Naomi, a female cyborg—half human, half robot—recounts the story of China and America’s intertwining relationship a century from now. The center of power has moved with the setting sun; China, not America, is the dominant power, creating a world where anyone age 50 or above will end life in a state of viral ecstasy, part of a system known as “Harmonious Recycling,” to make room for billions who are young. Naomi, the cyborg, is beyond prescient. She calculates the future based on billions of possible scenarios extruded from a Database of Crowds—their behavior, reactions, and muted outrage at the diminished life chances that both Chinese and American societies present. Naomi belongs to an elite class of “reverse journalists” (RJs). Her job is to script the future as though it has happened – and then it does. Her task is not to seek the truth in random events, but only the truth of probable outcomes. She evaluates all possible social events following a predictive algorithm, then scripts the desired outcome to ensure the smooth progression of history. But Naomi’s complex inner life gets in the way of her missions. Her recollections of an early love affair and marriage to a Chinese doctor continue to haunt her. After her training in Taiwan, and then China as an RJ, she receives extra memory, diamond-fiber alloys to strengthen her limbs, along with AI modules and a “Logos harp,” the “Harp of Wisdom” (shortened to “Logoharp” for branding purposes.) The Logoharp is a universal language translator enabling her to write, speak or broadcast in any language, directing the activities of publics worldwide. At first, Naomi is obedient, thrilled to carry out Directorate orders. But when she's called on to disgrace the architect of the Harmonious Recycling System, she grows uncomfortable, then furious. Ultimately the cyborg must make a choice between her human misgivings and the “Synaptic Armies” that control her mind, directing her to maintain social order at any cost.
Set a century from now, Emmett’s bold, brainy, and provocative fiction debut explores urgent issues of truth, mis- and disinformation, and what it means to be human, all from the perspective of a winged, part-cyborg “Reverse Journalist” (or RJ) in the employment of the Mother Country, China. (One great pleasure of the novel: the geopolitics of the 2100s.) As an RJ, or “journalist of future prospects,” young Naomi—an Ameriguan from Michigania born with a hole in her heart and a reputed gift for prescience—is augmented and trained by the Chinese and Ameriguan Singing Directorate to take in and evaluate information from countless sources, in every language, plus “Aeolian vibes” and “both wisdom and warning from unidentified sources in Nature and the Divine.” Drawing from their “Logoharps,” RJs report “the truth of probable outcomes, scripting events to glorify and sustain the health of the Party and its constituents.”Naively, Naomi seeks out this role out of what she describes as a desire to “be embraced in a Harmonious Society and warm bosom" to “help co-create what’s to come,” and to “create a positive outlook.” In idea-dense chapters that will thrill readers fascinated by the ethics of mass-media and journalism, Emmett charts Naomi’s youth, including her fractious marriage with a man who decamps for medical school in Beijing, and then her language training, her augmentations, and her early successes as an RJ, where she turns every problem her double-sized brain faces into a “a 22-sided origami resembling a crayfish.”
A plot eventually kicks in, involving a coverup, a Human Recycling program, orders to engineer the downfall of an “algorithmic imposter,” and a surprise from Naomi’s past. All of this is gratifyingly twisty, with conflicts extrapolated from our present with rare conceptual rigor, but the richness of imagination and moral inquiry take priority over narrative momentum. Still, readers of thoughtful SF will find revelations on every page. Emmett is a talent to watch.
Takeaway: Smart, startling SF debut exploring next century’s media and disinformation.
Comparable Titles: Malka Older; Seth Dickinson’s Exordia.
Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: A
“In the world of The Logoharp, there is no security, not even an objective reality, only the reality created by journalism in reverse. Emmett's' novel creates a troubling vision of media that borders on propaganda in an AI-filled future.”—HAMILTON BEAN, Ph.D., author of No More Secrets: Open Source Information and the Reshaping of US Intelligence
“Prepare to be swept away by an imperfect yet wildly relatable heroine. This ancient, futuristic world will make you angry, frustrated, hopeful, in love, and inspire an uprising within.”—GRACE DIIDA, L.L.M., Venture Capital Research
“Loved The Logoharp! It’s genuinely original, disturbing in a provocative way, occasionally funny and erotic, creative and well-paced — and I can’t get those ice sleighs out of my head! Naomi is one strange —and beguiling—heroine.”—LAURA BERMAN, feature writer, retired columnist, The Detroit News
“In Arielle Emmett’s fevered imaginings one great and ancient state is able to dominate the rest using an unbeatable secret weapon. Logoharps. Creatures able to see into the future, ensuring the state is always a step ahead. That is, until one rebels. Imagine Mona Lisa Overdrive meshed with The Wind-Up Girl. That's the kind of sci-fi ride you're in for with The Logoharp."—KEVIN SITES, author of The Ocean Above Me
