DISSOLUTION was an interesting dystopian novella that had great authentic ideas but lacked in detail and execution. I really liked the idea of corporations owning its employees and seeing them as assets to be traded and sold. However, the world building felt incomplete and the characters underdeveloped.
Madeline has waited her whole life for her Auctioning. After 18 years of waiting, after countless hours of training, she's ready for the next step in her life. In her city of Unilox, five corporations exist: ANRON, MERCE, HARLIN, PERCO, and DRAYTH. As an asset of ANRON, the pharmaceutical company, she hopes to be sold to MERCE where she'll be free to "build and fix things." One of the major problems with the novella is that we don't really know what these corporations do. The author doesn't really go into much detail about the individual companies but has a strong disliking for some. I don't know if the lack of information was done purposely, but either way, it leaves the reader confused.
The story spans only a couple of days and it's interesting to see Madeline go from an elite asset, to a hunted fugitive and then on to a merciless negotiator. I love Madeline's strength and devotion to her parents and boyfriend, but her motivations seem to lack foundation. Her relationship with her parents seems cold and the details about her relationship with her boyfriend Jake is sketchy. The fact that she has to pay to spend time with him is just bizarre, which kind of makes him seem like a escort. As an asset of ANRON, she learns, on what should have been her auctioning day, that she will never be able to be sold and will always remain the property of ANRON. As an experiment of the medical company, she's worth too much to be auctioned, but we never really learn what makes her so special. She seems to have incredible healing abilities and stamina, but the author never goes into details about what makes her so incredible, why she was never told and the details of her origin.
I love the way the author shows us how corporations are considered legal entities yet are uncaring and cold. I guess when you're looking for the ultimate antagonist, corporations are probably one of the best and strongest candidates. They have many of the rights humans have yet are very hard to hurt or kill. When it comes to facing off against ANRON, it's difficult to see how Madeline will succeed.
When it comes to description, it was hard to follow the details of the action. I think the author was trying to be too visual, and failed to give us the necessary information to follow the story. However, some of the descriptions were on par, for example, the use of implants to stay connected to society and the scene which I will simply call the river scene because I want to avoid spoilers.
Overall, the author had great ideas but as a whole, the story lacked information and detail. The characters were underdeveloped, the action was hard to follow, and the world needed more building. Personally, I believed this story would have more potential as a detailed novel, instead of a novella.
This does sound interesting, Stéphanie, too bad it suffered from the same thing a lot of novellas suffer from - the shortness of the story, as well as the lack of solid world building.
ReplyDeleteI hope you're doing well since returning home from Chicago :)