Infomocracy by Malka Older

Infomocracy by Malka Older

What I drank prior:
A whole bottle of wine and eight beers. No judgement. Please. (Autocorrect is my best friend)

Spoiler-free Overview:
So the internet had taken over everything including elections. BUT the world is filled with micro-democracies. Basically, every 100,000 people are districted and each district has its own government. ALright alright, hang on hear me out. There not ALL individual governments, for example, there's one called Heritage and they have what's called "the super majority." They have the most districts on the planet. Elections happen every 10 years and in this story, the election is a couple months away. There are policy-focused governments, enviro-friendly governments, even product-focused governments (Coca-cola and Philip Morris are two examples).  Anyway, there are two MCs, one works for Information (the internet) and one works for a government's campaign. Election is coming, conspiracies happen, they gotta figure it out.

Spoiler-free Thoughts:
This book was slow, but it's because it required so much world building. I thought it was such a great concept that made me think long and hard about what's goin on in our current political environment. And by that i mean, i prefer literally anything to what we have right now. fuggin President Flagrant Citrus Fruit...

This book inspired many a conversation with co-workers and friends. These people aren't big readers but it was so interesting to me that i had to bring it up. Can you imagine the gov't run by Phillip MOrris?

Characters: 

POC?!?! GASP NOT POSSIBLE. Buckle up, its done and its really not a big deal. In fact, it makes perfect sense in this globalized world. It's too often I find sci-fi books written where there are blue people but no hispanic or black people. Thank you, Malka, just thank you.

I really liked the characters. I didn't realize i did though until the very end when it was over.

Mishima is a well written woman. I mean, i didn't expect her to be poorly written, but ive been reading some really shitty written women lately so it was refreshing.

Ken was alright. He's no Mishima, but he got the job done. Doesn't help that's my dad's name so its tough for me to re-brand that name in my head.

Domaine - the secondary though not without POV character, I couldn't get behind. But anyone will tell you I'm not a fan of hippie-dippie shit. He was a nice balancing character though, to the other two fully committed to this new way of government.

Plot:
So this plot was super slow burn. Its basically a mystery book about who's corrupting the election, on a fuggin global scale. While it was slow burn, i never felt bored. I was always trying to figure out who done it.

World Building:
THIS is where the book shines. It's not super info-dumpy... (see what I did there?)... and its not super-confusing. We get just enough detail when we need it. Big fan

Rating: 4/5 Shots.

What to pair it with: Scotch? Though, I'n not a fan of scotch, but i feel like its what you're supposed to drink whilst sitting around a fire theorizing about a new way. I bet Hamilton drank a hella lot of scotch.