84K

Written by Claire North

Narrated by Peter Kenny

*CLAIRE NORTH SHORTLISTED FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES/PFD YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARD*

From one of the most original new voices in modern fiction comes a startling vision of a world where you can get away with anything . . .

Theo Miller knows the value of human life — to the very last penny.

Working in the Criminal Audit Office, he assesses each crime that crosses his desk and makes sure the correct debt to society is paid in full.

But when his ex-lover is killed, it's different. This is one death he can't let become merely an entry on a balance sheet.

Because when the richest in the world are getting away with murder, sometimes the numbers just don't add up.

From the award-winning Claire North comes an electrifying and provocative new novel which will resonate with readers around the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Little, Brown (Hachette UK) Audio
• Release date: May 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9781405535267

Reviews for 84K

[arosoff-513117 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I should have liked this. THe concept is great and there's a lot of good world building. I don't mind the choppy writing that much, and I like overlapping timelines. But it felt a little sluggish, and the ending was a little too much "I don't know quite where to take this so let's take a common dystopian ending."

[randymetcalfe · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

How much is a life worth? Theo Miller knows something about that. He works at the Criminal Audit Office assessing the cost of things like theft, arson, battery, murder. To assess the cost of a murder, for example, you have to see how much the life taken was worth, discounting for things like criminal history, prospects for future productiveness, drug habits, etc. Some lives just aren’t worth all that much. Not in Theo Miller’s society at least. Not since nearly all companies got subsumed by The Company and the government contracted out most of its responsibilities to The Company as well. It’s a nice tight fit — the government and The Company — and if it means a large amount of collateral wastage of human life, well, that doesn’t matter so much if those lives weren’t all that valuable to begin with, or more precisely, not that valuable once The Company got through with them. It’s a society begging to be blown up and, strangely, it looks like Theo Miller might just have to be the one to do it. Well, if he really were Theo Miller that is…This slightly futuristic dystopian Britain is both frighteningly plausible and laughably implausible. The trouble is that it’s rather difficult to ascertain which is which. And it may be too much for the complex interweaving plot lines to accommodate. Because, very unusually for Claire North, this story takes an inordinate amount of time to get airborne. I would say nearly a hundred pages. Of course once it does find its wings, it soars. But there is a troubling weightiness to the pacing and a certain ponderousness to the characterization of this distasteful near-Britain. Rather than becoming a high-concept thriller, the novel is pulled down by belaboured comparison to a world which, frankly, might not be that much better. It’s as though the social message took precedence over the tightness of the story or the need to generate sympathy for some of the characters.Despite reservations on this novel, I still find North’s writing electrifying. She can be so deft. So I’m still going to gently recommend it even though I wasn’t completely whelmed. It’s still worth it to be in Claire North’s company for a time.

[stephanie_m-868484 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

84K was my second foray into the writing of Claire North, so I didn’t know exactly what to expect. The description intrigued me, though, so I decided to give it a go. And I was a little disappointed, all in all.
So here's how this novel works; human rights have been abolished, crime is punished by huge, itemized fines that are calculated by the Criminal Audit Office, and if the guilty party can't pay the fines, they are sent to the patty line. Though the “patties” do more than make burgers, now. They are pretty much becoming a slave for society. Even though the Government are still in power, it is really ‘the Company’ that run the show.
Also there was a country-wide privatization of all sorts of public services to an extreme, with government and this one, all-encompassing Company in bed together while they destroy the country. North's near-future England is finally so completely privatized that entering the Cotswolds requires the proper border permit. This is where the 1% live, of course.
The 1% are firmly in charge, and they keep the less privileged 99% in line with arbitrary nonstop draconian fines and lawsuits. And other darker means as well. Doctors, lawyers, teachers, police will work only for the rich and “properly insured”. Thirty-year-olds turn to crime and prostitution after layoffs routinely replace them with younger, cheaper workers. It’s a nightmare.
Most of us have by now experienced victim blaming and lesser rights for aliens because of the political rulers in charge today. But North takes it just a bit further, so that Thomas’s Criminal Auditing job, the epitome of dehumanising crime, is not such a far stretch.
We’re already seeing gated communities, relocation of the aesthetically distasteful poor, corporate sponsorship/ownership of sports teams and venues, privatised public services (police, hospitals, prisons) with the accompanying increase in prices and decrease in service. The world North presents is not so far from that. In fact, it rings so frighteningly true that we practically hear it breathing down our necks.

