Switch

by Justina Robson

This groundbreaking new novel from one of the genre's most respected authors is a thrilling mix of science, magic and politics.

In Harmony, only model citizens are welcome.

A perfect society must be maintained. The defective must be eradicated. For orphans like Nico and Twostar, this means a life that's brutal, regulated and short.

But Nico and Twostar are survivors, and when they're offered a way out of the slums, they take it.

Unfortunately, no one told Nico the deal included being sentenced to death for the murder of one of Harmony's most notorious gang leaders.

Or that to gain his freedom, first he must lose his mind.

Genres: Science Fiction, LGBT, Fantasy, Found Family

368 pages, Paperback

First published March 8, 2018

About the author

Justina is from Leeds, a city in Yorkshire in the north of England. She always wanted to write and always did. Other things sometimes got in the way and sometimes still do...but not too much.

Reviews

[RG · Rating 2 out of 5]

Plot was a bit too messy for me. It didnt know what it wanted to be.

[charlotte, · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rep: gay mc, lesbian side character

ok brief review in an attempt to get you lot to read this!

- the mc is gay and his best friend is a lesbian (explicitly so)

- it's got that really good mix of magic and sci fi

- it actually does well the trope of creating a homophobic society, like it's not just there for gratuitous gay pain, and it's dealt with well too

- nico is a rage filled boy who's actually so soft for the people he loves

- the sentient spaceship!! read it for the sentient spaceship!!

- did i mention how much i love nico yet

- because i love him. a Lot.

(p.s. tw for a fairly graphic rape scene in ch 4, involves a cartel boss giving nico a bj)

[David Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just loved this book. Loved it to bits. It is sharply written ('I felt like I was ruining an otherwise perfect world, and I couldn't ruin it fast enough', 'Nothing's easy when everyone's paranoid'), clever ('the body holds all the feelings that the person doesn't want to acknowledge'), well observed ('I was in love with my fantasy of being the tough guy, the survivor, the one in charge', 'the real trouble is the people who all benefit from things as they are') and utterly, utterly scathing in its condemnation of hypocrisy and prejudice ('Someone leaked a picture of her holding hands with a woman she knew outside school. Inquisition. The usual.')

Nico Perseid is an orphan. His only friend, the only person he trusts, is Two. In a rigidly orthodox, religiously trussed society, they share a deadly secret: they're both gay. Nico's and Two's world is a bizzarely unequal, upstairs-downstairs kind of world where the masters and mistresses live in Harmony while the scum, the dregs, the rejects are left to the crime cartels - and drone policing - in the underworld of Chaontium. The day that they flee their orphanage and drop over the wall into Chaontium, the two friends are free: free to run with the gangs, live under piles of garbage and scrabble for enough to live on as best they can.

So the years roll by without any way out. Until one day, Nico is made a very high-stakes offer...

I first read Robson's work when she was putting out her Quantum Gravity series, which features that sassiest of transhuman heroines, Lila Black, so it rather made me smile to see the cover image for The Switch - there's a definite similarity there: in one, the kick-ass woman in her tight combat outfit, dominating the cover, in the other the muscly hero, sans shirt, doing likewise. A bit of payback for all that fantasy and SF decorated by attractive young women. And why not? You definitely should judge this book by its cover and inside Robson happily turns the conventions - or perhaps I should say, the conventions of a couple of decades ago because happily things are changing - on their heads and inside out. What's more she does so intelligently and, as I said above, with point.

Because in The Switch, cisnormativity, heteronormativity, is as Nico points out, fundamental. His very existence is an affront, a crime, to the strictures of The Alchemy, the weird, concocted religion - part molecular biology, part astrology - that rules Harmony and which despite everything, still commands part of his respect. The stage is set for rebellion, a journey of self-understanding and the pursuit of liberty (not to say, happiness) - and this is central to the book. It isn't some redress-the-balance diversity chucked in, it's the burning, corruscating moral heart of what Nico (and Two) are.

