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Moxyland

by Lauren Beukes (Goodreads Author)

3.63 of 5 stars 3.63 · rating details · 794 ratings · 166 reviews

A frighteningly persuasive, high-tech fable, this novel follows the lives of four narrators living in an alternative futuristic Cape Town, South Africa. Kendra, an art-school dropout, brands herself for a nanotech marketing program; Lerato, an ambitious AIDS baby, plots to defect from her corporate employers; Tendeka, a hot-headed activist, is becoming increasingly rabid;...more

Trade Paperback, 239 pages

Published April 1st 2008 by Jacana Media (first published 2008)

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Future Classics: Best science fiction by women written 2001-2010

67th out of 126 books — 63 voters

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Best by African Authors

58th out of 209 books — 60 voters

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Nov 15, 2011 Kat Hooper rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: audiobook

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

Every once in a while a novel comes along that’s touted as new, exciting, daring, meaningful, poignant, fresh, full of big ideas, etc. That’s what I’ve heard, so that’s what I was expecting and hoping for in Lauren Beukes’ novel Moxyland — especially since it has a nice blurb from William Gibson and has been compared to Neuromancer.

Moxyland takes place in a futuristic (2018) Cape Town, South Africa. The Cape Town setting is unique, and I was hoping to expl...more ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

Every once in a while a novel comes along that’s touted as new, exciting, daring, meaningful, poignant, fresh, full of big ideas, etc. That’s what I’ve heard, so that’s what I was expecting and hoping for in Lauren Beukes’ novel Moxyland — especially since it has a nice blurb from William Gibson and has been compared to Neuromancer.

Moxyland takes place in a futuristic (2018) Cape Town, South Africa. The Cape Town setting is unique, and I was hoping to explore it a bit, but Beukes did not make use of her setting — Moxyland could have taken place anywhere. This Cape Town of the not-too-distant future is a police state run by big corporations where the police control people through government-approved cell phones. Software on the phones lets the police punish citizens by tasing them or cutting off access to their bank accounts and credit lines. In Cape Town, we meet four young adults:

Kendra is an art school dropout who has become an advertisement for a soft drink company. They pumped her up with biotechnology that makes her healthy and beautiful and gives her some of the attention she craves, but the biotech also makes its brand name glow through her skin and gives her a constant craving for their soda. Toby is a vlogger whose wealthy mother (“motherbitch”) has just cut him off because he spends all his money on drugs, girls, and expensive clothes. Eager for the website hits that prove people are paying attention to him, he spends his days walking around Cape Town looking for cool stuff to livestream to his vlog, “Diary of Cunt.” Lerato is an AIDS-baby who was raised in a corporate/government orphanage. She now works for them as a programmer, and she’s got an easy life in the posh corporate world, but she can’t quite manage to stay loyal to the corporation that’s given her everything she’s got. Tendeka wants to be a revolutionary, so he rallies kids, coerces them into not accepting government sponsorships, and uses them to commit useless acts of vandalism and civil disobedience. He manages to pull Toby, Lareto, and Kendra into his latest schemes against the Cape Town government.

These four young disillusioned people can’t manage to effectively change their world or their places in it. They have no noble ideology (beyond the vague feeling that things should just be “different” than they are), and the things they do just end up causing more harm than good. They are ineffective when they attempt to rage against the corporate machine because they are selfish and thoughtless and they refuse to give up what the corporation offers — technology, fashion, status, their favorite soda, and the feeling of being connected.

I like this idea, but I didn’t like Moxyland mostly for the simple reason that I despised every character in the book. Every single one of them was pathetic, hateful, nasty, rude, cynical, sarcastic, and said “fuck” nearly every time they opened their mouths. Not only did I dislike them and think they were pathetic — they all had these same feelings toward each other. They all irritated me and each other and it was pure misery to be around them.

But that’s the point, isn’t it? Lauren Beukes wanted me to dislike all her characters and was, therefore, successful in that aspect of her novel. Because they are such a loathsome bunch of people, I cannot sympathize with them. In fact, I start to root for the corporation instead. I think this is the message, the warning: If we buy into what the corporation is selling, we should expect to become pathetically horrid creatures who deserve to be at its mercy. I like this message, but I spent eight hours with my face contorted into a grimace of disgust and I wish I had that time back. Moxyland would have worked better for me if there had been just one character who was different and who I could like. Instead, they all felt like nearly the same nasty person to me. They all had the same voice.

