Fred Lunzer is a writer based in London, with a background in AI research and strategy. He grew up in London and Tokyo, and speaks Japanese. He writes literary fiction novels and short stories, as well as essays and reviews.
Sike, Lunzer's debut novel, is about a young man using an AI psychotherapist to navigate his relationships.
At Electric Lit the author tagged ten novels by "authors [who] write realistically while contending with the futuristic topics the 21st century throws our way." One title on the list:
The Dream Hotel by Laila LalamiRead about another novel on Lunzer's list.
Laila Lalami’s latest novel is a surveillance dystopia. The protagonist Sara is detained for a crime she is predicted to commit. Data has been mined from her dreams, and the “Risk Assessment Administration” has determined she might kill her husband. She is put into a retention centre away from her children, and her everymove is tracked, the data fed into her risk score. She is meant to stay there twenty-one days, but months later there is no hint of release.
The taste of dystopia could overpower any flavor of realism, but Lalami’s villains use technology that would look normal, even old hat, in the latest Apple product launch. Everything feels plausible, even the dream readers, even the interpretation of all the tracking, done by “agents who cared only about the data, not about the truth.”
The uncanniness goes deeper. The legitimate fears of inmates echo the day-to-day paranoia of real life. Have you ever acted differently upon seeing a CCTV camera? Even when doing nothing wrong, Sara fabricates movements for the Guardian cameras that monitor the centre, lest she “convey unintended meaning.” Dissociation through video happens again—more perniciously, more recognizably—during a call between Sara and her husband. The mundane tension of it is chilling. He is moving around his office, she is at her lowest ebb. “Now isn’t a good time for me to chat,” he says. “I’m really busy…”
--Marshal Zeringue