Laszlo Ratesic, the protagonist of Ben H. Winter’s thought-provoking alternate history novel, Golden State, has a strange ability. Like other members of the Speculative Service, he can sense lies. He reacts to anything more than a figure of speech or a little white lie as though he has an allergy. Lies make him physically ill. This ability makes him an important law enforcement officer because his post-Apocalyptic state depends on every citizen telling the truth all the time. But, humans being humans, there are still liars and they are about to seriously bruise Laszlo’s sense of reality.

After a chapter that is a marvel of efficient world-building, in which Laszlo arrests a young man who lies to cover for his drug-stealing brother, he is saddled with a partner he doesn’t want and is dispatched to check for anomalies at the scene of what appears to be an accidental death. Laszlo’s new partner, Aysa Paige, urges him to look deeper. She tells him that something isn’t right. And, once he starts looking, Laszlo starts to see anomalies. The dead man wasn’t supposed to be at work that day. The house where he died belongs to a judge who is up to something. The more he digs, the more Laszlo starts to wonder if this death is somehow linked to his brother’s death years before.

The Golden State is a fascinating social experiment. residents exchange facts when they greet each other, everyone fears being exiled outside of the State, and no one is permitted to lie above minor metaphors. What would it mean if no one could lie? If they were always caught and punished for it? It seems like a good thing. Lies, misinformation, propaganda, disinformation, willful mucking around with the truth have made our current society an appalling mess. Slowly, however, we and Laszlo learn what we’re missing when a) we give up the right to imagine something different and b) the fact that some humans will always try to cheat the system.

The end of Golden State is surprisingly poignant. I wasn’t expecting it after a mash up of mystery, alternate history, science fiction, and thriller. I enjoyed Golden State very much, though I did spot a few places where the thought experiment threatened to take over the plot. Readers who like a bit of philosophical and emotional depth to their alternate history/science fiction will enjoy wondering, as Laszlo does, about what truth really is, what it means to try and create a an objective reality everyone can agree on, and what happens when a true believer finds the worm in the apple.

Golden State by Ben H. Winters
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm always a BIG fan of science fiction that girds its loins in the heaviest armor and strides boldly into the darkest, most complicated territories. The more ambitious the novel, the more props I am absolutely forced to give it. :) Of course, it has to also blow me away, but the core courage and not just good writing has to shine through for me to WOOOOOOOO!!!! ;)

It's easy enough to say this is a panopticon where every last bit of our modern lives in this future Utopian California resembles 1984, but it's closer to say it's a slightly different take on The City & the City. Where the other novel is focused on keeping a lie going that separates two overlapping worlds, Winter's police drama is focused on the deeply ironic law that places Truth on the highest pedestal. It's ironic because while all falsehoods are immediately found out and punished thanks to the uber-surveillance State, the Golden State's history is shrouded in mystery. And fiction is utterly subversive despite the deeper truths within it.

White lies carry heavy sentences. Acting is an unheard-of crime.

We follow an old cop whose job is to ferret out lies and watch as his world unravels before him. The mysteries are well-thought out and a perfect foil for the premise. I totally enjoyed the traditional mystery aspects as much as the hardcore social SF.

So is this just another Big Idea dystopian in utopian colors? It might seem that way, but Winters pulls off one hell of a great and *important* read without treading on any other novel's toes. :) No re-hash.

This is about taking on TRUTH head-on. :) Well worth the read!

Wow. A big thank you to Mulholland Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I'm not really a "crime novel" person, but I adore Ben H. Winter's works because they take away the repetitiveness of the crime/thriller genre and creative something completely new and intriguing. Golden State is exactly that.

In a society that prizes truth above all else, Laszlo works for an agency whose sole purpose is to sniff out lies. Lies in this world can get you a decade behind bars, you see, because they're seen as a tangible threat to the entire Golden State. But when he comes across a murder that just doesn't seem quite right, he falls into a conspiracy that he might not get out of alive.

This book is a meditation on truth, law, and reality. It is so incredibly timely, especially with a presidential administration that thrives on "alternate facts" and accusations of "fake news" when it doesn't suit their warped narratives.

The characters feel real-- I found myself gasping at one point when I wasn't sure if one would survive or not -- and understandable, despite their world so different from our own. Great writing, of course, from Winters as usual. And the climax? DAMN. A dizzying scene that makes you question even your own notions of truth. Highly recommend. Hopefully there will be a sequel as well? *fingers crossed*

Winters is back with a well-constructed dystopian thriller leavened with humor. Golden State is a fine book

What a strange, fascinating, imaginative book. I'm not surprised by that. Winter has always been able to throw his imagination far out into worlds that could be and feel real even if they are in extreme situations. In this book, we encounter a place that is clearly LA but . . . it isn't, exactly. The state is in control of information and adhering to the truth is everything. Those suspected of falsehood are pariahs, liable to be sent to prison or, in especially egregious circumstances, exiled from the Golden State to a fate worse than prison, though it's not clear exactly what lies outside the Golden State. A special class of people serve the state, sniffing out lies, and our protagonist is one of them. To his irritation he's given a partner, a talented but untested "speculator" who may be even better than our narrator at lie detection. When they are called to a boring accident - a workman has fallen off a roof to his death - they feel something isn't quite right, and sure enough, someone has altered the record for some nefarious purpose.

This is an interesting philosophical exploration of what might happen if we put the surveillance state and an extreme response to our Fake News crisis into a blender and whirled it into a future where some landmarks are familiar and yet everything is deeply strange. It's not quite the tour de force as Underground Airlines (that's asking too much) but it's very good, pacey, rich in characters, quite funny, and always thought-provoking.