If that all sounds a bit worthy, it isn't. The book has a stonking good plot, introduces a whole gallery of truly rounded characters, and Robson's writing is at its most versatile. She's able to range with a few paragraphs from Nico's introspection, alone in a hostile city, surrounded by those he fears and who hate him to one of the most bewitchingly erotic scenes, I think, I've ever read as he tears down barriers of fear and restraint to finally be himself with a fellow 'two suns' (the phrase used by The Alchemy for his sort - that astrological gobbledygook again, which seems bizarre but here, goes hand in hard with cutting edge science).

I don't want to give ANYTHING away about that scene in advance. But when you get to it. It just... Well.

So, is there anything actually wrong with this book? Not that I could see. It is of the plot-within-a-plot, what the heck is really going on sub-genre, with revelations, betrayals and reverses coming at us steadily - nothing is ever as it seems, from the opening section, where Nico is under sentence of death, to the end, when we finally discover what The Alchemy is really up to (or do we?) Not everyone enjoys that sub-genre, and you really have to trust your author. Having read the Lila Black books, I would always trust Robson, so I'm OK with that - if you haven't read your work before I'd simply urge you to go with it, she really knows what she's doing. (There's even a nice line in sardonic references - from the hints of Culture to 'Nico, you're our only hope' to 'Go back to the start, do not collect any goods and chattels')

So buy this book and read it for the zinging story, the real challenges here to stereotypes, assumptions and conventions, the characters - but most of all because it is, at heart, first rate SF.

[Nakia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful, topical, socially conscious science fiction story. Humor, emotion, beautiful prose and dynamic imagery. It’ll certainly take you for a ride and you’ll enjoy it.

Some parts were a touch hard to follow, and I think some of the plot points needed to be connected a bit better, but otherwise it was wonderful. The characters, especially Nico, are well rounded and so incredibly human in a story all about being human; perfectly imperfect.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recon I could count on one hand the number of science fiction books I’ve read that feature openly gay main characters. So this fact alone sets the book apart from most others I’ve read. It took a while for me to get into the story but once it starts rocking, and you start to get a glimmer of the wider themes and wider story arc, it’s absolutely un-put-downable.

I don’t want to include any spoilers but by the end you can clearly see how this book is a loving tribute to one of Science Fiction’s most beloved, and missed Scottish writers and the universe he created.

This book is rich with witty social commentary, quite funny, and a rip-roaring good yarn to boot.

[S.J. Higbee · Rating 5 out of 5]

In many ways, this book follows a tried and tested trope guaranteed to pull readers in and make them care – two orphaned children in a horrible institution make a break to try their luck on the streets. And, yes, you’ve guessed it – the streets aren’t exactly brimming with nurturing kindness, either. They need to live on their wits and toughness, or die. Twostar is prodigiously clever with any tech that comes her way – so it’s Nico’s job to bring down any drones coming their way, enabling her to break them up for parts. Until they come to the attention of one of the local cartels…

The story is told in Nico’s first person viewpoint throughout, which is always my favourite pov when it’s done well. And because this is Robson, it’s fabulous. I love the depth and complexity she manages to bring to this complicated, tough, angry man without compromising the pace or tension. In fact, because I can connect so deeply with him and his innermost thoughts and fears, when he finds those thoughts no longer belong solely to him – I found I identified with the violation he felt. Again, it’s not an original theme within sci fi, but this time around I found I really, really minded alongside Nico when those upgrades he thought would provide him with abilities to pilot his way off the planet have added extras he wasn’t told about…

The other aspect of this book that isn’t immediately apparent, is that one of the reasons why both Twostar and Nico find themselves in the orphanage, is that they are faulty. Both of them are attracted to their own sex – an aberration that is regarded as unacceptable on Harmony. Unsurprisingly, Nico regards this aspect of his personality with some ambivalence, which Robson writes with compassion, insight and great tenderness. While the romance in this book isn’t a major component of story, especially in the beginning, I was extremely impressed at the intensity and beauty of the relationship that is featured. Though not surprised – this is, after all, Justina Robson…

This book is a standalone, apparently. And I am torn – I put it down with an unhappy sigh when I got to the end because I wanted to go on seeing the world through Nico’s eyes. But I’d hate to read a sequel that wasn’t as awesomely wonderful as this offering.
9/10

[Aliette · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wild ride chockfull of tremendous ideas (sometimes a little overwhelming by sheer density!). Heist plot in a repressive society, psychopathic ship, and also very sweet queer romance.

[emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was wild! All I can say is that I love Nico and I want him to be safe and happy at all times

[Mike Franklin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very disappointing. Felt like it was trying too hard to be trendy with it's emphasis on LGBT. In a society where anything LGBT is 'punishable' with death. All the main characters are LGBT. The lead character is gay but he has an intense platonic love of the second character who is also gay and she has a gay relationship with an off-world woman who is also gay. They are both 'captured' and owned by a mafia like gang led by a gay man who has a relationship with our lead character and eventually our lead character has to capture another high up figure in the administration who is, you guessed it, gay and they have a relationship. All the other (lesser) characters are straight. I'm sorry but that just totally lacks any plausibility for me. I truly don't believe I'm lgbt-phobic but I do look for realistic settings for my reading.

This wasn’t the books only flaw but it was by far the biggest along with those relationships receiving far more attention from the author than I felt they deserved, to the significant detriment of what could have been a very interesting setting and plot.

If you want to read a book that is focused very heavily on LGBT then you may enjoy this.

[Ju Transcendancing · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book took surprising turns and was delightfully twisty. I loved Nico and Twostar, loved their relationship to one another. Loved the slow reveal of truth. This was a great read.

[Ben · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was originally going to give this three stars, with the caveat that it really felt like it was two and half... but in the couple of days it has taken me to get around to writing this, I feel that the two star (it was OK), with an extra half a star (well, a little better than that) it more accurate and I am being less influenced by other much better books I have read by the same author.

So, right from the beginning I felt that this book was rather epileptic in its focus. It is all over the place, now, then, here, there... The author is discussing one subject, jumps off elsewhere, wanders around for a while and three chapters later maybe comes back to things. Later on this gets to be less of a problem as we understand a lot more about the character (yes, there is only one), and the settings, and the plot, so the changes can be taken more in stride. Early on though, it is both confusing, and ultimately a little boring. You see... in order for me fully explain why this is the case, I must take this review back to when I four and learning to read and explain to you the seminal effect that Green Eggs and Ham has on my philosophy of life. That's not exactly true... While Green Eggs and Ham undoubtedly taught me that I should never dismiss anything without at least giving it a go (within reason, after all it is not called Green Cyanide and Auto-asphyxiation), it is entirely unimportant to this review and I have merely mentioned this for comic effect. Yes, it is is important o build back story for a character... but seriously. Even then, the casual asides every other sentence get a little old. Look a spider!

The central, and pretty much only character in the book, is also the narrator. So, we are inside his head all the time, with his constant commenting on things and filling us in with lavish details on certain things, and focusing off elsewhere a moment later, because that is apparently the way this guys mind works. He has some kind of soul mate best friend, but we hardly ever see her 'on screen', or learn very much about her at all, other than she is terribly important to him. Oh, and she is also gay - which is pretty much totally irrelevant, but mentioned a lot. This is coincidental because the main character is also gay, and that too is mentioned a lot, and also both entirely irrelevant and one of the key points to the whole nonsensical plot. One rather uncomfortable rape scene, one totally stupid I-met-you-five-minutes-ago-and-now-I-am-putting-my-tongue-in-your-face-despite-carrying-the-death-penalty moment, and then part of the whole stupid plot.

