I received a review copy for
free and am leaving this review voluntarily.
I wasn't sure what to expect
when I downloaded this book; I am happy to say I immensely enjoyed it.
Terms of Service is set in a
dystopian world about 250 years in the future. It is full of hard sci-fi
concepts and many ideas from today projected into the future. It reads like
futuristic sci-fi, but also feels very familiar in the now. Imagine a world in
which there is absolutely no privacy whatsoever. Everything you do and say is
constantly monitored and regulated. This is the future that author Craig Stanfill
envisions, but he also causes one to stop and think about personal privacy.
In this world, there are rules
that are strictly monitored and enforced with few privileges for those who are
not at the top of society. Break the rules and punishment is swift and can also
be severe depending on the infraction. Smaller infractions are usually more
irritating or inconvenient, and major problems could result in being assigned
to hard labor outside of main society.
At the beginning of the story,
it is actually more humorous as we get to know the principal character simply
called Kim. She goes about her life with frustrations, causing her to endure
minor inconveniences. However, as the story progresses, the saga becomes darker
and more frightening.
Kim lives a mundane, work-a-day
kind of life in the big city. One could consider her a middle-class citizen.
She has a job working for an AI company, a small spartan apartment that is
fully automated. As long as she is employed, she want's for nothing except a
little adventure now and then.
However, Kim is not a happy
person. She goes home after work to have her dinner, which is determined by her
artificially intelligent refrigerator, and view what is on the vids on her
visor entertainment system. After that, she drinks herself into a stupor and
sleeps until it is time to start all over the next day.
After a rather large
misadventure, the company determines she is worth more time and is
"promoted." Her living arrangements improve, but her new position
causes her some consternation, and she learns what is expected of her.
I found the principal
character, Kim, to be someone I would like to know. She has a few radical ideas
about things that go against the norms of the society she lives in. Afforded
few luxuries, she has a life that is unremarkable for the most part, mostly
living within the rules of the company. But now and then, she gets sidetracked
by friends and develops a sense of justice that could lead to her downfall. I
like her. She is a nonconformist and thinks for herself.
As I mentioned, the first part
of the story was amusing. I laughed at several points before the story took a
more sinister tone. The things I found most fascinating was how Kim's
refrigerator closely regulated much of her life. If she wanted steak for
dinner, the fridge would deliver tofu. Her struggle with the appliance was
never ending. She would commit some small infraction and the machine would
dispense items she didn't want. Sometimes, her apartment would monitor her
reaction to something it had served her, and if she seemed to like it, she
would get more of it, often more than she really wanted.
Even her shower would mete out
punishment for small infractions. Break some small rule and it was a cold
shower the next morning.
If Terms were intended to be a
comedy, those examples would be funny, but what the plot point actually does is
use a light tone to set up what comes later. As the plot is rendered, those
pesky appliances, as well as other AI controlled items, contribute to a
terrifying situation later in the tale.
My takeaway from Terms is the
idea of privacy, now and in the future. There is none. I have said for a long
time that privacy is a myth. And the question is, who has taken away our
privacy? As far as I am concerned, we have done it to ourselves.
Do you have a cellular phone? Do
you interact on social media? Do you shop online? If the answer to those is
yes, then I contend one has no privacy. I do all three and see evidence of it
all the time. If I buy a book on Amazon, I immediately get ads by email and on
social media, suggesting a plethora of suggestions for other books I might
like. If I mention where I am having dinner, I get all kinds of suggestions for
where to have dinner in the future, complete with coupons! It never ends.
In terms, the concept of no
privacy is taken to the extreme, where every movement Kim makes is monitored
and recorded for later use against her.
The really sad thing is, even
though the author has set this story in the distant future, he also explains
how much of what he writes is reality, and it is happening now.
Technology is a wonderful
thing. It gives us information at our fingertips. It guides on our journey to
get from one place to another. It puts us in immediate touch with our friends
and family. But at what cost? Think about it.
Terms of Service is a highly
entertaining, well-written story that will make the reader think about the
present and the future differently, as the author intended. I honestly could
not put this book down for long and had to get back to it when I had to set it
aside. I’m recommending it for its entertainment value and the warning it
contains. I would not want to live in the future as described in these pages,
but it would also seem that the future is now. If you found Orwell's 1984 disturbing,
be warned, this is like that tome on steroids!
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Well, there it is...
Qapla!
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