Imagine your entire life is available for review.
Imagine each day any event can be watched over and over again - your birth, your first kiss, your recent shower, that private itch - all replayable from any angle. Now imagine these can be viewed by anyone at any time.
Is a world where there is far less ego, little crime, and even the smallest moments are recorded and available publicly through the 'Grand Archive' a Utopia or a Dystopia? Traumatized by memories he does not want to recall, artist Ben Tinthawin is recruited by the enigmatic, Grand Archive creator Dr. Mamon, who seeks help for his nextgen designs to enhance the world. Ben stumbles across a secret revealing the doctor's true scheme in all its surreal splendor and questions whether the doctor really is the benevolent soul he claims to be.As the paths of a broken man and a brilliant revolutionary cross, the world shifts and cracks start to appear. Even our most fundamental codes can be encrypted - or corrupted. If the wrong information is discovered, more than Ben's life will be in danger of total shut down.
Prepare yourself for full exposure.
Review :
HarperCollins review of BULB:
"BULB's positive view of a future where everyone knows everything is refreshing and is a timely perspective given the current and expected ongoing discussions about privacy."
T. Ormiston-smith:
When is reality real? When does the reported fact eclipse the historical event? These are some of the questions explored by this darkly foreboding tale of a dystopic future earth. In its portrayal of the tension between utopic and dystopic views of the same world, it was to me reminiscent of Huxley's Brave New World, and in its chilling grotesqueries of Jeremy Wright's Kaleidoscope, but these resemblances are on the abstract level; Wind's gripping narrative is all his own, and the book is written in a marvelously idiosyncratic way, with its seamless blend of dream sequences, letters, journal entries, and direct narrative. It's an ambitious project, but brilliantly successful.
As with all good novels, there's nothing flat about it; flashes of humour and humanity illumine the darkness of the overall work as lightning throws the night sky into sharp relief. We are left at the end unsure of whether we are still reading waking narrative, or whether the early foreshadowing of the protagonist's recurring monster dreams has returned to occupy his waking mind.
A quite unputdownable read, which I should not be surprised to see becomes a cult classic.