How stupid is this plot you ask? Well... It's this stupid; The whole thing takes places in location which is entirely ruled by a megalomaniac who is breeding people and selling them for slaves, or body parts, or pretty much anything, to a wider world which totally hates this is and is against freedoms and liberties being denied people... but willing to put up with it, because despite the fact they could interfere at any time (easily), they have decided not to, as they think some of the results of this eugenics program might be interesting. Also, the most interesting and promising test cases are genetically engineered to be homosexual, because that will make it easier to terminate them if and when it felt like the experiment has run its course. But of course, that is anything the greater world would care to interfere with. You know, as I am writing this I am beginning to wonder how I can even give this a two star rating. It was not like I flew through the book... It kept getting put down and my attention being distracted with TV or something more interesting.

But yeah, it was OK. There were some decent bits in it. Where it was not too all over the place it was quite exciting. There were some good ideas in there, but in the end it very much failed to deliver and having a single character who is a bit of a badass is no substitute for this book's many failings.

[Nic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review first published in SFX magazine, issue 288 (summer 2017).

--

‘Perfect’ societies never are. We know this deep down in our genre-reading bones (and, for that matter, if we turn even half an eye on the world around us). Show us a utopia, and we’ll immediately look for the oppression behind the curtain that makes it all possible.

In balance-obsessed Harmony, anyone who doesn’t fit the mould genetically engineered for them is the deviant shadow cast by the light of an otherwise model citizenry: they must conform, however painfully, or be cast out. But Robson's latest doesn't waste time on the protagonists finding out that their world is unjust. Battered by the punitive discipline of a monastic orphanage and washed up in the cartel-dominated slums of the wrong side of town, gay best friends Nico and Two already know that. The real question is not whether Harmony is unjust, but why - who benefits?

Summarised like this, it sounds like the sort of broad strokes, the-government-has-outlawed-fun premise of the lazier end of the YA market. But Robson thoughtfully and convincingly explores Harmony’s all-encompassing ideology. Alchemy is a science/religion mash-up so thoroughly embedded in its citizens’ lives, particularly when it comes to sexuality and gender, that even those with reason to be sceptical – like hard-bitten cynic Nico – struggle to conceptualise an alternative worldview. In Nico, Robson also gives us a vivid, complex and moving portrait of what it’s like to have been taught to hate who you are.

Of course, any novel that tips its hat to Iain M Banks – there’s a ship named Avenging Deity in the Absence of Democracy – is going to be as bloody-minded about entertainment as it is about deep thoughts, and it’s all done with Robson’s characteristic verve. The plot is a zippy confection of double-crosses and action scenes, and the dialogue is snappy, Nico’s armoury being replete with snarky comebacks as well as the impressive muscle showcased in the cover art. Recommended.

[Hazel · Rating 1 out of 5]

I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.

“Harmony welcomes it model citizens.” The Switch by Justina Robson takes place on a … planet? … space station? … named Harmony. Only perfect people are allowed to be part of society, which is bad news for orphans Nico and Twostar. No defects are allowed, including homosexuality, which puts the main characters in a dangerous situation. So, when they are offered a chance to escape, they leap at the chance without stopping to think about the consequences.

In order to be truly free, Nico has to have some form of artificial intelligence inserted into him. What he does not realise is that this will make him more trapped than he was before. Someone wishes to control him in order to find out information. Only when that task is fulfilled will he and his friend Two be free. Until then, Nico has to survive being sentenced to death for a murder he has no recollection of committing.

The Switch is a very complicated and confusing story. To be completely honest, I have no idea what happened in it. I got the vague gist of the story, which I have just summarised, but the rest of it went straight over my head. It all seems to be about artificial intelligence versus some weird religion … I think. Genetic engineering appears to be some kind of theme, too, although I may be wrong. One thing that definitely features in the story is violence; too much violence.

Hand in hand with the violence is filthy language. There is far too much swearing that it becomes meaningless and comes across as a lack of vocabulary on the author’s part.

It is hard to review a book that you do not understand. Either it is written really badly or my brain is not wired in the right way to understand all the sci-fi language and ideas.