I listened to Brilliance Audio’s version of Moxyland, narrated by New Zealand actor Nico Evers-Swindell, who’s just as nice to listen to as he is to look at, though he needs to work on making his female characters sound more feminine. Brilliance Audio, I’m glad to see that you’re producing Angry Robot titles, but next time would you please include a picture of Nico on the back of the CD box? You usually have a picture of the narrator but his face is missing from Moxyland, just like the faceless people in the cover art. That way, if I don’t like the story, at least I can entertain myself by looking at Nico. Thanks for listening.

Lauren Beukes is talented and I think she accomplished what she wanted to with Moxyland. I can’t really blame her for not writing it for me, and my 2.5 star rating reflects my lack of enjoyment of this novel and not Ms. Beukes’ promise as a new SF author. Therefore, I am definitely on board for the next Beukes novel. In fact, Zoo City is already in my TBR pile. (less)

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Dec 04, 2011 Dee rated it 2 of 5 stars

I really wanted to like this book. It was recommended to me on Amazon, and sounded so promising.

Instead, by the second chapter I was resigned to hating it, but determined to finish it anyway as a matter of principle.

My first and greatest annoyance with Ms. Beukes's debut novel is her insistence on overwhelming her reader with jargon and manufactured slang, so that one is forced to translate as one reads. Some authors can pull this off without making it a distraction from the story; Ms. Beukes h...more

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Aug 30, 2012 Eliza Victoria rated it 5 of 5 stars

The book opens with a young photographer agreeing to become a sponsorbaby for the beverage, Ghost. She receives an injectable tech that circulates in her system and attaches to her cells. The Ghost logo will appear like a luminescent tattoo on her skin. She will crave for Ghost for as long as she lives.

This is her world. The city is drowning in advertising. Everyone is dependent on their phones for money and identity, and even the simple task of opening a door. To be without a phone is to be a d...more

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Dec 01, 2011 Agathafrye rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: scifi

Lauren Beukes has an affinity for social commentary and a worldview that I find intriguing. Her novels Moxyland and Zoo City are both set in South Africa, which is a locale that I know very little about. Beukes' novels alone have piqued my interest in the culture and politics of South Africa. Both are set in a hi-tech future that is grim, and both have morally ambiguous characters that make questionable choices to survive in a society gone rogue despite governmental efforts at control.

Moxyland...more

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Nov 08, 2011 Alice rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Those who like cyberpunk / Little Brother / dystopic nerdcore

Recommended to Alice by: Riona

Shelves: dystopia-postapocalyptic

3.5 stars.

In order to really review this book properly, I need to read it again, but I can't imagine I actually will. This is a packed, jacked up, Red Bull-d out fanzine of a novel, owing serious debts to Stephenson and Gibson, in the vein of 2000s anti-corporate dystopic fiction like Jennifer Corporate and Feed (the latter is one of my all time favorites). (Sidenote: I've always wanted to teach a class on anti-corporate fiction, mixing, like, No Logo with marketing literature and Cory Doctorow...more

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Oct 26, 2011 Eclectic Reader rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction

Moxyland is one of those rare books where a single string of stars is inadequate to properly rate it. It requires more stars, with explanations.

BIG IDEAS ****

Big ideas drive science fiction. Moxyland is jam packed with big ideas that kept me reading. In fact, the discovery of the next "that's a neat concept" was all that kept me turning pages for the following reasons.

CHARACTERS *

Splitting the point of view among four characters made the book more difficult to read. Multiple POV's are okay, bu...more

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Sep 06, 2011 Kelly rated it 5 of 5 stars

I ended up tracking down a copy of Moxyland (I'm not sure if it was released in the US or if it's still in print in the US, I had to order a copy in some godforsaken way) because Lauren Beukes second novel, Zoo City is getting a lot of hype but the synopsis of Moxyland made it sound more like something I would enjoy.

Anyway, holy shit this book was amazing. Decently color-blind character portrayals (eg: nobody has "coffee-with-cream colored skin" but you do learn things about characters' backgro...more

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Feb 15, 2011 Mardel rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is the story of the future - set in South Africa. The timeline isn't clear, yet with clues you find it's past 2018.

