Infomocracy

The Centenal Cycle, #1

by Malka Ann Older

380 pages

English language

Published Oct. 29, 2016

ISBN:: 978-0-7653-8515-4

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(53 reviews)

It's been twenty years and two election cycles since "Information," a powerful search engine monopoly, pioneered the switch from warring nation-states to global microdemocracy. The corporate coalition party Heritage has won the last two elections. With another election on the horizon, the Supermajority is in tight contention, and everything's on the line.

3 editions

moving to outside.ofa.dog reviewed Infomocracy by Malka Ann Older (The Centenal Cycle, #1)

Brilliant at times, but didn't stick the landing

3 stars

Content warning vague general spoilers

I read this with #SFFBookClub, and probably wouldn't have done otherwise because IRL I find both election superfans and "too clever for elections" antis tiring, and their arguments tedious. I'm glad I was prompted to read it, because I enjoyed the majority of the book a lot, but in the end it felt sort of hollow.

The good: Older has the skill to make a thriller about an election actually... well... thrilling. I was very sucked in, at times finding it hard to put down. I think a key part of how is that she made me care about the characters much more than about the election itself. And the world itself is interesting - she ran with an idea that 20-30 years ago I would probably have considered a utopia, and has really chipped away at many ways in which it would not be. Plus the general background of different understandings of reality being what manifests social reality while also prone to being manipulated feels... prescient.

The bad: this book replicates a lot of aspects of Cyberpunk that I find a turn-off. The tone of the first couple of chapters almost made me give up, and there's this sort of simultaneous glamourisation of travel and flattening of difference that feels like a weird tic of the genre - even though this book at least modulates that a bit by travel still being clearly a hassle and a privilege. Ken's relationship with the various field offices didn't seem believable to me: how would he always know better than the locals, and why would any of them listen to him? And the last couple of chapters felt like a hurried wrap-up that just sort of forgot some of the potentially-interesting complications that were being introduced before them.

Julie R reviewed Infomocracy by Malka Ann Older (The Centenal Cycle, #1)

Infomocracy

3 stars

I struggled at the start, but once I put together what was happening, it flowed nicely. It's a "what if...world-building" book, but Older hooked me well enough with the characters and their relationship to keep me engaged past the premise of the centenals. Some of the action scenes were hazy, and I thought it was a standalone, so I was annoyed at the unfinished ending. I appreciated the unfolding of the mystery - the A plot, basically - and I think it opens up some interesting lines of thought and discussion about borders and power. This could easily have been a mess of a concept sprawling hundreds of pages, but Older did a smart job containing and constraining it.

Pentapod reviewed Infomocracy by Malka Ann Older (The Centenal Cycle, #1)

Review of 'Infomocracy' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This was a slightly difficult book for me to get through, not through any fault of the book, but just because with the Canadian election currently in full debate cycle and Brexit still filling the headlines and the US reelection fast approaching and Trump's impeachment continuing to on-and-off-again, I'm just so overloaded with election and politics that it was a bit hard to face so much in my entertainment also.

That said, this is a very intelligent, thoughtful book looking at a world which is divided into "centenals" of about 100,000 people each; and whichever party wins the most centenals globally forms a "supermajority" which gives it more power over the others. The story's set just before an election (elections happen every 10 years) and we follow a number of different characters viewing the politicking from different perspectives and trying to push different agendas. The two main characters turn out to be Ken, who works for Policy1st (one of the parties), and Mishima, who works for Information, which seems to be a sort of central internet provider/Google substitute type service that is used globally and that also runs the elections.

There are suspicions of parties trying to influence the election, there are voters behaving stupidly and short-sightedly, there is some interesting hypothetical future technology, and the structure of the centenals in general is quite interesting and rather reminiscent of the city-states in Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash". There was a little too much info-dump exposition in trying to explain all the complex politics, which made some parts move a bit slowly; and there were some characters whose perspectives we were given but who didn't really seem that important to us or to the plot in the end (like Domaine, and Yoriko) -- they didn't really seem necessary to me? At any rate I didn't really get attached to them, or even get much of a feel for their personalities. I enjoyed Ken and Mishima however, and once we got out of the politics exposition and more into the action it was an interesting story with, of course, some cautionary tales for our own current politics.

Good first novel with very interesting ideas, would pick up another book by the author, although would hope for maybe a little less political development and a little more character development instead next time :)

Chad reviewed Infomocracy by Malka Ann Older (The Centenal Cycle, #1)

Review of 'Infomocracy' on 'Storygraph'

4 stars

The future world shown in Infomocracy, where the global tech giant known simply as Information has ushered in an era of "pax democratica," has a hold on me - despite being way too real to help escape from current, actual politics. I didn't want to stop reading this story, and, similar to main characters Mishima and Ken, I find myself slightly unsatisfied with the first installment's resolution, sitting around wondering what to do with myself. Luckily for all of us, books two and three are ready to go.

