Book Review: The Detainee by Peter Liney

The Detainee by Peter Liney

Hardcover, 352 pages Published March 11th 2014 by Jo Fletcher Books

I am a sucker for a good Dystopia. I mean me of all people, I often complain about end of the world stories that do not have enough gloom. So what went wrong here? Plenty of other people liked this novel. It is doing well on good reads for ranking. I am not going to say this is a horrible novel, because there are few elements of good here, but I have to admit it didn't connect with me.

This first person narrative was the first strike against novel for me, certain novels lend themselves to this kind of storytelling. The Shawshank Redemption, A Simple Plan or American Psycho are stories that are told, but I felt this was a story that needed to be happening. 70 pages in I, as the reader had no idea who the main character was. He was an amorphous I. The book went on at length about his setting, and a few of the unfortunate events he had to deal with but I didn't learn his name until I looked it up in an online review of novel. That is a bad sign.

I mention this because my habit as a reviewer at this point is to say "This novel is the story of..." but I never got a strong sense of who the narrator was. Now I know he is Clancy, some people call him "Big Guy" that he is considered unproductive and has been exiled to a giant trash heap of an island. This is where this hyper-capitlist future sends the "unproductive." Thus the island population contains many people of an advanced age thus making it kind of an opposite to Logan’s Run. It is a great concept; I like the point of view and the message. As a concept it has potential to be a fantastic dystopia warning novel, my favorite kind of science fiction- Horror crossover really. Basically a warning of what could happen if the right wing’s stance against social programs and welfare were taken to an extreme.

This is not an essay it is a novel, and no matter how interested I am in seeing a dystopia make this point it has to function as a novel or story. I admit I found myself skipping entire paragraphs, I know lots of people read this way but I do not. I was bored most of the time I had this book in front of me.

When I looked at online reviews I was surprised how many people liked the book. This book has been promoted as Hunger Games for adults and certainly many responded to the book’s take on ageism. I think libraries should collect this book and make it available despite my personal dislike for it. Certainly the themes are worthy.