By Ben H. Winters

Century, out now

“What is truth?” said jesting Pilate… For Lazlo, that answer is clear. Until a seed of doubt starts to germinate in his mind…

Ben Winters is one of those authors who’s just a little too far below the radar at the moment – all of his books are thought-provoking, well-written tales, and at one stage his Last Policeman trilogy was heading to TV. (I’m really hoping that Hard Sun, which dealt with similar themes, hasn’t muddied the waters too much – Winters’ trilogy is superior in every aspect, from plotting to characterisation to worldbuilding.) His latest book, Golden State, is, as you might expect, set in California, but it’s a very different America from the one we know today – in the Golden State, lying isn’t simply frowned upon, it’s completely illegal, and those indulging in it are sensed, captured and punished. There are no excuses, no legitimate reasons: there is the truth, there are lies, and ne’er the twain shall meet.

Except human nature being what it is, they do and it’s that central conflict that this book is built around. Winters plays with the structure of the novel, making the reader query the state of things constantly, just as his first person narrator does, and along the way will almost certainly make you realise just how much society in 2019 functions because of, and despite, the lies that are told as part of everyday behaviour. Truth has become such a flexible commodity today that the regime Winters shows us is as alien as a fundamentalist religious society would be to most people.

There’s much to praise in this – the way in which one of the Golden Staters encounters fiction for the first time is a beautiful moment of revelation – even if the ending doesn’t stand up quite as well as you might hope given the set up (and indeed given the way in which Winters has brought his previous books to a conclusion).

Verdict: Thought-provoking, intelligent science fiction. 8/10

Paul Simpson

Click here to order Golden State from Amazon.co.uk