VIGILANCE

Americans’ addictions to guns, sports, and TV converge in a grim
near future in this darkly satirical novel.

Having completed his
extraplanetary Divine Cities trilogy, Bennett (Foundryside, 2018, etc.)
steers into territory that’s more Stephen King than Isaac Asimov. The year is
2030, and John McDean is making ratings gold of a reality TV show in which
shooters wreak havoc on civilian populations, with the survivors—never
many—winning fat purses. McDean, cynical, is just right for the job as
executive producer; no one is safe as long as the money flows. Told that
shooting up a skating rink isn’t making the numbers, McDean growls, “I thought
it was middle school game night!” And never mind the shopping mall, which has
been done again and again. McDean is constantly on the search for the Platonic
viewer, the Ideal Person, the John Waynes of the world who turn out to be “a
far cry from what service has been for two decades now, all technicians huddled
around tiny glowing screens as they pilot incomprehensibly lethal robots through
the stratosphere.” The ordinary Joes and Janes who make up the audience
for Vigilance are scared to death, armed to the teeth, jumpy
and jittery, and ready to accept the show’s promise that mayhem is about to
descend upon them at any moment. So it does, to the disgust of Delyna, who
works in a gritty urban bar and is about the only character in the story who
recoils whenever the show is on. As a result, she’s about the only one with a
level head, which comes in handy when, as McDean learns, the whole show turns
out to be a nicely calculated way to bring a divided, stupid, retrogressive
America to its knees without any outsider’s ever having to fire a shot. The
satire is barn-door broad, the shots scattered, but Bennett has the trend lines
just right, and even if his targets are sometimes too obvious, he can write up
a storm.

Turn off the tube and read a book—this book in particular, which
promises trouble if you don’t.