[Kay Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mixture of gangster level action and science fiction built world ideas with two queer young people who met as orphans survive by doing whatever's needed in a grim futuristic setting. Being queer is religiously and socially forbidden so they hide. When "Two" meets and falls for revolutionary activist Tash it sets in play events that put her and her brother in spirit Nico in even more danger, but that's not really new for them.

Some parts of the story fall between mystical and split personality. They're interesting but harder to follow. Overall engrossing and enjoyable though.

While the characters are queer / gay and form relationshops there is only a little sexual or romantic content. The SF and action storylines are dominant.

[Taldragon · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Harmony, only model citizens are welcome.

A perfect society must be maintained. The defective must be eradicated. For orphans like Nico and Twostar, this means a life that's brutal, regulated and short.

But Nico and Twostar are survivors, and when they're offered a way out of the slums, they take it.

Unfortunately, no one told Nico the deal included being sentenced to death for the murder of one of Harmony's most notorious gang leaders.

Or that to gain his freedom, first he must lose his mind.

i really wanted to like this book but, 200 pages in, i'm giving up because its just making my head hurt.

[Susanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hands down the best Justina Robson book I've read. Everything worked, the main character, the world, and the plot. The secondary characters remained a bit distant, even Two who was there all the way, but this was Nico's story first and foremost. I liked how the story developed in smaller stages, each adding something significant to the last. Only the very ending confounded me a little. The book ended at a good place for Nico, and it didn't promise a sequal, but I'd definitely read more of his adventures in exploring the universe.

[Susie Munro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dense and twisty and relentlessly original scifi with some cyberpunk shading. I enjoy everything Robson writes, she trusts in readers ability to figure out what's going on and has an ease with messiness and weirdness makes for a really engaging experience that stays with you long after you've finished the novel

[Alex Thurley-Ratcliff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surprising. Not like her other novels.

It starts in one place and ends in many others! Very satisfying although one or two spots where the reflective writing is a bit overly heavily philosophical. But keep on through to the end - fun and unexpected.

[Stuart Hargreaves · Rating 4 out of 5]

Avery good read indeed with some likeable characters. The pages for me just flowed I got involved with characters hoping that they would come through. I suggest you read this book.

[Nadine · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really, really hard to get into. Only got better near the end

[Margaret Haigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book, first I have read by this author. Lots of good hard science along with some more out there parts. Ultimately quite satisfying.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gripping, wild ride through a genetically and technically engineered future of subterfuge and peril for those caught in things they don’t yet understand.

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

Abandoned at 60%.

Not my style.

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Compelling science fiction about politics, science and people: what else should science fiction be about?

[TigerLily · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
A Goodreads Win

The Switch by Justina Robson
Overall I found this book enjoyable. It took me a while to get used to the writing style & I really didn't connect with the main characters until I was about a third of a way in.
The story had lots of twists & turns & took a path that I never expected. I did have some trouble keeping track of what was going on & had to reread a few bits to completely understand what was happening.
I did enjoy reading this & found it very imaginative. I haven't read anything quite like this. I am pleased that I have because it has given me a lot to think about.

[Jack Deighton · Rating 3 out of 5]

