A review by nataliya_x
Lightspeed Magazine, August 2020 by John Joseph Adams
3.0
This review is for the Nebula Award-nominated novelette “Shadow Prisons” by Caroline M. Yoachim:
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This novelette has been serialized in three parts in The Lightspeed Magazine, but I prefer to review it as a whole instead of 3 short parts.
Vivian *wants* to toe the line as she knows the consequences of breaking the law, but when her teenage kid Cass joins the protest, Vivian goes to retrieve Cass — and ends up being pegged as a criminal herself, and is turned into a Shade.
And as she struggles to survive over years and years, the PIP technology develops further, now with ability to filter past memories, determining not only what you see but what you remember. All while people get more and more cruel trying to hold on to the points they have that separate Citizens and Shades, and Shades and the dead.
It’s an interesting premise, and could have made a good novella or even a novel — if the promise was developed a bit more. False memories, the life on the fringes, society disintegrating into dystopian nightmare — and eventual rebellion. But in this short form it’s a bit too nebulous, with too much handwaving and implication. The recovery from the society presented would have been interesting to see (how do you change what now became ingrained perceptions?) but it’s skipped over. I can only imagine that splitting it into a 3-part serial would cause even more of an incomplete effect - and so I’m glad I read it as a single story. Really, this is something that really needed to be fleshed out for more of an effect.
I also found the writing somewhat clunky, honestly. A bit too much of recapping and telling where showing would be more impactful. A bit too simplistic of a feel overall despite some heavy themes dealt with. And it’s often too blunt, with subtlety suffering at the cost of making sure we get the intended message. It needed just a little more work — and possibly more of an expansion into a longer form.
3 stars.
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This novelette has been serialized in three parts in The Lightspeed Magazine where you can read it free:
- Part 1 - “The Shadow Prison Experiment
- Part 2 - Shadow Prisons of the Mind
- Part 3 - The Shadow Prisoner’s Dilemma
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My Hugo and Nebula Awards Reading Project 2021: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3701332299
————
This novelette has been serialized in three parts in The Lightspeed Magazine, but I prefer to review it as a whole instead of 3 short parts.
“How do you break free from the prison of your own mind?”In the future, everything is digitalized and interfaced, and everyone has mandatory implantable interfaces (PIP - Personal Implanted Perception chips) that present to wearers a filtered world — pretty overlays cover neglect and decay, people wear overlays as well, and everyone basically lives in augmented reality. There’s also a points system as PIPs can monitor your every move. Lose enough points and you become a Shade, a criminal, visible to others - and yourself - as only a gray shadow, stripped of rights, forced to work the worst jobs in what’s basically a prison industrial complex just to survive, clutching on to remaining points because at zero points comes termination.
“Don’t see why they can’t throw the Shades into the underground. It’s gross down there, but with overlays they can make it look like Main Street, or campus, or whatever. Shades will never know they aren’t running free.”
“Nah. This isn’t for the Shades. They want people to know what happens if they cause trouble. Citizens will toe the line if they’re scared of being erased.”
Vivian *wants* to toe the line as she knows the consequences of breaking the law, but when her teenage kid Cass joins the protest, Vivian goes to retrieve Cass — and ends up being pegged as a criminal herself, and is turned into a Shade.
And as she struggles to survive over years and years, the PIP technology develops further, now with ability to filter past memories, determining not only what you see but what you remember. All while people get more and more cruel trying to hold on to the points they have that separate Citizens and Shades, and Shades and the dead.
It’s an interesting premise, and could have made a good novella or even a novel — if the promise was developed a bit more. False memories, the life on the fringes, society disintegrating into dystopian nightmare — and eventual rebellion. But in this short form it’s a bit too nebulous, with too much handwaving and implication. The recovery from the society presented would have been interesting to see (how do you change what now became ingrained perceptions?) but it’s skipped over. I can only imagine that splitting it into a 3-part serial would cause even more of an incomplete effect - and so I’m glad I read it as a single story. Really, this is something that really needed to be fleshed out for more of an effect.
I also found the writing somewhat clunky, honestly. A bit too much of recapping and telling where showing would be more impactful. A bit too simplistic of a feel overall despite some heavy themes dealt with. And it’s often too blunt, with subtlety suffering at the cost of making sure we get the intended message. It needed just a little more work — and possibly more of an expansion into a longer form.
3 stars.
—————
This novelette has been serialized in three parts in The Lightspeed Magazine where you can read it free:
- Part 1 - “The Shadow Prison Experiment
- Part 2 - Shadow Prisons of the Mind
- Part 3 - The Shadow Prisoner’s Dilemma
———————
My Hugo and Nebula Awards Reading Project 2021: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3701332299