time, and some devote themselves to the arts, gardening, or other pursuits; these two find meaning in their callings.
Parallax keeps strict track of social credits, which control what kinds of housing, medical care, food, clothing, etc., are entitled to people. Most people are not Saints; they owe a lot of credits to the system, and many keep slipping further into generational debt. Some people, called Martyrs, donate body parts such as hands, lungs, liver lobes, etc., to benefit society (and gain social credits), although these donations often end up going to the Saints instead of the underclass.
When Enita, Helen, and Nix find out about the murder, they are mildly disturbed, but their lives seem to go on much as before, at first. What really disrupts the lives of Enita and Nix is when an unexpected patient arrives at Helen’s home; it’s an emergency situation, so Enita makes some choices that the patient later resents bitterly. Enita feels guilty, and all their lives are bound together as Enita and Nix find out more about how the other 99% live, and what’s going on with these data gaps and other phenomena. Great changes are coming for this society, and Enita, Helen, Nix, and the patient have to decide how they’re going to react, together and separately.
I really appreciated how the apparently simple choices in this book turned out to have complex repercussions, from the reactions to seemingly necessary but unwanted medical treatment, to the imbalances in society that evolved from what was meant to be a fair accounting for contributions to the community.
I also thought Swyler did a great job with characterization. Enita is a compelling character. Nix is very sympathetic while interacting with humans and other systems, trying their best to serve and protect Enita while starting to learn and set their own boundaries; Helen’s combination of love and frustration with Enita is vivid; and although I feel that the patient’s desires have been somewhat twisted by society, I feel that I understand her well.
Can humans figure out how to be fair to each other, and to respect each other’s choices? How wise is it to entrust a society to an artificial intelligence system, even if it’s real intelligence instead of an autocompleting plagiarism algorithm? Is change inevitably destructive? Swyler has some really interesting ways of exploring these questions.
We Lived on the Horizon is a thoughtful science fiction novel with interesting worldbuilding and engaging characters. It’s well worth giving it your time.
Content warnings: Murder (offscreen), violence (not gory), body horror and self-harm (not gory), class oppression.
Disclaimer: I received a free eARC of this book for review via NetGalley.