On Harmony, isolated from the rest of the Diaspora, balance is everything. It is ruled by a theocracy known as the Alchemy. Driven by its founder, Tecmaten, the Alchemy seeks to create, by non-technological manipulation of DNA, the pinnacle of human development; people called Exalted who have special powers. It teaches everything is twofold, arising from twinned energy flows; it preaches light must always be balanced by dark. Consequently it has a sister dark-side city, Chaontium, to which - since rejects must be treated with mercy - they are consigned.
Instead of a tidy sun and moon, one such reject, narrator Nico Perseid, a male homosexual, is composed of two suns. Even in Chaontium consummation of such sexuality is illegal as it would be a meeting of four suns and so burn through the fabric of reality.
We first encounter Nico when he is on trial for the murder of Chaontium gang boss Dashein VanSant, a rap for which he has been promised escape from the death penalty. This is not his first such deliverance. Chapter two flashes back to his childhood in Chaontium’s state orphanage where he met his lifelong friend Twostar Fae. They seized a chance to flee but Nico was hit by a car. Seemingly dead, he was revived by a bystander whom Twostar thinks was an Exalted. Nico, though, doesn’t believe in the theology of the Alchemy or its woo – “spooky bullshit nobody can prove”. In a kind of foreshadowing that is slightly over-egged he also occasionally sees a minotaur.
For Nico and Twostar life in Chaontium is a continual struggle till they are taken in by a gang. He is kidnapped by VanSant for a career in a variety of kickboxing which reads more like lethal cage-fighting. Under the guise of a wetware upgrade to prevent him dying in the ring Nico undergoes an operation to insert a pilot switch - provided by Twostar’s lover Tashin DeKalfu - a piece of Diaspora tech capable of synching with a starship; the only way out of Harmony except death. He wakes up to the murder charge and Tashin’s betrayal, the presence in his head of a Forged Interface, a Chimeric Avatar Switch, a Transhuman converter which can interface with anyone else and allows “Tek or Forged ships to pilot human or other biological avatars”. In other words, telepathy and remote sensing with a gloss of rationalisation.
An awful long time is spent on this set-up but from hereon in the focus is on Tashin’s agenda, the penetration of the Alchemy to try to prove it has been trading illegally offworld. Finally, we have the revelation of where and what Harmony actually is.
Nico is an engaging enough narrator, albeit overfond of expletives, but naturally impatient of the world he inhabits, “Cisnormativity. That isn’t even a word. It shouldn’t even be an idea. It should be destroyed in hellfire.” Despite his disparagement of woo and The Alchemical Wedding (the locus where mysticism, symbolism and reality meet to give rise to a new kind of being,) his encounter with the powers of mind of the Exalted and witnessing an apparent resurrection (or, “reanimation by goldlight intervention”) leads to some musing on the possibility of souls, of energy that exists above and beyond that of body and mind.
There is an idiosyncratic approach to chapter titling (One: is the loneliest number; Seven: sins; Three Threes – the charm; Light the Blue Touchpaper and Count to – Ten; Thirteen. Triskaidekaphobia can kiss my ass,) but these also give a flavour of Nico’s irreverent narrative style. There are times when the information dumping tends to be ad hoc but Robson has deployed a good coinage in the word datmosphere. There are some instances of odd syntactical choices, verb tense anomalies and phrases like “coins down the back of the sofa” and “Defcon One” which hauled me back out of Nico’s frame of reference into our own.
The setting is undeniably Science Fiction but, since the Exalted’s abilities are never truly explained hence might as well be magic, the whole seems an odd blend with outright fantasy and we don’t see enough of Nico’s early relationship with Twostar to make his enduring attachment to her entirely credible.
Fittingly there is a claustrophobic feel to the novel but it all feels rather breathless. Interesting but flawed, The Switch somewhat ironically suffers from a lack of balance.

[Neil · Rating 1 out of 5]

I received a free copy via Netgalley in exchange for a honest review.

This was not a good book for me.

I found the story to complex and there appeared to be an excessive amount of violence.

I did not engage with the characters and found the plot far too slow in places.

[Jenny Delandro · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read alibrary copy of this book and I am sure thepublishin year should be 2017...
We visit Harmony, where everyone is taught that their planet is the only one in the universe, where everyone is perfect, free from physical and mental illness and defects.
That is because the people in charge hide the defects!

We follow a 'defect' called Nico, but quickly we realise his life is engineered as well.
We see him escape from an orphanage, used by petty criminals, used by a spy, and manages to fall in love with the most elite, most perfect person in the city.

There are sinister creatures stalking Nico and it is amazing when the reason is discovered!
It gets even more interesting when he goes off planet!