This is the story of Tendeka - a man living on the fringe of society, poor and wanting to make a difference in his life and the lives of others. Tendeka is trying to make a difference with protests and things are beginning to get a little...past control.

There is Kendra, a young woman who has just discovered photography with an old-fashioned film camera, which is now obselete. S...more This is the story of the future - set in South Africa. The timeline isn't clear, yet with clues you find it's past 2018.

This is the story of Tendeka - a man living on the fringe of society, poor and wanting to make a difference in his life and the lives of others. Tendeka is trying to make a difference with protests and things are beginning to get a little...past control.

There is Kendra, a young woman who has just discovered photography with an old-fashioned film camera, which is now obselete. She has a sad past and has made the deal of a lifetime...yet she's not quite ready for the reality of this deal.
Then there is Lerato - a poor girl that has clawed her way up, and is aiming higher in corporate business. She happens to be a whiz at programming chips, and keeping people at a distance. She's a survivor.

Finally, there is Toby, a spoiled rich kid who is rebelling against society and mostly his mother by uploading a v-log type of program that deals with a mix of things...and he dabbles in revolutionary activities.

All four, although they don't all know each other, end up connected. Two of them have grown up together, two of them are "frenemies". All four of their stories come to a resounding crash by the end of the book.

Moxyland is told in first person present tense - alternating between characters. It's hard for me to describe exactly what the novel is about without huge spoilers...but the way Lauren Beukes draws out the story and at the same time pulls you into the story is amazing. Each character is a strongly realized character with very distinct voices and though processes. They aren't all totally sympathetic characters, but once you start reading you keep on reading - learning as you read without quite realizing that you're learning things...and then suddenly you're at the end of the book and ......you feel like you've been through an extreme adventure....in a good way.

There's messages in this book also - big brother, corporate greed, the scary places that technology can take us....the possible future....Within this interesting and entertaining novel is a taste of what can happen, or what is already happening in the world.

Excellent world building, great dialogue and wonderful narration - I loved this book. Of the two by Lauren Beukes that I've read (Zoo City and Moxyland) I would say that Zoo City is my favorite, but this is a close second...although it's almost apples and oranges in a way - since one is science fiction and the other is urban fantasy. Both books were great - and I recommend this to anyone who enjoys subversive style novels that are interesting reads.
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May 16, 2010 Raj rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, cyberpunk, dystopia

This is a near-future cyberpunk-based dystopia set in South Africa where four people from disparate spheres of life are drawn together in a web of mystery and intrigue.

This was a free book that was in the con pack at Eastercon, and it's not one that I would have picked for myself. It's brutal, packs a punch and realistically disturbing. It postulates a society where having your phone locked as punishment means more than just not being able to make calls. The society is rigged so that public tran...more

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Jan 18, 2013 Laura rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Having read and really enjoyed the wildly original Zoo City, I fully expected to love the novel that preceded it, Lauren Beukes' Moxy Land.

Set in a dystopian future of Cape Town, Moxy Land presents a world where large corporations rule a population enslaved by its dependence on technology. If that sounds a little cringe-worthy, it is. But wait - there’s more cringe to come.

There are some fun ideas of where technology and capitalism could take us throughout the novel – for example some perceptive...more Having read and really enjoyed the wildly original Zoo City, I fully expected to love the novel that preceded it, Lauren Beukes' Moxy Land.

Set in a dystopian future of Cape Town, Moxy Land presents a world where large corporations rule a population enslaved by its dependence on technology. If that sounds a little cringe-worthy, it is. But wait - there’s more cringe to come.

There are some fun ideas of where technology and capitalism could take us throughout the novel – for example some perceptive ideas about our increasing reliance on mobile phones, and some more out there ones about genetic modification of animals and corporate sponsorship taken to extremes- actually, there are a lot of fun ideas. Beukes is so interested in flooding the page with these ideas, along with a medley of made-up slang, that the first few chapters are actually quite hard to even understand. Once you do, the pay-off just isn't quite enough.

The four protagonists (who take turns narrating in the first person) are all pretty two-dimensional, but nonetheless completely hateful, meaning it’s hard to give a damn what becomes of any of them. Whilst this is probably intentional with two, the trust-funded waster Toby and cynical ‘corporatti’ Lerato, I honestly don’t know whether you’re meant to find the self-styled revolutionary Tendeka or the arty hipster Kendra as irritating as you assuredly will.

