Ten-Percent Thief

by Lavanya Lakshminarayan

Genres: Cyberpunk; Humor & Satire; Space Exploration

Synopsis

A bold, bitingly satirical near-future mosaic novel about a city run along 'meritocratic' lines, the injustice it creates, and the revolution that will destroy it.

We are the future of the human race.

Welcome to Apex City, formerly Bangalore. Here, technology is the key to survival, productivity is power, and even the self must be engineered, for the only noble goal in life: success.

Everything is decided by the mathematically perfect Bell Curve. With the right image, values and opinions, you can ascend to the glittering heights of the Ten Percent – the Virtual elite – and have the world at your feet. The less-fortunate struggle among the workaday Seventy Percent, or fall to the precarious Twenty Percent; and below that lies deportation to the ranks of the Analogs, with no access to electricity, running water or even humanity.

The system has no flaws, and cannot be questioned. Until a single daring theft sets events in motion that will change the city forever...

Previously published in South Asia only as Analog/Virtual, The Ten-Percent Thief is a striking debut by a ferocious new talent.

Release date: March 28, 2023

Publisher: Solaris

Print pages: 384