The Rendition Experience

The first book I shall write about was one given to me by lovely C. on my birthday.
It was my debut in Ben Elton and I'm not sure I was ready for what I read.

The book is set in a future where global warming has done its thing and everyone lives very crowded lives in whatever land there is leftover.
It is meant to be a dark comedy, but when I started reading it I felt like it was a horror story where my worst fears come true.

Due to the catastrophe of the floods, many things were lost. Fiction stories, science, logic, all things I treasure... As if that wasn't enough, everyone lives in a Big Brother like world. There are cameras everywhere from the toilet at home to the coffee room at work. The title comes from the system that rules this world. A world where everyone has to be like the Big Brother residents of our current shows... That is the faith and the faith is law. You don't question it, you just follow it... well, blindly.
I don't want to go into too many spoilers, so just imagine everyone being as fake, loud, and intrusive as in the Big Brother shows (Yes intrusive, no matter how much you try to ignore it, you always end up watching a glimpse of it somewhere which makes you cringe) and if you're not like that then you become an outcast in society and will probably be lynched by a mob because you hurt someone's feelings.

It is all less scary once the main character starts rebelling against this system, starts keeping secrets and thinking for himself. I found myself rooting for this guy to be able read the books I take for granted.

I found this book to be a spark of introspection and, despite being fiction, I can see it as a potential future hopefully in a parallel universe rather than my own. Since reading it, I have been valuing my privacy and the fact that I am no one in the world but still own my identity. It seems ironic but I reached the conclusion that sharing myself in the World Wide Web is a not always a good thing yet I am sharing my view in a blog. However, this new project is a product of introspection from reading "Blind Faith". My own personal blog which I kept for over 4 years is now on hold until further introspection...