A mark of a great book is when the main premise is present throughout the entire novel, shaping it and constantly bringing home to the reader exactly why and what is happening.
This is such a book.
It is very, very clever. Within this novel, falsehood is illegal. Lying will get you locked up, or worse, exiled. This is the basic premise. And added to it are the best and most current dystopian tropes - a great and secure walled or enclosed country/city/state, and an expanse of obliterated wasteland outside of it, a ruined Earth of our near future.
It's what makes the tension racket up in so many of these dystopian novels - think of the Handmaid's Tale, for example. This too, echoes that great work.
Laszlo is a 'cop' in this Golden State of truth. He ferrets out lies. He actually (almost literally) smells them out. He has built his life on being Truth. And it's wonderful to read, as his is the voice of the narrator - and he only knows how to narrate in facts, in truthful statements. It lends a wonderfully creepy and absurd view of his world, and when it crumbles, provides some truly great writing.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone that enjoys the great classic dystopias of Philip K. Dick and Margaret Atwood. Winters is an author worthy of the link to these names!

I’m the BIGGEST fan of The Last Policeman trilogy so to say I was excited to read “Golden State” would be a serious understatement.

It didn’t disappoint- this is a hugely relevant speculative tale, but also a massively entertaining piece of fiction that had me banging through it in record time…

Laz is brilliant, so engaging, living in the shadow of his legendary brother, one of the few people tasked with keeping the record quite literally straight as he senses lies in the air around him.

The world Ben Winters builds here is utterly fascinating. Everyone is watched, recorded, logged 24/7. People open conversations by quoting verifiable facts at each other, a lie is illegal and the harshest punishment is exile into a world before that no longer exists. There are too many layers to this inventive, totally believable place to get them all across in a simple review but it is pretty much the opposite of how we live now.

We learn all this through the eyes of Laz, who is an utter believer in the system and it’s protection of citizens. Indeed this is a world you may nod along with, reasonably convinced through the power of this character that it is absolutely justified and right. It took me a while to find an issue with it…

Then a man falls from a roof, there are definitely anomalies, Laz is thrown together with a new partner and together they will uncover something more than the truth…and his world will change forever.

This was beautifully twisted in its mystery elements and throws up so many thought provoking moral quandaries your head will spin. That’s quite apart from the twists of plot that are so often unexpected, there’s no predicting the outcome of this one although you might think so – and even if there was, speculation is illegal don’t you know unless you are authorised…

I loved it. Quirky, clever and very timely, I will state that “Objectively So” Golden State is a truly excellent piece of storytelling.

Highly Recommended.