Book Review: Golden State by Ben H. Winters

Golden State by Ben H. Winters

Hardcover, 319 pages

Published January 2019 by Mulholland Books

This is my third Winters book I read the first of his Last Policeman trilogy and the controversial Underground Airlines. I liked both of those books enough that I picked this up from the library without knowing anything about the plot. I am glad I went into this blind and I was pretty excited about this one. I think I liked this best of the three books of his I had read. This continues the bold path that Winters is taking with these daring concepts. Underground Airlines is a really intense alternate history that examined a modern world where slavery was still legal in parts of the United States. While this novel doesn't deal with hot button issues like racism and slavery it does deal with one of the major issues we as Americas right now.

It is easy to induce eye-rolling when the issue of "fake news" comes up since President Agent Orange uses it so often. The idea of what is fake or reality is at the heart of this strange dystopia. This takes place in a post-apocalyptic California that is hanging on by a thread on the edge of a wasteland. One of the things that holds this society together is lying is illegal. A specialized police department (Speculative Service) has been formed to protect the "Objectively So." Our main POV is a member of this law enforcement team named Laszlo. His brother Charlie was basically a psychic lie detector and was killed on the job. Now Laszlo has a rookie cop for a partner that gives this a great Training day aspect to the narrative.

The plot really kicks into gear when they are sent to look for foul play in the case of a dead roofer. Did he fall or was he pushed? As you can imagine looking into the man's life leads to interesting details. The investigation goes to his apartment where Laz finds a novel called The Prisoner. As you can imagine fiction doesn't have its own category in the Golden State bestseller list. Laz is drawn to the novel that is when things get weird as he and his brother are both characters in this novel "The Prisoner."

I really enjoyed this weird meta-cop novel that was very PKD in concept and tone. You can bet this will be my Dick Like Suggestion in the next episode of Dickheads. This book feels like other stories you have read or seen before so comparisons will be made to classics like 1984 and Fahrenheit 451. Personally it reminded of recent works like Nick Cutter's The Acolyte or the film Equilibrium. The comparisons will be made because this is a weird high concept dystopia, but there is plenty to like here.

I think this novel does a good job of addressing important themes for our time while delivering in all the genres it has its hand in for. It is a good cop novel, it is a cool weird crime mystery and most importantly it is throught provoking science fiction. It is good, objectively so.