From archive (archive)
Subject: THE LAST ELECTION
From: ecl@mtgzy.UUCP (Evelyn C. Leeper)
Organization: AT&T, Middletown NJ
Date: 17 Aug 87 02:03:47 GMT




		       THE LAST ELECTION by Pete Davies
	   Vintage Contemporaries, 1986, ISBN 0-394-74702-X, $6.95.
		      A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		       Copyright 1987 Evelyn C. Leeper

     This is a non-cyberpunk novel or, rather, a non-cyber punk novel.  The
England of the future (1990s would be my guess) is definitely punk, but the
technological revolution that Gibson et al portray has bypassed England, and
pretty much everyone else.  Instead, London is a decaying city, with
crumbling buildings, pot-holed streets, thousands of homeless living in
garbage heaps, and 24-hour-a-day televised snooker matches to keep the
populace happy.  All this is overseen by "Nanny," who from the description
is a aging, possibly senile, version of Margaret Thatcher and the leader of
the "Money Party."  On top of everything else, the "Last Election" is coming
up.

     Cyberpunk novels postulate a society of great technology, where many,
perhaps even most, live in comfort.  Though the characters portrayed in them
are the lower strata, we do get a glimpse of the better life that most
people lead.  In THE LAST ELECTION, few people are at that level.  The mass
of people are unemployed, kept on the dole and pacified with television.
People who do manage to drag themselves away from snooker go to state-run
discos where they can get loud music, drinks, and drugs.  Naturally, there
is more to the plot than this.  There are the antics of Wally Wasted, top
snooker commentator, and Thor Thunders, the candidate of the People Party.
There is the whole question of what the Money Party's plans really are,
where the new drugs that are circulating at the discos are coming from, and
whether there is any hope for the future.

     THE LAST ELECTION is an engrossing book.  It is, however, extremely
depressing.  The blurb compares it to 1984, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, BRAZIL, and
BLADE RUNNER.  Of the four, it is most like the vision of the recent film of
1984, that of a Britain slowly falling apart while everyone tries to pretend
that everything is fine.  The solutions held out by Nanny are dishonest in
much the same way as Big Brother's are--they are solutions, true, but they
are not what they appear to be.  As long as you're not the type who gets
suicidally depressed by the shape the world is likely to be in ten years, I
would recommend this book.

(P.S.  This is a science fiction book.  I am posting this review to
rec.arts.books because this is a *book*.  I am posting this review to
rec.arts.sf-lovers because this is *science fiction*.  But it is a book that
happens to be science fiction, not science fiction that happens to be a book.
If I had to choose only one group to post to, it would be rec.arts.books.)

					Evelyn C. Leeper
					(201) 957-2070
				UUCP:	ihnp4!mtgzy!ecl
				ARPA:	mtgzy!ecl@rutgers.rutgers.edu