Kendra’s supposedly an up-and-coming photographer putting on her first high-profile exhibition. This includes a photograph entitled ‘Self portrait’, which is – wait for it – entirely black. That’s such a tired and adolescent idea of what cutting edge modern art might be, I think I might die from cringing.

As for any other characters in the story, they don’t even merit two dimensions. The story is structured well, with each character providing you a different view of a brutally structured urban society, although a little more description might have made this world a bit easier to envisage. The four protagonists meet and part ways at intervals throughout the narrative, which does pick up pace as the novel goes on, but which then screeches to a halt in a way more unsatisfying than shocking at the end.

(view spoiler)

A first novel that’s bursting with ideas, when it came out Moxy Land probably showed a lot of promise that came to be realised in Zoo City. Writing this was probably part of a process that allowed Beukes' writing style and technique to mature. For readers, though, there's probably not that much point in going through this process with her.(less)

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Dec 10, 2012 Barac Wiley rated it 4 of 5 stars

An interesting and multilayered narrative of the near future. Many of the individual elements are things we've seen before - repressive governments puppeteered by monolithic and uncaring corporations, virtual realities, hackers, dissidents, rich kids and street punks - but in Moxyland they're updated based on a more modern vision of the future, with cell phones as your lifeline, ARGs and MMOs flourishing with an underground market specializing in selling key toys to the parents of spoiled childr...more

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Feb 21, 2012 Scruffy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The setting of Moxyland is a near future dystopia. It’s a world that’s very easy to believe because the technology and social trends are so similar to our own. It’s not difficult to imagine advertising or mobile phones being used in the ways described here which makes this at times an uncomfortable read. The story is set in South Africa which I am not familiar with at all so I’m sure there were some cultural references that went over my head but it makes for a much more interesting setting than...more

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Feb 19, 2013 Henry rated it 3 of 5 stars

If you like William Gibson or Neal Stephenson's 'Snowcrash', you'll like this recipe straight from the cyberpunk cookbook. It has all the ingredients - corporate culture reigns over a crumbling, pox-ridden, graffitoed urban dystopia in which all that matters is that you have the right tech. It's panem et circenses to the max - life is slavery, even for the corporate drones in their enclaves, but people don't notice as long as they have the right phone, smart-wired clothes, genofixed tattoos and...more

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May 18, 2011 zxvasdf rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

Lauren Beukes has written something new with Moxyland. To say this is not cliched, and to realize this you would need to read Moxyland.

It is a future where the cellphone is indispensable, as much a part of your life as your driver's license, social security number, and bank account. In fact, it is all these things then some more. It is also a riot control device. Beukes has crafted a almost dystopian society of relative simplicity that conceals moral complexity.

There's the cops and their nanote...more Lauren Beukes has written something new with Moxyland. To say this is not cliched, and to realize this you would need to read Moxyland.

It is a future where the cellphone is indispensable, as much a part of your life as your driver's license, social security number, and bank account. In fact, it is all these things then some more. It is also a riot control device. Beukes has crafted a almost dystopian society of relative simplicity that conceals moral complexity.

There's the cops and their nanotech dogs, the Aitos. The dogs and phones are their defenses in the event shit goes south. If one should raise trouble, it takes a mere press of a button to send high voltage electricity coursing through your body, courtesy of your phone. Otherwise they can mark you with a scent that attracts the dogs.

Which brings us to Tendeka, the prerequisite anti-corporate rebel. The perfect target for authority. Tendeka hates the corporates and is searching for a more aggressive way to strike back.

He sometimes employs Toby, a smooth talker with a coat that records everything that happens to him. He is also addicted to bliss and sugar, the drug of choice. He doesn't have a particular allegiance to a school of thought outside the one inside his head. He humors Tendeka's escapades sometimes with the occasional assistance.

Toby often has insider help from an old friend of his, Lerato, who is a crack programmer rising through the corporate ranks. She gets an adrenaline high from doing illegal hacks in her company's system, sometimes to help Toby, sometimes to get information. Lerato is ambitious and like Toby, is all about herself.

Passing through is sponsorbaby Kendra. She's got an analogue camera, and develops her films with an old-timer who can't forget how hard it was in the bad old days. Kendra is an artist, and sometimes has gallery shows. In the eyes of some people, Kendra might be a sell-out. Because she has become branded, injected with nanotechnology that juices up her system, and addicts her to the company's drink line (think red bull on crack) Ghost. Imagine nike branding professional athletes. Like a drawing up of territory lines in corporate espionage.

