Description

‘It has the pace and dynamism of a thriller, the metaphysical curiosity of the best science fiction and some judiciously-planted charges of wry humour’ The Herald

‘A dazzling novel’ Edmund Gordon, award-winning author

And how to tell what the best things were? Well, that was easy: the best things were the ones with the most people looking at them.

Alastair Buchanan has a comfortable life. It’s been a year since he received his very own junior – a clone designed to help him escape the daily grind. So why does Alastair spend his days alone, online, obsessing over his status? When his long-term girlfriend Caitlin can’t take it anymore, Alastair does his best to hold it together. But then, a remnant from his past appears and he is forced to confront the level of control that technology has over his life.

Elsewhere, an anti-tech terrorist cell dedicated to yanking humanity back to the 1990s is building momentum. And looming over everyone is Kim Larson, inventor of the juniors. But when Kim realises that humanity’s future lies in the stars, who will be left to hold him to account?

From award-winning author Daniel Shand, Model Citizens explores a surreal world peopled by humans struggling with their dehumanising present. Full of suspense, it asks us what we give up when we exist online, and who we can trust to take care of us. Model Citizens is a subversive and darkly comic story of class, technology, and responsibility, offering a vision of the future that may be closer than we realise.

Publisher Review

Model Citizens is a dazzling novel, combining the imaginative boldness and emotional clarity of Daniel Shand's previous work with a torrent of provocative ideas, and a tremendously broad satirical scope. This is fiction that's equal to the strange times ahead. * Edmund Gordon, author of award-winning The Invention of Angela Carter * All this rich world-building constructs a framework for sharp questions about consciousness, identity and death, played out against the threat of an imminent and apocalyptic end to the comfortable, if pressured, existence Shand's characters have grown to depend on... [it has] the pace and dynamism of a thriller, the metaphysical curiosity of the best science fiction and some judiciously-planted charges of wry humour... his social commentary is funny and on target * The Herald * Shand has fashioned a gripping and original story - and he writes like a dream * The Times * A consumerist hellscape is brilliantly evoked . . . the cloned self as ultimate consumer product is a compelling idea and Shand has such fun with it that the reader gets carried along * Irish Times *