GemX – Nicky Singer

I am ever in search from source of procrastination – at the moment I’m avoiding both things for school/work and making my way through by literally hundreds of unread books (true procrastinator that I am, having written that I had to check precisely how many books I have currently waiting to be read – 382, not counting a dozen or so on my shelf because I want to reread them, the as-yet-unrediscovered books from the boxes I’m slowly ploughing through, and the book of quotations I’m currently only 12/13ths into). Which probably explains why I read GemX so soon after purchasing it.
Sixteen-year-old Maxo Evangele Strang, only GenOff (genetic offspring) of genetic scientist Dr Ivo Strang and artistic director Glora Orb, is a GemX from SkyFloor 15 of the Heights, Enhanced Sector – he is a member of the most genetically perfect generation to exist: beautiful, healthy, intelligent and elite. So why has he developed a… a crack beside his flawless left eye?
Sixteen-year-old Gala Lorrell, daughter of Finn (missing for four years, since he answered the call to donate skin cells to the Polis) and Perle Lorrell (dying of cancer, even though cancer has allegedly been eradicated in the Polis), is a Dreggie from Dreg Estate 4 – trying to hold her family together while her baby brother Daz focuses primarily on creating art, and fourteen-year-old Stretch is determined to track down what happened to his father, if only he can find Dr Ivo Strang.
Singer has created a believable future, where the current gap between haves and have-nots is even greater. The wealthy live compartmentalised, frivolous and pampered lives, tended to by the purpose-bred Clodrones, trained from birth to obey; the poor live in giant industrial estates with unpredictable water and power supplies, trying to scrape together a living any way they can. GemX weaves together the stories of Maxo and his privileged but untenable society, Gala and her disintegrating world, and the growing self-awareness of Clodrone 1640.
There are shades of Huxley’s Brave New World Elementary class Consciousness indoctrination (“I’m glad I’m not an Alpha”) in the programming of the Clodrones, and faint echoes of his class structure, too, though this is a very different future. I thought the depiction of the Enhanced mindset, particularly Maxo’s unrecognised biases and his inability to see beyond the boundaries of his society, even to the point of overriding self-preservation, was particularly accomplished, but I wasn’t always convinced by the novel, particularly the behaviour of Maxo, which at times seemed unlikely and uncharacteristic. Despite that, it is certainly an interesting, albeit somewhat unoriginal take on a dystopic and possible future. – Alex