Golden State

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.

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

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*

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!

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.

To write a book about the nature of truth seems prescient in these times, and Ben Winters does not disappoint. What I love about his writing is that he combines the fanciful (a world where "The Record" is an unassailable Fact of Being, creating one central truth by which all is governed) with such very human and relatable characters. Lazlso Ratestic may be one of his best--blindingly loyal yet discerning, devoted but skeptical, steady yet evolving.

And at the center of the novel stands the 'character' of truth and our relationship to what we believe to be right and true, certainly a concept worth consideration.

Highly recommend this novel, especially for discussion.

For lovers of dystopian fiction, this book is a phenomenal choice. Set in the sometime distant future in a city resembling Los Angeles, the story revolves around a special government group who's job it is to enforce the city's primary directive: ensure that all citizens speak the truth. Any person who tells a lie is prosecuted to the fullest extent, and those who are unable to speak objectively are exiled from The Golden State. While investigating a routine homicide, chief investigator Lazslo and his partner stumble upon a conspiracy involving the highest echelons of the government, a conspiracy that could bring down the entire honesty infrastructure that this world is built upon. I absolutely loved the world-building here; I thought Winters' writing was so sharp and smart and interesting and I really enjoyed this high-concept plot, especially in the current political climate, where people are constantly questioning the truth and honesty in the media.

I've been a Ben Winters fan since the Last Policeman trilogy but with this book he has broken through to the kind of mystery/reality twist that I've only seen Lethem/Dick accomplish well.

This book is a great mix of mystery and distopian fiction. Just when you think you've got it figured out, the plot shifts on you and a character you thought you could trust lets you down. Highly recommended.

Ben Winters is a master at the "what if..." novel. The Last Policeman trilogy posited what do people do when they all know the exact time and date of the end of the world? Underground Airlines asked what happens if the Civil War had not been fought and a peace agreement left slavery in the South? Now The Golden State takes us to a world after some kind of destruction was evidently caused by the world's inability to determine truth from lies, actual events from "fake news." In what once was California, now "The Golden State," a new society has been created based on truth only, the Absolutely So. Lies and falsehoods are illegal, and subject to prison or banishment into the desert. The story is presented through the eyes of Lazlo Ratesic, an experienced agent with the Speculative Service consisting of those with special talents able to literally determine truth from falsehood. To assist, there are cameras everywhere keeping record of every moment. When individuals have conversations, they note them in their "Day Book" and each person stamps the other's book for verification. Every Day Book is stored in boxes in their basement, just one step in what Ratesic calls "the byzantine business of reality maintenance." Ratesic works hand in hand with the regular police, and is called out to a seeming construction accident because of "anomalies." The story becomes a detective mystery of sorts, following in the standard twistiness of police procedurals with the added element of its alternate reality. Insert Lalzo's internal musings and torment over his brother's death, and you have one heck of a story. It will grab you from the start and draw you gradually into this alternate society that he somehow makes believable. And, of course, there are secrets to be revealed. I could actually use a little more revealing. I'm still musing myself over some of the final events. You will be left with questions, and the tantalizing possibility of a sequel. This would be an incredible story for book clubs.

What would it be like to live in a world where there was no greater crime than telling a lie? And what if you were one of the few people with the ability to detect said lies – as well as the official state-sponsored authorization to venture outside the truth?

“Golden State,” the latest novel by Ben H. Winters, takes a look at just such a world, a skewed near-future state in which pure, unadulterated truth is mandated by law. Interactions are defined through basic, unassailable facts – with no room for anything more.

While we might believe that absolute truth would be the way to go, the reality is that massive gray area between truths and lies is where the lion’s share of human relationships live. When truth is all that is allowed, it’s not long before free will begins to fade.

The Golden State – located in the area we call California – is a nation that rose up in the aftermath of a years-ago cataclysmic event that shattered society. In an effort to combat the perceived causes of this event – namely, a world driven by lies and half-truths – the Golden State exists on a foundation of absolute truth. Lying is the worst crime possible, punishable by exile into the wastelands beyond the mountains.

In an effort to maintain a shared, permanent and unassailable Record, surveillance is omnipresent, with cameras and recording crews constantly in action. Individuals are expected to keep a thorough record of their own interactions with others, logged and stored daily. Only this way can everyone be assured of sharing the same reality.

Laszlo Ratesic is one of the people tasked with enforcing the Golden State’s unwavering commitment to truth. He is an officer of the Speculative Service, a law enforcement offshoot populated by men and women who are gifted with the ability to sense lies. In addition to their ability to perceive untruths, they are the only ones authorized to speculate – to entertain ideas that are not completely anchored by hard-and-fast facts.

Laz is a legacy – his father and his brother Charlie were legendary Speculators. He’s not at their level, but he’s good at his job. So good that he’s given a trainee – a young woman named Aysa Paige. Laz is supposed to show her the ropes, but when their first case – a seemingly open-and-shut accident – turns out to have deeper ramifications, he quickly discovers that her gifts far outstrip his own. She’s the most naturally gifted Speculator since Charlie … and maybe even better.

As the two of them begin pulling at the assorted anomalous threads, the holes start getting larger. Every new lead takes them in a different direction, and despite Laz’s better judgment, he follows every one of them. It’s his job, after all. But here’s the thing about defining yourselves by the record – what happens when circumstances call the integrity of that record into question? Where’s your truth then?

With “Golden State” – much like he did with his previous novel, 2016’s “Underground Airlines” – Ben Winters has created a fascinating and oddly familiar world. There’s a queasy plausibility to his work – it’s easy to draw a straight line from our own world to the ones that he constructs. By following certain of our societal tendencies to their logical endpoints, he shows us just how far we might stray from our perceived direction – all without ever noticing that our course has changed.

Obviously, the truth is important. And again – the idea of a world where no one lies sounds appealing on its surface, but where’s the line? A world of mandatory truthfulness is a world without fiction. All stories must be true stories. All films are documentaries, all books are nonfiction and all visual art is representational. This is a place in which the only people possessed of poetic license are the men and women charged with keeping the world devoid of poetry.

Winters brings that particular reality home beautifully, with a periodic interjection from the manuscript of a “novel” being written by one of the secondary characters. Said novel is constructed of flat statements of fact and exact transcriptions from the record – there is nothing there that did not happen. It’s a less-is-more device; its handful of brief appearances serves the purpose perfectly.

“Golden State” is science fiction at its finest, a propulsive narrative filled with complex ideas that are expressed by engaging characters who occupy a rich and detailed world. It’s an immersive and thought-provoking work, one that challenges as much as it compels. The truth hurts.