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Model Citizens
And how to tell what the best things were? Well, that was easy: the best things were the ones with the most people looking at them.
Alastair Buchanan has a comfortable life. It's been a year since he received his very own junior - a clone designed to help him escape the daily grind. So why does Alastair spend his days alone, online, obsessing over his status? When his long-term girlfriend Caitlin can't take it anymore, Alastair does his best to hold it together. But then, a remnant from his past appears and he is forced to confront the level of control that technology has over his life.
Elsewhere, a terrorist cell dedicated to yanking humanity back to the 1990s, before screens took over, is building momentum. But looming over everyone is Kim Larson, inventor of the juniors. When the World's Father himself realises that humanity's future lies in the stars, who will be left to hold him to account?
From award-winning author Daniel Shand, Model Citizens explores a surreal world peopled by humans struggling with their dehumanising present. Full of suspense, it asks us what we give up when we exist online, and who we can trust to take care of us. Model Citizens is a subversive and darkly comic story of class, technology, and responsibility, offering a vision of the future that may be closer than we realise.
Alastair Buchanan has a comfortable life. It's been a year since he received his very own junior - a clone designed to help him escape the daily grind. So why does Alastair spend his days alone, online, obsessing over his status? When his long-term girlfriend Caitlin can't take it anymore, Alastair does his best to hold it together. But then, a remnant from his past appears and he is forced to confront the level of control that technology has over his life.
Elsewhere, a terrorist cell dedicated to yanking humanity back to the 1990s, before screens took over, is building momentum. But looming over everyone is Kim Larson, inventor of the juniors. When the World's Father himself realises that humanity's future lies in the stars, who will be left to hold him to account?
From award-winning author Daniel Shand, Model Citizens explores a surreal world peopled by humans struggling with their dehumanising present. Full of suspense, it asks us what we give up when we exist online, and who we can trust to take care of us. Model Citizens is a subversive and darkly comic story of class, technology, and responsibility, offering a vision of the future that may be closer than we realise.
- GenresScience Fiction
352 pages, Paperback
Published May 5, 2022
5 people are currently reading
49 people want to read
About the author
Daniel Shand
4 books17 followersDaniel Shand was born in Kirkcaldy in 1989 and currently lives in Edinburgh, where he is a PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh and a Scottish literature tutor.
His shorter work has been published in a number of magazines and he has performed at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. He won the University of Edinburgh Sloan Prize for fiction and the University of Dundee Creative Writing Award.
His shorter work has been published in a number of magazines and he has performed at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. He won the University of Edinburgh Sloan Prize for fiction and the University of Dundee Creative Writing Award.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 22, 2022
Took me some time to finish, it didn’t grip me as much as I expected it to, even though it has all the ingredients of a book I would love: clones, impending apocalypse, a fight club esque fringe group, and creepy weird sci fi elements. Still don’t know why I didn’t love it.
May 14, 2022
There's some sort of vague apocalypse going on - Edinburgh is living with (and enjoying) an endless heatwave. Ill-defined, semi-recreational protests are kicking off all over the place. A terrorist cult obsessed with bringing back the 1990's is chaotically trying to get an anti-technological revolution going. And Fife has blown up in a kingdom-wide gas explosion.
All of this the protagonist ignores, preferring to spend his lazy days schlepping about the flat, scrolling his mobile, pondering a major telly upgrade and making sure his Junior (a perfect biomechanical clone) is doing a decent job of making him look good at work or down the pub.
This lifestyle quickly loses him his ambitious, Juniorless, neo-art world girlfriend and gets rolling a manic plot taking in ancient tech billionaires, gigs and pub sessions of the future, next-gen vaping, digital ghosts, 90s celebrity naming ceremonies, huge packs of dogs, hulking eunuch van drivers and a drastic solution to a planet looking like it's too far gone.
And it doesn't shy away from the big questions either - are people shagging Juniors? Are Juniors shagging other Juniors? Are people shagging their own Juniors? What do robots eat etc.
It's the best contemporary novel I've read in years, up at the top with Lincoln in the Bardo (George Saunders) and This is Memorial Device (David Keenan) - really funny, unexpectedly sad, joyfully violent, relatably mundane, believably futuristic and always beautifully written.
And the icing on the cake? I'm thanked in the back - holy shit!
All of this the protagonist ignores, preferring to spend his lazy days schlepping about the flat, scrolling his mobile, pondering a major telly upgrade and making sure his Junior (a perfect biomechanical clone) is doing a decent job of making him look good at work or down the pub.
This lifestyle quickly loses him his ambitious, Juniorless, neo-art world girlfriend and gets rolling a manic plot taking in ancient tech billionaires, gigs and pub sessions of the future, next-gen vaping, digital ghosts, 90s celebrity naming ceremonies, huge packs of dogs, hulking eunuch van drivers and a drastic solution to a planet looking like it's too far gone.
And it doesn't shy away from the big questions either - are people shagging Juniors? Are Juniors shagging other Juniors? Are people shagging their own Juniors? What do robots eat etc.
It's the best contemporary novel I've read in years, up at the top with Lincoln in the Bardo (George Saunders) and This is Memorial Device (David Keenan) - really funny, unexpectedly sad, joyfully violent, relatably mundane, believably futuristic and always beautifully written.
And the icing on the cake? I'm thanked in the back - holy shit!
July 15, 2022
A daunting, immersive, and, at times, prophetic vision of a doomed Scotland. Beautiful literary sci-fi laced with dark humour, relatable characters, and genuinely repulsive villains. Gratifyingly bleak. An excellent read. *****
July 12, 2022
A dystopia as vivid as Blade Runner. Worryingly easy to imagine as reality. Surprisingly funny, extremely entertaining. Loved it
August 4, 2023
A fascinating story and near-future that resonates close to our own reality!
I had no idea what I was getting into, yet became embroiled more and more with the riveting characters as they embattled against ever escalating obstacles.
Will reread again.
I had no idea what I was getting into, yet became embroiled more and more with the riveting characters as they embattled against ever escalating obstacles.
Will reread again.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews