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ZED

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About this listen

A blistering, satirical novel about life under a global media corporation that knows exactly what we think, what we want and what we do - before we do.

Self-anointed guru of the Digital Age, Guy Matthias has become one of the world's most powerful and influential figures. Untaxed and ungoverned, his company, Beetle, essentially operates beyond the control of governments or the law.

But trouble is never far away, and for Guy a perfect storm is brewing: his wife wants to leave him; malfunctioning Beetle software has led to some unfortunate deaths which are proving hard to cover up; and a mystery hacker, Gogol, is on his trail.

With the clock ticking - Guy, his aide Douglas Varley, conflicted national security agent Eloise Jayne, depressed journalist David Strachey and Gogol, whoever that may be - the question is becoming ever more pressing: how do you live in reality when nobody knows anything, and all knowledge, all certainty, is partly or entirely fake?

©2019 Joanna Kavenna (P)2019 W. F. Howes Ltd Science Fiction Fiction Witty

Critic reviews

"An idiosyncratic, joyously page-turning thriller - and one of the cleverest books you'll read this year." (Telegraph)

"It's chillingly believable, but Zed is also extremely funny [...] Kavenna remains one of the most brilliant and disconcerting British writers working today." (Spectator)

"A work of delirious genius." (Guardian, Book of the Day)
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Most relevant
I thought the narrator was reading the whole book in character as a poor version of a digital assistant. Turns out that's just his voice...
Story wasn't fantastic, but to be honest I struggled to listen to it anyway.

Read by siri

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This was a great listen and in the vein of Absurdistan or maybe even a little bit of Catch-22. I read some reviews which lamented the performance but I thought the narrator's tone was perfect for the book and perhaps evokes the tone of some of the non-human characters in the novel. The humour is very dry and dark. I loved it.

Great listen

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In a good way. It begins as if it's going to be a hybrid of the Circle and Minority Report but quickly beats its own path then leaves that behind too. While at times the language seems almost totally affectless, the writing is extremely linguistically adventurous and innovative. I'll look her up for more. I'll also turn off autocorrect and tighten my privacy settings.

a very very odd book

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