It's a interesting take on how this country can go to hell via rampant capitalism, and while it's well written, it's also not a bad story plotwise. The narrative style is quite exasperating I found. We jump from past to present, ricocheting between characters, and moving from an omniscient pov to in-head writing that did not work for me, at least not here. There's this also thing happening where she writes unfinished sentences, all over the place. I get that she has her own writing style but this was just irritating and confusing and just too quirky. Yes, if it's explained it can add to the story but this was just half sentences with no context or explanation. And the repetition was overly used to the point of annoyance.
The action moves between three different time periods randomly, sometimes for a chapter at a time but sometimes just for one paragraph. There is no punctuation in much of the speech which makes it difficult to read and is an odd creative decision. But like I said before, the most jarring thing of all, however, is the amount of unfinished sentences and pieces of dialogue. It makes the book difficult to read and to follow, and prevented me from being immersed in the action. An example of some dialogue, exactly as it is written in the book, with no punctuation, to demonstrate how hard it can be to follow:
“I need to get Lucy back I need to get her out there she needs to be
I can’t help you
She needs to be I can if I can get her out of there then
There’s nothing I can do
But you’re part of it you’re part of the system you work for
I can’t do
I NEED TO GET HER BACK I NEED TO
I’m going now
SHE’S THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS NOW SHE’S WHY I’M HERE SHE’S WHY I’M OUT WHY I’M CLEAN SHE’S”

So while it was a great premise, it was marred by style-over-substance execution, for me. The veering between time and characters also distracts from the main plot which is never ultimately solved. I love books with frank depictions of revolution but 84K never answers if it was worth it. I ended up reacting and caring far more about the side characters than I did for Theo or Neila. If you’re OK with a novel that focuses more on style, 84K is the grim but (supposedly) poetic dystopian novel for you.
Also Peter Kenny was the narrator of the audiobook. He was very good, but he had all those unfinished sentences and pieces of dialogue to deal with, so he did whatever he could with what he had, I’m guessing.

3 stars, and recommended to those who don’t mind the confusion, etc.

[iansales_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Between Jarman’s visions of a post-Thatcherite UK and North’s vision of a post-Austerity UK, I’m not sure I can either tell the difference or see much that distinguishes them. That the Tories have been systematically robbing the UK since 1979 is historical fact. How genre writers have responded to that – at least, the few that actually bothered – is a different matter. UK sf writers of the 1970s built the government’s incompetence into their worlds; later sf writers had plainly drunk too much Tory Kool-Aid (bar a few notable exceptions). But that’s an argument for another time. 84K reads like a cross between 1984 refashioned for a twenty-first century audience and a 1970s consumerism-gone-made satire. Which, sadly, makes it feel like a book out of its time. It has a point to make, and it tells its story well, but it feels mostly like the target at which it’s aimed no longer exists. North is a writer to be treasured, and if not every book she produces hits its mark, she has the virtue of actually aiming at something. I thought The Sudden Appearance of Hope much the better book, for all that 84K ought to be the more relevant book and so more impactful. I will however read more books by North because she is clearly worth it.

[p1g5purt · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Interesting mash-up but Will Self and Eimear McBride do that Joycean thing much better.

[zoes_human · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I've had a nasty illness the last few days, and nothing, other than actual good health, makes me feel better than binging Doctor Who and curling up with a dark post-apocalyptic or dystopian novel. I read 84K over the course of the last 3 days, and I absolutely loved it. It was dark, gritty, and disturbingly possible. It begs the question "What is morality?" and then hasn't the grace to answer, offering instead a sort of grey, ambiguous morality that satisfies me in a way actual answers never do.North incorporates some poetic literary devices that make for some awkward reading at first, but ultimately embody the chaotic and fragmentary nature of human thought in the most stressful of times.10 of 10 would read again.