Sienna Clay has a secret: she’s an Auditor. Her job is to investigate her fellow Britons who are accused of thoughtcrime, or whose ancestors may have committed horrors like eating meat. New Britanna’s status as an island of tolerance set apart from the authoritarian nightmare of the Federated States of Europe can only be maintained by zero tolerance of those who don’t toe the line. The accused and convicted (no real difference) are “Cancelled”: their property is seized, their relationships null, their accounts emptied. Sienna is proud of the work she does, though, even if she has to hide it for fear of being beaten to death by those whose lives she or other Auditors have ruined. When she takes a few chances to find information that will help in her current investigation, though, she runs afoul of the very system she’s perpetuating. Cancelled is a darkly humorous satire of cancel culture, one that uses it and technology to create an all-too-believable dystopia.
The world of New Britannia is a strange mix of 1984 and Brave New World, with a population kept docile through both the carrot (legalized drugs, which people use constantly) and the stick – being Cancelled and reeducated. The first half of the novel lets us experience this strange mix of license and tyranny through Sienna, as she struggles with overwork, a callous boss, an increasingly distant girlfriend, and a home operating system that’s peevish and histrionic. Unlike the aforementioned dystopian novels, Cancelled is overt in attacking contemporary ‘progressive’ culture: characters’ influence in society is partially dependent on their Diversity Rating, for instance, with higher scores being given based on skin color, sexual orientation, etc. Straight white men would presumably be the lowest of the low, but claiming different statuses appears common: one person is suspected of “changing” their gender purely to earn a higher DR and thus a better job, but if anyone dares to voice their suspicions they’ll risk being Cancelled. Hyperbole is also mocked: “worse than Hitler” is a common expression, and one man hurls it against Sienna after she refuses to sign a consent form allowing him to consummate his relationship with his girlfriend. (All sexual encounters are strictly governed by contracts: a woman cannot “give consent” unless three of her female friends sign off on the contract.) There’s also a significant degree of outright ignorance: no one knows who Hitler really was, for instance, only that “he knew Churchhill”.
The story that develops from this is interesting, as we witness Sienna fall from a fairly privileged place in life to become the lowest of the low. She should be utterly unlikable at the start, considering she’s a high-tech inquisitor, destroying lives for absurd crimes, but King manages to make her sympathetic. He accomplishes this by having her in two frustrating relationships – one with her girlfriend, who sponges off of her – and one with her house. It has an integrated AI, designed by the girlfriend, that is incredibly peevish. When Sienna is late getting home, for instance, the AI is so annoyed that its prepared dinner for her has grown cold that it locks her out. The fact that it’s been programmed by Sienna’s girlfriend also sees it partially weaponized against her later on. When Sienna’s risks at work don’t pay out and Sienna finds herself cancelled, she’s put through a lot of physical and emotional angst that largely redeem her character as she realized what a monster she had been — and what greater monster she served.
I devoured Cancelled, which should come as no surprise given my scorn for much of what it mocks – identity politics, oikophobia, etc. I also enjoyed the aspects of the dystopia that were not political, like the role of technology: Sienna and company are always plugged in, using smart classes to keep them online, and surveillance is a given, leading to a society where expression is chilled to the point of frigid. (Tellingly, the arts appear to have vanished: all Sienna listens to is AI-generated music.) King tells a good story, and he appears to have numerous titles on KU. Definitely planning on reading more of him, and soon.
Related:
The Choice, Claire Ward. A dystopian novel where Britain is run by a literal health Nazi. Probably the only SF novel with an award from Good Housekeeping.
Reading Freely 
Sounds BRILLIANT! [rotflmao]
Yes, delicious parody!
I was actually being (very) sarcastic. I could see it *really* annoying me and would almost definitely be a DNF.
The whole AI dinner thing didn’t make much sense (for example). If Sienna is constantly online… why didn’t it just ask her for an ETA and plan accordingly?
Overall you description felt like someone cashing in on the latest social media storm in a tea cup…
Said AI is not…particularly responsive to user requests. In fact, it’s quite needy and constantly demands praise/thanks/etc from the humans.
Can’t say King is cashing in: he self-published this because multiple publishers rejected this. :p
sounds great, quite intense
It was fun!
I grew up being warned of cancel culture and totalitarianism imposed on society from the left. While there were certainly elements of this about 10 years ago, it seems like the right has swiftly taken over the playbook, at least the US. Haven’t really gotten a great sense yet of the situation in the UK, but it seems to me trending towards the right as well. I can appreciate the critique of identity politics in this kind of novel (and other media), but I fear that what started out as a fair criticism has caused a pendulum swing in the extreme opposite direction. I guess dystopian literature is all about extremes, it just sounds like the author is intent on asserting the story as “things to come” when in reality the cancelling may be coming from another avenue.
Cancel culture has certainly reigned the last ten years, especially in the area of gender identity which is dominant in the novel — using the wrong pronouns is “worse than Hitler”, even accidentally. I understand it’s an arrestable offense in Canada and some parts of Europe. There IS a reaction from the right now, both here and across the pond, but it’s a reaction caused by nonstop aggression on the left’s side, particularly their war on reality. Just look at what they were doing to social media, particularly facebook and twitter: we’ve now had the twitter files exposed, and Zuckerberg has has gone on record saying he was being pushed around by the feds. They were the ones de-platforming people. It was “When Harry Met Sally” that was barred from amazon’s listings, not any of the dozen of books that librarians are constantly claiming have been “banned”. Some say “woke is dead”, but I don’t believe it. As Winnie said….this is not the end. This is not the beginning of the end. It is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
The left is pretty toothless and clawless at the moment. It certainly hasn’t been able to counterbalance the current administration, which is intent on continuing to purge public media, museums, and universities of anything that doesn’t fall exactly in line with its narrow agenda. I believe in a year’s time, the “woke” movement will be a thing of the distant past – not replaced by something better, just different censorship.
I wish I shared your optimism. The political left may appear impotent at the moment, but culturally they control the universities, the mainstream media, most of our major cities, etc. The right is currently enjoying an Indian summer, I think, an opportunity wasted (in America) by a spokesman who is corrupt and easily distracted. But ….the energy has been growing: there are many anxious for the fray. My only fear is that those who are anxious aren’t necessarily lovers of freedom.
“My only fear is that those who are anxious aren’t necessarily lovers of freedom”.
Now that’s **QUITE** the understatement!!!! As a Brit (who is used to such things) I’m IMPRESSED. [lol]
Oh, I don’t mean Trump. Trump is as mentioned an easily distracted and vain fool. I’m thinking of some other firebrand — as yet unknown — who might explode onto the scene. This is not a conflict that will be settled in 2, 4, or even ten years.
Trump isn’t doing it on his own, he’s “just” a symptom not the cause. There are *plenty* of people in his orbit or who follow him who ‘aren’t necessarily lovers of freedom’.
Agreed that the struggle isn’t going away any time soon. Nor will it go quietly……….. This is a *active* can of worms you have there!!
Sure. As said before, this is energy that’s been building for decades — he’s just been better at channeling the energy with his relative independence from donors, combative personality, and gift at trolling.