"The Passengers"

“The Passengers”

Written by John Marrs

Review written by Diana Iozzia

Pitched as a dystopian, sci-fi thriller, this book succeeds as a thriller that takes place in a dystopian England instead. After the implementation of completely self-driven cars, the citizens of the United Kingdom find themselves a bit torn, since they dislike the lack of control or override. A hacker hijacks these self-driven cars with a cast of characters inside, prompting a small judicial group and the world through social media to decide who lives and dies.

This felt very reminiscent of a tech-based dystopian film or television show. I’ve seen many people relate it to the ultra-popular “Black Mirror”, which reflects how the world would react in certain scenarios based on a downfall caused by modern technology. I would agree this book follows this sort of premise well. I feel that all too common after the popularization of “Black Mirror”, authors and TV / film writers capitalize upon this premise. In one way, I’m a big fan of the genre, but I lose interest in the medium once it becomes to unrealistic. I find that the dystopian element of the story has to be slightly realistic, as if it makes sense that our society could get to this point. In “The Passengers”, a hacker hijacking self-driven cars seems possible to me. I do not feel this is all too imaginary and implausible.

Although the book has many positive points, such as the interesting technological elements, the book falls short for me. I enjoyed learning about how this society exists in different ways compared to the real society in today’s world. For example, to charge these self-driven cars, there are chargers implanted in the roads of roundabouts, drive-throughs, parking spaces, at stop lights, and more. In addition, there were some places such as the Princess Charlotte Hospital that would realistically come to fruition. However, the plausible dystopian elements also mirrored the impossible ones that I felt were just too much for this story. The book would have been just fine without DNA testing for security clearance in public buildings. There are mentions of tech contact lenses. I felt that we didn’t need these many elements to scream “FUTURE” at us. We understood.

Another downfall of this book was the actual hijacking plot. It was entertaining to learn the secrets of these seemingly innocent citizens who are placed in peril. It was exciting wondering who would make it out alive. However, without giving full spoilers, the actual payoff of the hijacking event was utterly disappointing. I had hoped for a much better climax and explanation who the hacker was and their motivations. It fell very flat for me. In addition, Libby, the seemingly random jury member who the book focused on heavily, was just too much. It felt very repetitive.

My favorite element of this book was the chapter beginnings. Most chapters had a phone related or social media reaction to the events unfolding. We saw news headlines, small articles, trending hashtags, fake Reddit forum postings, GPS locations, ‘tweets’, the car instructional manual, polls, music playlists, online quizzes, fake Wikipedia pages, and more. This added so much to the story, giving us easy exposition in creative ways. It also kept us updated with time and the reactions of the world. Basically, we only had two main locations: in the cars with the victims and the jury office, so it allowed us to jump back into the social media without feeling too detached from the characters. This ‘real time’ social media buzz felt realistic and what I would imagine could occur in a similar scenario to this.

Lastly, I recommend this book heavily. Although the ending was a bit passive for me and I had expected more, I think this is a very successful book. I would hope for more from this author and could enjoy this book as a Netflix original movie. I think if you’re looking for sci-fi dystopian similar to “Black Mirror”, this is a good place. I’m very picky about this genre, and I approve of this. I also think that once this book is fully published, it could be a very interesting audiobook.

I received a complementary advanced reader’s edition of the book in exchange for reviewing purposes. Thank you to my beloved Berkley Publishing. You rock.