Rate this book

Positron, Episodes 1 - 3 (2012)

by Margaret Atwood(Favorite Author)

3.88 of 5 Votes: 5

languge

English

genre

Science Fiction

publisher

Byliner Inc.

review 1: I've read Atwood's "Handmaid's Tale," and told myself I'd get around to her other stories. By comparison, Positron isn't really like that book at all. It is weird, but not so weird that I think this is groundbreaking for a dystopian society. Feels like Stepford Wives meets 1984 meets Parable of the Sower in a way, but more tongue-in-cheek and lighter. It is humorous and wry. I don't particularly care for the short episodic format. I'd rather this were novel length instead of a series of short-story sized installments.
review 2: Margaret Atwood write a salacious novel? Gasp! Well, not quite, but close enough. "Positron" is a serialised e-book set in an what some critics have called an Orwellian future where the chaotic state of crime and lawlessness has almost p... moreushed the average American suburban neighbourhood into the fringes, and the overflowing prisons are no longer able to effectively contain the seedier elements who threaten the rest of the population. In order to restore some semblance of stability and safety, an idealised compound called Consilience (resembling that of a gated community) is established. The trick to this is that those law-abiding citizens who opt into this safe haven share their homes with the "Alternates" by voluntarily spending alternate (of course) months in the prison surrounds of Positron. In this way, full employment is ensured, and no one in the community is ever homeless.Into this strange social order enters regular all-American couple Stan and Charmaine; he of the regular Joe variety who works in a motor shop in his civilian life and a chicken coop tender when in Positron, while she is a squeaky clean demure blonde who wears button-up blouses but has a much more ominous job as Chief Medications Administrator, who is responsible for the transit of the seriously criminal to another sphere. They never meet their Alternates who inhabit their house when they are in Positron, and vice versa when they are in Consilience. But all that changes when Stan discovers a love note under a refrigerator by a Jasmine to a Max, whom he assumes to be the Alternates he has been wondering about. So far, so clean - so where's the sex in all this? What ensues as Stan gets more and more obsessed with "Jasmine" and her shenanigans with the voracious "Max", is a spiral downwards into the deeper workings of Consilience, as Stan risks the stability of his life with Charmaine to feed his wanton desires. Having read this far into all 3 episodes, the following two episodes look promising; a little bit like "Stepford Wives"-meet-"1984". less

Download links for: Positron, Episodes 1 - 3

Advertising