If light records everything we do, can even shadows hide our secrets?
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.
Someone put the wrong teeth in my mouth last night. The canines poked at the back of my lips as if they didn’t fit. I wanted them either buried deep in the gums or all removed. I hate teeth.
Trash trucks moan like suburban whales while they back down my cul-de-sac. The truck eeping irritated me more than the sharp light. Wallpaper images of two windows beamed sunlight onto my head. BUD programmed the walls and sounds from archives of the room I had growing up for today’s alarm. I needed extra help waking most mornings but especially ones like this.
“Shall I turn the alarm off?”
“Yes. Thanks, BUD.”
My prominent sense of teeth in my mouth dragged me back to the memory of my disturbing dream—another in the monster series.
“Would you care to dictate your dream, or will you be typing today?”
“In a minute.”
Lying among the pillows for the rest of the afternoon would’ve been nice, but morning bladder ousted me. A glass-horn urinal emerged from the wall when the bathroom slid to a greater diameter. A glimpse of myself as the mirror flipped revealed the monster – although I guess there’s nothing new about my dark circles and bedhead hair. The sight prompted me to dictate last night’s werewolf dream while the concern for my mental well-being drained away with yesterday’s juice.
Damn teeth! I could use a drink. The canines still felt glued to the inside of my mouth. In the mirror inspection, my little porcelain cleavers appeared normal. Gross, but normal. Most of the time, it only took the image of lips separating a fraction to think of an opened wound. Beyond the teeth, disgust stemmed from dripping saliva, hordes of bacteria, and raw flesh waves of the palate. It all made me question the stability of dentists.
Review
The concept behind BULB fascinated me. I’ve seen similar ideas, but the idea of a world where you could literally play back anything from any perspective was a bit terrifying, while still interesting strictly from a theoretical standpoint. Contemplating the science of how that could be made possible makes my head hurt a little. The author made the idea work well.
While the idea of this story grabbed my attention, the execution didn’t quite do it for me. It might have been that this isn’t the kind of thing I usually read. It may have also been that I wasn’t the target audience for this book. Either way, I felt a bit like the book description didn’t quite set me up for what I got into. I can’t put my finger on where my expectations missed the mark of what happened in the story. I think there might have been too many things going on that weren’t adequately explained. I won’t spoil, but the big conflict/reveal at the end felt like it wasn’t built up to enough. Maybe that there weren’t enough clues to give me a chance at understanding the bad guy’s goal before he told Ben his vision. If the clues were in there, I missed them, which again might go back to not being the target audience.
There are a fair amount of violent descriptions in here. There was blood and some gory glimpses at death. There was also a depiction of rape. If you can’t stomach these things, you may wish to skip this book.
Bradley Wind was born and raised in Pennsylvania. He is a prolific visual artist whose work has exhibited in the 20th-century wing of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
He worked as a toy designer for K’nex Industries, a manager of IT for Pearl S. Buck International and is currently a director of IT for a child-focused non-profit. He raises chickens and two lovely girls with his wife in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Find him online at http://www.bradleywind.com
To check out other stops on this tour, visit the tour post here.
All the opinions expressed in this review are my own. Read the full disclosure here.