In sixteen years, will you join the revolution?
Literature is powerful; it can reinvigorate a forgotten past, reveal a hidden world from beyond, and even challenge readers to look within. In the case of Alexander Merow and Thorsten Weber, they wanted to share a message–even if it meant translating a novel in a language entirely foreign to their own. Merow (the author) and Weber (a sci-fi fanatic who moonlighted as a translator) together have released Prey World: Citizen 1-564398B-278843. The book was formerly only available in German.
It is the year 2027, and all nationalistic barriers have been obliterated. Instead, Frank Kohlhaas subsists hand to mouth in the former Berlin. Each minute, every breath, and every morsel is monitored and calculated through ScanChip technology. At twenty-five, he works in a steel factory where other workers march down giant aisles managing enormous machines. If things get too glum Gert Sasse, the Supervisor, leads workers in the One World Song.
He hit the road…scattered with garbage…full of rusty cars and all kinds of rusty debris. Nevertheless, Stefan Miese was not very difficult to find. He was very tall, thick bearded…and hardly different from what he collected and sold.
After one worker refuses to sing it, identities cross and Frank is falsely accused of insubordination. Frank is ordered to stand trial, which is completely absent of evidence and a sound jury, entirely automated. He’s sentenced to five years in Big Eye, a reeducation camp, where the cruelty is borderline primeval. In a routine bus transfer to another facility, the bus is hijacked by a crew of rebels to rescue one of their own. Now a free man, Frank has been “reeducated”, and he wants the world to know exactly how.
Merow understands the true genesis of terrorism has nothing to do with racial identity, little to do with religion, but has everything to do with circumstance. In the beginning of the novel, Frank is a diffident sideliner wasting his globes (money) on alcohol to quell the voices of inadequacy. By its end, the evolution of Frank is written with such artful “slight of hand” that the reader doesn’t realize what Frank wants until it’s envisioned. The book is entirely intercontinental. The Red Moon rebels hear about revolutions erupting in Japan, and the climax of the novel takes place in the sewers of Paris. The novel is translated well-enough (I couldn’t imagine doing the same into German!), but expect for minor confusion. In addition, the metric system abounds. (Oh, you Germans with your completely logical and superior use of the metric system!)
Still, methods used by the ruling order in Prey World feel written for a generation long past. The symbolism for our ilk should call for a measure of finesse, considering how much information we Millennials freely share in our desperation to build lasting connections with others. Big Brother no longer needs hypnotic anthems or newspeak a la yesteryear dystopian fiction–build a platform and people will do it for you. Also, when Frank arrives at the rebel camp, the reader is hit with an anvil of back story which unravels the otherwise tight pacing.
Alexander Merow’s influences are unmistakable (Orwell, Bradbury, etc.), but his prose can be inconspicuous similar to that of British author Kazuo Ishiguro. Secrets are well hidden and readers won’t know what hit them before it’s too late.
