John Marrs Gives Us a Future We Never Asked For
John Marrs
The Family Experiment
What has John Marrs written here now this time? Another chilling dystopian tale. Set in the universe of The Marriage Act, just turning up the volume a bit more here.
This is not a nightmare dressed up as a daydream. This is a nightmare packed into a pinata of a hornets’ nest and all the hell breaks loose while everyone pretends it’s all fine and dandy, yeah, those aren’t mad hornets, if we pretend hard enough those will turn into candies. (ok, a disclaimer, there are no actual hornets in the book, this is my own comparison, hyperbole, and exaggeration)
Squid Game meets The Marriage Act meets The Hunger Games meets the brainless consumers of the internet, an AI-zombified nation of future generations, desensitized of the fact that out there are other humans, not just AI-metaverse.
As I was reading it, I jotted down some notes. This was a BIG read. Although I don’t think I have seen an accurate page count anywhere (amazon lies and says there are 288 pages lol, NO), I guess that there are 400+ pages. There aren’t too many notes though. But the ones I have, here they are:
I’m at 10%. An extra layer of sheer madness: everyone has a secret agenda. Everyone is hiding something. Everyone is pretending. Everyone is not who they want to be seen as. And that toxic influencer culture, eww.
I’m at 13%. It’s grownups playing Tamagotchi for real-life rewards and pretending they don’t know the Tamagotchi isn’t for real. The better you pretend, the greater your chances of winning.
I’m at 20%. How will the speculation of the future look like in 10 years? Sci-fi doesn’t always age well. Then again, dystopian books do age well. Who knows.
I’m at 24%. Every character in this book is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
I’m at 58%. AND WHAT I WROTE HERE TURNS OUT TO BE THE BIG PLOT TWIST. Or one of them. There’s more than one.
I’m at 73%. Serious Hunger Games vibes.
I’m at 88%. John gives us a future we never asked for.
I’m wondering if I am making myself clear here on how much I loved this book. Absolutely enjoyed it.
There are two things I’d like to point out, two things I enjoyed Extra, Extra and with a layer of salad dressing. One, I love how John Marrs never adds a layer of his own opinion about things. Whatever he writes, it’s from a neutral perspective. I have come to realize that not many authors can do it and being able to do it is such a golden skill. A rare one.
Two, the country-specific jokes, references that might make you snort if you are at least somewhat semi-up-to-date with all things British, like, the crowning of a certain new king.
The book’s pub date is set to… sometime this summer. That feels like forever away. The pub date actually is a mystery of sorts now also, just like the actual page count of the book. Some places online say its May, some ay it’s June. Either way, when it’s summer, the book will be here. One more reason to look forward to the summer, right?
Here is the link to pre-order yours: https://amzn.to/3V9LMA1
And here, the book blur:
From the acclaimed author of The One and The Marriage Act, The Family Experiment is a dark and brilliant speculative thriller about families: real and virtual.
Some families are virtually perfect…
The world’s population is soaring, creating overcrowded cities and an economic crisis. And in the UK, the breaking point has arrived. A growing number of people can no longer afford to start families, let alone raise them.
But for those desperate to experience parenthood, there is an alternative. For a monthly subscription fee, clients can create a virtual child from scratch who they can access via the metaverse and a VR headset. To launch this new initiative, the company behind Virtual Children has created a reality TV show called The Substitute. It will follow ten couples as they raise a Virtual Child from birth to the age of eighteen but in a condensed nine-month time period. The prize: the right to keep their virtual child, or risk it all for the chance of a real baby…
Set in the same universe as John Marrs’s bestselling novel The One and The Marriage Act, The Family Experiment is a dark and twisted thriller about the ultimate Tamagotchi — a virtual baby.
