Alex London’s Proxy is probably one of the coolest concepts I’ve encountered in a while. I feel like most dystopian societies resemble one another in their foundation of a oppressive system, but rarely am I as captivated by a dystopia as I was with Proxy. Reading this book was an act of investigation, not only because I wanted to find out what happened next but because the world of Proxy is created with such vivid detail, and with such sound world-building, that it feels nearly tactile. There are some coercive plot devices that make the book feel a tad unstable, and sure, I wasn’t really swayed by either the romance or the twists, but these are easy to overlook when the rest of Proxy was so good.
Oh, and the best part? Syd, the main character, is gay! And he isn’t white! The frequency of this combination is far too low, and London’s willingness to take on both traits in a complex, worthwhile protagonist is a point of intense ambition.
Overview:
Proxy‘s protagonist is a scrappy, slum kid named Syd, an orphan and a veritable slave in a society where the market reigns supreme and debt rules every transaction. Because of Syd’s misfortune, he is contractually a Proxy, a person who serves out punishments for children of the rich known as Patrons. Syd’s specific Patron, Knox, happens to be a wayward playboy hellbent on disobeying his mega-powerful father, which means Syd is all too familiar with enduring a litany of gruesome tortures he’s never earned.
The book begins with a fiery crash in which Knox inadvertently kills another Patron, a crime that sentences his Proxy to 16 years in the Old Sterling Work Colony. It’s a death sentence that Syd is not willing to accept, and thus begins his defiance against the system.
But there is more to Syd than his defiance and his resilience. He has a mysterious birthmark behind one ear, and as he is sucked into a battle against the system he discovers that his blood is infused with software powerful enough to bring the market-ruled society to its knees. Maybe even further.
Premise:
I loved the premise of this book. London does a great job fleshing out a very believable version of our society, in which a class division is institutionalized and the specter of debt looms behind every decision. London’s premise does justice to both the financial and conceptual realms of the market, and there’s enough cool, new technology that the world feels appropriately distant.
The more I read, the more I wondered about the inspiration for this world. Like all dystopia, it takes an extreme and makes it the standard, and in this case I couldn’t help but think of Ayn Rand’s dreams for a world reverent to nothing but the market. And, sure enough, London begins dropping hints of this association early on. Objectivism (Rand’s philosophical prescriptions) makes an appearance as the standard religion, and Knox even has a poster of Rand in his room. Personally, I loved this touch of lore. I’m a long-time fan of Ayn Rand (both in writing and, occasionally, in theory), and these small references only depended my admiration for the book’s premise.
I have one major issue with one minor facet of the premise: Syd, who is outed early in the book as gay, is mocked heavily for it–an indicator of evident society-wide homophobia. It’s a major part of his character’s journey, and to me this did not resonate with the society London had described. If it’s based in Rand’s beliefs, which it seems to be, then this society would be free of homophobia. Ayn Rand wasn’t exactly in love with the gays, but she was an avid supporter of their legitimate human rights. She spoke clearly about it several times. Dismissing that tenet of her philosophies while liberally amplifying others made me (and probably only me) kind of annoyed.
Plot:
London’s ability to move a story through a twisting, somewhat cumbersome plot is definitely part of his talent. The plot to this book doesn’t let up. Not once. People are captured, killed, attacked, freed, and cussed out through every chapter. It’s awesome.
There were, however, a few magic wishes. According to me, a magic wish is when a writer needs something to happen (for instance, a character to somehow move across town despite the streets teeming with hunters out for a hefty bounty) and instead of hammering out something feasible, they just wish the action onwards with a somewhat arbitrary, side-blinding plot device (like a suddenly discovered tunnel). It makes the momentum of the book feel sort of cheap in those moments, and leaves you thinking, “Well, wasn’t that convenient.”
One example of this is the very sudden, very easy meet-up between Knox and Syd early on in the book. It happens at a party that Syd isn’t supposed to be at, because he’s poor and it’s a party for the rich, but it happens. Feasible? Yeah, sure, I can accept that this could possibly happen. Believable? Not at all. The division between rich and poor is hammered into the very fiber of the premise, and crossing this division in such an overt, easy way made the division itself seem ultra-permeable and sort of silly. It was a magic wish to unite the two main characters.
Another of these wishes is the oddly crucial importance of both Knox and Syd, who are allegedly matched up as Patron/Proxy at random. I’m thinking the sequel will investigate this anomaly, but London could have easily made the pairing a bit more believable by chalking it up to a secret algorithm in Syd’s blood that would ensure he be hidden in the best place, right under the nose of the highest authority.
But you know what? I don’t care. London could infest his book with magic wishes and I wouldn’t mind, because his characters are reasonably skeptical of their various circumstances and they make rash, realistic choices. Within the confines of their world they are imminently realistic people. The world has rules, and the plot maneuvers through these rules with dependable intrigue. It’s refreshing when compared to other dystopia, like the currently popular Divergent by the lovely Veronica Roth, which is a bedlam of magic wishes with no real outcome at the end (but seriously awesome fights).
Writing:
The writing of Proxy was clean and quick, without all the patronizing explanations usually dolled out to readers of dystopia. Technology was explained insomuch as it needed to be explained for the story to move along, and the rest was left enigmatic. I think this is a smart way to write a world. It makes it feel reasonably mysterious.
A large portion of Proxy is actual action. These were my favorite parts. They were paced expertly. Another portion of Proxy was romance, and these were not my favorite parts, but this isn’t to say London did a poor job of it. It’s mostly heterosexual romance between two side characters, and I guess it was well done. Sometimes a bit parched and perhaps a tad tropey, but I’m not docking points for tropey heterosexuality. Heterosexuality is the biggest trope of them all.
Final Notes:
Proxy‘s strengths are numerous. The world is takes place in, the characters it follows, and its plot are all vivid and well-crafted. Mostly. With each there is always some unrefined grit, some fly in the ointment, but as a reader I was never deterred by the occasionally forced details. If anything, I was endeared. The ending had a great twist which, for anyone who knows anything about prophets, was completely predictable, and the very final twist was actually sort of shocking but–yes–also sort of predictable given events early on in the book that were oddly emphasized. I saw it coming but by that point I wasn’t reading for just the thrill of Proxy. I was reading because I had no choice. I was reading because a part of me knew this world, these people, and these events, and a part of me was absolutely sure this was happening in some distant dimension.
The second book in the Proxy series, Guardian, comes out May 29th, 2014. Pre-order it and support my new hero, Alex London!