Their lives intertwine, merge, collide, and fracture in a series of first person narrated chapters that progressively gets shorter with the suspense and action, until everything just goes south in a really interesting way that makes you consider the consequences of allowing corporate power to rise above laws.

The last few chapters is like a punch in the gut. Last time I felt something like this when absorbing a story was watching Requiem of a Dream. It all wraps up in the end, neat as a bow, with an ambiguous message etched in invisible ink on your brain:

1. Corporates are bad for you and don't have your best interests in heart (what heart? the one made of offshore banking accounts, of course!)

2. Don't fuck with corporates or you'll get burned.

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May 02, 2013 Tammy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: cyberpunk

I loved the idea behind this story. It's constant online connection taken to its extreme form showing just how clear the divide between the haves and have-nots is. In a utopian society, everyone would have free and easy access to the internet. In this society, access is determined by your social class and your social class, in turn, determines your access. People working for the corporations stay in their corporate areas with their high-tech gadgets and are well insulated from the problems the r...more

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Jan 26, 2012 Rob rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: random-comments-review

...I've just scratched the surface of the many ideas Beukes has poured into this novel. There are strange, and very unethical, forms of advertising, comments on narcotics, elaborate new forms of entertainment and dubious techniques of law enforcement and crowd control. Most of it seems disturbingly plausible, and all of it technically possible. Where the cross genre novel Zoo City contains a dominant fantastical element, Moxyland is a chillingly realistic view of the possible future. One that, d...more

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Jan 04, 2012 Luke Brown rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008, science-fiction, read-in-2012

I have decided to catch up with South African writer Lauren Beukes' work since I've heard good things about her. I'm excited about reading Zoo City, which has been universally praised, as far as I can tell. However, I've also heard some high praise about her 2008 debut Moxyland, so I thought I would knock that one off first in order to see how Beukes progressed from her debut novel to her sophomore novel. I also note that Niall Harrison rated Moxyland quite highly on his list of Top Ten SF Nove ...more I have decided to catch up with South African writer Lauren Beukes' work since I've heard good things about her. I'm excited about reading Zoo City, which has been universally praised, as far as I can tell. However, I've also heard some high praise about her 2008 debut Moxyland, so I thought I would knock that one off first in order to see how Beukes progressed from her debut novel to her sophomore novel. I also note that Niall Harrison rated Moxyland quite highly on his list of Top Ten SF Novels 2001-2010 by [Women] Writers from the Rest of the World, placing it higher than Zoo City.

The best way I can describe Moxyland is as a kind of a SF version of No Logo, about ubiquitous corporate control and culture jamming in Cape Town 2018. After finishing it, I am left with the impression that Beuke's is an author with a lot of promise.

Beukes' cultural and technological extrapolations are plausible and insightful, but I am concerned that, being set so close in the near future, the book will not date well. I think 2018 is a little too soon for some of the predicted technology in the book, but as Beukes points out in an afterword that many of her predictions have already become reality since the book was written in 2008. Many of her other predictions do seem scarily plausible, just not in the next six years.

The book introduces four view point characters and follows them around in alternating chapters as their lives intersect in a very vividly evoked near future Cape Town. While the writing is very good and the characters are interesting, the plot is slightly ambling and not all that compelling for the first half of the book. However, Moxyland did hook me towards the end and I ended up really liking it, even though it is quite a depressing book. I also realise that, at first, I had trouble connecting to the characters; none seemed very sympathetic. But, as I read, I realised that Beukes has created a set of very real, very flawed, and, ultimately, quite sympathetic characters, despite their flaws. As things started to go downhill for them I was dragged more and more into the story.

Be warned: The ending is quite gutting.

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Sep 21, 2009 Joshua rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2009

I didn't like this at all for the opening bits. Beukes near future science fiction tale was trying way, way to hard to be edgy and hip. I found it infuriating. I kept going though and I glad I did because the last half of the book is really good. The story picks up steam, I was less annoyed by the characters (although the alternating chapters by a few different people worked better for some characters more than others) and was really into it by the end.

I haven't read a book that is kind of "cyb...more

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Mar 16, 2013 Marija S. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: solid-read

Oh, very nice!