There's so much more that could be said about the world and story that Malka Older has opened up in Infomocracy, but my narrative disorder tells me I need to consume more pre-made content before I can make an Informed decision about this one. We're still at the beginning of the cycle.

Steen Christiansen reviewed Infomocracy by Malka Ann Older (The Centenal Cycle, #1)

Review of 'Infomocracy (The Centenal Cycle, #1)' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

A strong post-cyberpunk political thriller.

Yashima reviewed Infomocracy by Malka Ann Older (The Centenal Cycle, #1)

Review of 'Infomocracy' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Ken, a campaign worker for PolicyFirst, and Mishima, a special agent working for Information, are the two main POVs in this micro-democracy election thriller.

I enjoyed the premise of the micro-democracy a lot. Humanity is divided into 100.000 people "Centenals". Each centenal gets to elect their government. Governments are the equivalent of our political parties. Each "government" can govern one or many Centenals. They make the major laws, rules for their Centenals. A government can have a Centenals in Europe, Asia, the Americas etc. spread out all across the globe. A few major powers are: Heritage - current and past holder of the Supermajority (most Centenals), Philip Morris (the most powerful of the so-called 'Corporates'), PolicyFirst, Liberty.

Elections are held every 10 years. It's election time and campaigning is wild. Information is the agency that is not itself running as a government but providing everyone with ALL the information - at the blink of an eye. This is after all a future high-tech society. But while war has been eradicated other problems haven't. And some people maybe aren't all that happy with the political structures that have - at this point - existed for the past 20 years.

I loved the premise, loved the tech - the way Information works is interesting. It's not quite the same as our internet more like... a giant Facebook with ever more surveillance. The tech is brilliant and enjoyable - one of the better pieces of the book, along with the protagonists.

However, this was published at the start of the previous US election cycle and at this point two years later I am still not quite recovered from having had enough about elections. The whole plot revolves around the election however and debates, and campaigning, manipulation and plots to possibly change the out-come.

What made up for that are the two main characters who both get drawn into the swirling machinations of those who want to manipulate their way to the top. Both Ken and Mishima are idealists who fight for what they believe is right.

Where it all fell apart for me was at the end when the reveals and resolutions happen on every page and I just never figured out how they caught one of the bad guys. How did Liberty get caught in the end? I figured out what happened with Heritage - the tunnel thing was obvious and they had proof of that. But the catching of Liberty was more subtle... So I kind of missed that one in all the turmoil at the end, I just realized that suddenly the story was over and everything resolved.

This is a 3.5* for me fun-wise. Not sure if I will read the sequel. However it was well-written and executed so I have to round up.

Unruly Stacks reviewed Infomocracy by Malka Ann Older (The Centenal Cycle, #1)

Review of 'Infomocracy' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

The pros: The topic of election shenanigans is distressingly appropriate for the times, at least here in the U.S., and the continued discontent over the election and governance of President Trump makes some of the resolutions herein rather de-stressing. Having a story focus on near-future politics turned out to be a more enjoyable experience than I'd've thought.

The cons: While enjoyable, there were a handful of times where I felt left behind by the intricacies of the plot, as if those parts were meant less for the casual reader than the political wonk. Also, while the topic was, well, topical, the downside to it was that the stress and excitement peppered throughout the story had less of an effect on my politically-numbed mind. A couple of times I found myself thinking, "Yeah, this is bad, but the 2016 election? Now THAT was some drama!"

Ross Schulman reviewed Infomocracy by Malka Ann Older (The Centenal Cycle, #1)

Review of 'Infomocracy (The Centenal Cycle, #1)' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

The world building was really great and the action built steadily and at a good pace, but I felt like the end just sort of tripped quickly off a cliff. I found myself wanting just a little bit more. What did the whole world look like post-crisis?

Alex Keane reviewed Infomocracy by Malka Ann Older (The Centenal Cycle, #1)

Review of 'Infomocracy (The Centenal Cycle, #1)' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Great take on the connection between the total access to information that the internet age is bringing us and the electoral choices we make. I liked how the author showed you the effects that the idea of "microdemocracy" (essentially micro-countries of 100,000 people each) could have on our world.

barbara fister reviewed Infomocracy by Malka Ann Older (The Centenal Cycle, #1)

Review of 'Infomocracy' on 'LibraryThing'

No rating

Perhaps it wasn't wise to read this futuristic novel of ideas /science fiction during the second year of an endless election cycle - or perhaps it was, because it's about how the world might change the system of government, creating small government units, all sharing a common information system to provide facts and run elections. It suffers from being pretty slow to begin with, but picks up as something goes terribly wrong and the Information crashes in the middle of an election. Who's behind the sabotage, and what is the object? The world building is interesting, but I found the wonkishness ultimately not totally satisfying. One touch that amused me: the national library in Paris has no employees - I guess libraries, even when highly sophisticated, run themselves - but the Information has enormous numbers of workers, kind of the reversal of the common sense that the Internet somehow just …