More Perfect by Temi Oh (book review)
‘More Perfect’ by Temi Oh is a standalone near future Science Fiction heavily into cyberpunk.
Moremi is lonely. All her friends have connected into the Panoptican network and left her behind. When she finally joins at the late age of thirteen, a wonderful new world opens up for her: she can see into other people’s minds and dreams. It is a whirlwind cornucopia of delights that gives her no time to indulge in introspection or regrets of any kind. She is really happy for the first time since her father deserted her mother, her two sisters and herself.
Terrorists destroy the Thames Barrage causing a large wave to drown much of London. The Panoptican goes off-line and to have no easily accessible source of useful information and advice. The aftermath, the death of some friends and her mother sends Moremi spiralling into depression and self-harming.
Years later, she discovers some of Panoptican’s people can manipulate her memories to soften her life’s tragedies. She takes that option.
Orpheus, who adjusts her most painful memories, is lonely in his own way. He was raised away from civilisation by his father, a member of the terrorist group that blew up the Barrage. Just as the authorities shoot his father dead, he tells Orpheus that he will be the fulfilment of the terrorists’ dreams. He has no idea how. As an orphan of the state he is forced to have the Panoptican implant. He does not want it, but can’t get rid of it without crippling himself. His only escape is into the world of ‘dreams’. This is helped along by the used of the drug, Nox. He is an addict, but at least he can escape reality. Only in his dreams he keeps on being drawn to edges of a labyrinth.
Then Moremi comes knocking on his door. She wants…no needs more of his dreams. The ones he gave her have left her deeply unsatisfied. He reluctantly agrees to help. The result is they end up living in each other’s minds, with the marriage and complications that it brings. The Panopticon turns out to be an existence everyone can escape into.
However, this is not all the Panoptican is. It can predict future crimes and people end up being arrested on the basis of its predictions. Their ‘punishment’ is to exist in the dreamworld induced by the addictive Nox. Orpheus is one such criminal. He knows the dreamworld all too well and fights from inside it. Meanwhile, others, Moremi included, are fighting to have released.
So by twists and turn of the plots, we can appreciate the various facets and consequences, the good and the bad of the Panoptican. ‘More Perfect’ is essentially a study of loneliness in its various forms, its impact on lives and how the use of a network like the Panoptican with all its standard Science Fiction tropes can impact it.
Writer Temi Oh’s strengths lie in her characterisation, the eloquent usage of the English language and the interesting way she develops her theme of how the technology interacts with people’s loneliness. For instance, Temi Oh manages to engender a surreal atmosphere with her words to reflect the dreamworld like qualities. A good example is, ‘Moremi… carries her grief for both of her parents like a deformity, limps through Christmases and birthdays with an ache. She feels like unfinished work. Her parents knitted her bones and then abandoned her, turned her out on the hard-edged world like an open sore, begging for dregs of love wherever she can hope to find it.’
What lets Temi Oh down are the sub-plots. Some of them gave me the impression of every object from the scenery needed to be used to produce an extended action sequence. Moremi’s run from the portaloo to the prison’s vehicle depot across farmland is one such overplotted sequence. There were just too many convenient objects coming into play. It really shows Temi Oh is currently more of a literary writer than an action-thriller one.
Yes, ‘More Perfect’ has a climatic ending with a good resolution of the story drivers. Yes, it explores variations of well-known Science Fiction themes. But, no, it does not jump out and grab me as something really new and innovative in the genre. This is novel to be relished, emotionally submerged in and enjoyed at a leisurely pace.
Rosie Oliver
July 2023
(pub: Simon & Schuster UK, 2023. 592 page hardback. Price: £16.99 (UK) ISBN: 978-1-47117-128-4)
check out website: www.simonandschuster.co.uk