A story that reeks of W. Gibson's legacy is a natural lure for yours truly. The lingo, the style (one chapter per character, each in I-form) and the setting take getting used to and I didn't quite kick off fast with this one. However, once past that, the plot pulled me in, loose ends connected and the story unfolded beautifully.

I love the way Beukes painted the world her characters inhabit (nice show-don't-tell) with all the little details that they have and we (still) don't. In s...more Oh, very nice!

A story that reeks of W. Gibson's legacy is a natural lure for yours truly. The lingo, the style (one chapter per character, each in I-form) and the setting take getting used to and I didn't quite kick off fast with this one. However, once past that, the plot pulled me in, loose ends connected and the story unfolded beautifully.

I love the way Beukes painted the world her characters inhabit (nice show-don't-tell) with all the little details that they have and we (still) don't. In some bits it's so prophetic, it's freaky. Or at least believable. The plot that made a full loop is a nice way to wrap things up, characters are a little bit overboard though (thus the rating of one star short of the full deck) but I applaud how the author didn't succumb to the first-novel-syndrome of falling in love with your characters so much they start obtruding the plot (Drizzt, anyone?). Hmm now that I think about it, maybe that did happen in a way... but, if so, it was unforeseeable enough to be forgivable.

What I didn't dig is a Moxy character stencil cut-out at the end of the book, resembling something from Japan's kawaii cult, intended for spray-paint artists (oh, how anti-establishment), but not for the obvious reasons of instigating of vandalism, street-art, whatever you wanna call it. What bugged me about it is the title itself which is catchy indeed, however completely unrelated to the entire book (I admit something like 'moxy' was mentioned once or twice, but so was everything else) and I really do not get who or what this Moxy thingy is. If it's a symbol of something cute and seemingly harmless, but hairy and toothy beneath the surface - implying the lull of a modern day, stultified obedience in capitalist society, then be it. But this is my musings, not based on anything read or directly implied in the book. I feel the marketing department decided that something like a recognizable, subversive mascot would bring the book about anarchists more publicity and profit which is kinda... ironic?

To avoid spoilers, MOXYLAND is a sweet cyber-punkish, paranoid, conspiratorial, violent monition about the world we're headed for, full speed ahead, in a very near future. Too rough and obscene to be filed under YA? Well,... no, since I do not think today's young adults are unfamiliar with problems/facts of drug abuse, promiscuity, vandalism, self-centeredness bordering with psychopathy, and, ahem, potential of government/corporate control slash totalitarianism. Ok, maybe they are not really aware of the latter concept, hence the best reason for reading this book.

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Oct 08, 2010 Doug rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If there is a lesson to be taken from this book, and the characters within, all I can think of is this: If you can manage to be a horrible, self-centered, bitter, misanthrope in life, you'll probably be okay.

There are elements of the book that I liked. I enjoyed the quite reasonable stretch that our phones will take the place of wallets, credit cards and identifications, and that the worst punishment imaginable is being disconnected from that phone. No money, no way to travel, no way to communi...more If there is a lesson to be taken from this book, and the characters within, all I can think of is this: If you can manage to be a horrible, self-centered, bitter, misanthrope in life, you'll probably be okay.

There are elements of the book that I liked. I enjoyed the quite reasonable stretch that our phones will take the place of wallets, credit cards and identifications, and that the worst punishment imaginable is being disconnected from that phone. No money, no way to travel, no way to communicate. Phones that become devices of corporal punishment is appealing to the paranoid in me.

I also found the basic world of the book to be spot on. It's a setting where large corporations are in charge behind the scenes, throwing up and tearing down governments and deciding the fates of nations. It's a little cliched these days, but Beukes does a good job at making it believable.

Past these two setting points, the book just made me want to punch a kitten. Seriously, when I put it down all I wanted to do was inflict pain.

The writing was competent, (though extremely reminiscent of Palahniuk's weirdly scattered style), and the setting as I said was interesting, but the characters were all awful, awful people. Even the most sympathetic one, Kendra, was a weak and clingy thing who never really changed through the course of the novel. None of the characters had an arc. The closest was Tendeka, who grew from a belief in protest to a belief in murder. Congratulations. In fact the two least abominable characters in the book, the aforementioned, end up with the worst fates, while the two absolute pricks, Toby and Lareto, manage to do okay.

For books to succeed you need to connect with at least one of the characters. Have one good thing about at least one, and the reader will follow you where you want to take them. Leave no one to connect with and readers just end up wishing they had spent their time reading something else.

That's where Moxyland left me. At the end of it I was angry that I spent the time on it. I'm fine with a dark story and dark endings, and this book made a point to have both, but as a reader I was gleefully wishing death on the main characters almost from the get-go, and when the bad things began to happen, I was only mildly amused by their plights. I wanted them to fail and be hurt at the beginning, and near the end I just didn't care about them at all anymore.

It deserves to be a better book. The setting is great, not as bleak as Blade Runner or Running Man but well on its way there, and deserved better characters and a deeper story.

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Feb 16, 2012 Chris Limb rated it 5 of 5 stars

A dark tale set fifteen minutes into the future and yet a world that is so well described and characters so vital that it leaves you bereft when its all over.

Comparisons are lazy but if William Gibson had written Trainspotting and set it in South Africa... well it wouldn't be Moxyland, but might deserve to sit on the same shelf. This is intelligent cyberpunk written from today's perspective, extrapolating the sociology of the near future in alarming detail. For a book published in 2008 it's frig...more

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Feb 23, 2013 Robert Day rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Not a bad book, oh no, but a book that I personally did not enjoy reading. The characters did not come alive for me until about three quarters of the way through the story and by then, any emotional connection I had with them was too tenuous for me to care about their ultimate fate.

The story involves politics and activists and... omg, I can't do this anymore...

I'm typing this on my laptop now, but just prior to this, I wrote this brilliant review on the Goodreads app on my smartphone (gotta be a...more

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Apr 11, 2011 Mieneke rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, science-fiction

After reading and loving Zoo City, when I made one of my rare visits to a brick-and-mortar bookstore - rare out of self-protection really; I can't resist buying at least one book whenever I go into one - and seeing a copy of Moxyland on the shelves, I snatched it up, since I couldn't wait to sample more of Lauren Beukes' excellent writing.

Moxyland is very much a dystopic novel, but in some ways it's scarily close to reality: the rise of smartphones, the ability to pay with your phone, the way we...more After reading and loving Zoo City, when I made one of my rare visits to a brick-and-mortar bookstore - rare out of self-protection really; I can't resist buying at least one book whenever I go into one - and seeing a copy of Moxyland on the shelves, I snatched it up, since I couldn't wait to sample more of Lauren Beukes' excellent writing.

Moxyland is very much a dystopic novel, but in some ways it's scarily close to reality: the rise of smartphones, the ability to pay with your phone, the way we have come to depend on a working (mobile) internet connection and how much easier it has become for the authorities to track our every move. This is emphasized by Beukes' afterword, written for the Angry Robot editions, in which she details the real-world developments that have caught up to her narrative, since she wrote the book. The South Africa of Moxyland is a totalitarian state, very Orwellian in feel, but updated to tomorrow. It's no longer doublespeak and doublethink, but doublelive. Lerato's layering of misdirections and hiding her true communications behind innocuous ones and Toby's intricately built public persona for his Diary streamcast, to point out two examples, illustrate how rigidly people have to conform to their classes or risk becoming disconnected and disenfranchised. To break out of the mould, you have to do so in complete secrecy or risk the consequences.

Halfway, I was really into the book, but I was wondering what the main plot was, as there didn't really seem to be one. Then I realised that there was one, but that it was really subtle and only truly came into focus at the end of the book. Moxyland isn't so much about the interconnections between our four main storylines, as it is about how these storylines illuminate the different facets of Moxyland's society and how we do not want to end up in a society like it. There are so many thought-provoking elements in the book, my mind was spinning with them when I finished the book. One thing is sure though, as the flap text said, nothing is as it seems and you won't know how much it isn't, until you've read the last page. The resolutions to the various story arcs blew my mind and some of them I hadn't seen coming at all.

The characters were well-drawn; the divide between corporati and civilians clearly shown. While Kendra is mostly sympathetic, the others all have some seriously dislikeable traits, though Beukes succeeds in making both Toby and especially Lerato plausible through their back stories. Tendeka's motivations never become completely clear and his was the character I connected least with. The scariest character in the book wasn't one of the obvious villains, it was Mr Muller, Kendra's photography mentor. Not because he's awful of because he commits some heinous crime, but because he's wilfully blind to the repressive nature of the society portrayed in Moxyland. He is part of the huge middle of the population, who think life is fine as it is and ignores any violations of privacy, human rights or even common human decency. Of course, this is something history has seen time and time again, always leading to disastrous results.

While the book doesn't end leaving glaring questions unanswered, it does leave the door open for a return to these characters. And it would be interesting to see where such a return would go. However, whether Beukes returns to Moxyland, Zoo City or goes some place new, I'll be sure to follow. After reading Zoo City turned me into a fan girl, I enjoyed Moxyland just as much, both because of the story and because it was thought-provoking. I can't wait for her next book and to be wow-ed all over again.(less)

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Sep 28, 2012 Ryan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, cyberpunk

Whoa. Seriously. Whoa! First of all this book is written in such a strange way. Lots of books have a first person perspective, but this is the first book I've ever read that has four first person perspectives. I was complaining at first that the author took a page out of George R. R. Martins book that I really dislike: naming the character at the beginning of each chapter. Why I dislike this is a completely different post, but for the purposes of this review, Beukes did a hell of a job with a so...more

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Jun 21, 2011 Matt Piechocinski rated it 1 of 5 stars

I REALLY wanted to like this book ... the premise, what little there was seemed great, and if you get endorsements from William Gibson, the godfather of the genre you're writing in, your book simply must be great, right? Wrong. Beukes had a lot of great ideas, and 4 compelling characters, but what she didn't have was a plot. She had these four people go along in their lives, and threw them all together Traffic style in the last 50 pages. I felt this book was a real struggle to get through, but I...more

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Sep 06, 2010 Thomas Rohde rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a mean little book in the best way. It feels like this really could be ten years from now with the power that corporations already have. Between all of the Facebook privacy issues, Apple's increasingly paranoid way of keeping control over its proprietary technology (some of which was allegedly pilfered from other companies) and Google/ Verizon laying down their own version of "net neutrality". The scenario is ripe and this was an excellent read. I'm generally not a fan of novels with mul...more

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Sep 28, 2012 Iain rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I came to this one after reading the author's second novel, 'Zoo City', which I enjoyed and has rightly received a good deal of critical acclaim: but there's no doubt in my mind, this is the better book.

'Moxyland' follows four different POV characters, all young, black South Africans in a not-too-distant-future Cape Town where phones are a necessity for life (allowing access to money, public transport, and even homes), corporations are hugely influential, and advertising has taken extreme new di...more

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Aug 05, 2012 George Ilsley rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, satire

Two and a half stars, really. The concepts are terribly resonant, especially during the Olympics, when one can see how the corporations has special traffic lanes and access. But Like others reviewers here, having finished the book, you almost want to read it again, now that you know what is going on. Almost, but not really. The introduction of foreign words and concepts, and made up things, was not skillfully done, so this reader was often lost. I looked in vain for a glossary. Even the simple w...more

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Dec 02, 2011 Jayne Bauling rated it 4 of 5 stars

You think we're over-reliant on our phones? Learn how much more reliant we could become and how that reliance might be used to control us in the not-impossible future that Lauren Beukes creates in Moxyland.

Creepy corporates are Big Brother in the dazzling dystopia that Cape Town has become by the year 2018. As four vividly realised young characters pursue their disparate goals, branding reaches new extremes and video games move into the real world. Scary, funny, frenziedly paced and inventive.

R...more

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Jan 25, 2010 Trak rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010, fantasy-sci-fi, fiction

The publisher lays claims that is the new sci-fi will to me the book fits into that category of cyber-punk, it has Gibson overtones but not at the same level.

I was not sure if this book was being pitched at the youth market or not, I do not think it but the cover I brought tends to suggest that market.

The book was interesting, some nice characters but not one that I cared too much about and they all seemed one dimensional. Ten was a radical, pure and simple, espousing his need for change and y...more

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About Lauren Beukes

Lauren Beukes is a novelist, scriptwriter, comics writer, TV writer and occasional documentary maker and former journalist.

She won the Arthur C Clarke Award and the Kitschies Red Tentacle for her phantamagorical noir, Zoo City, set in a re-imagined Johannesburg.

Her previous novel, Moxyland is political thriller about a consumertopia corporate apartheid state where cell phones are used for social...more

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Books by Lauren Beukes

Maverick: Extraordinary Women from South Africa's Past

The Hidden Kingdom Part One (Fairest #8)

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