I would like to thank the author for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Goldsmiths

Published – Paperback Out Now

Price – £27 paperback

The lives of three strangers intersect to bring hope to a beleaguered near-future Britain lurching towards authoritarianism.

Libby Seymour is a Civil Servant, military intelligence analyst, Union activist, believer in the equality of justice, and member of the MayGE Committee campaigning for a long-overdue General Election. A colleague tells her the police want a word about something she didn't do… and she goes on the run with the help of her occasional lover, ex-army doctor, now trauma therapist, Susan Church.

Derek Hallett is a British Army officer with an impressive record in special operations. Newly promoted to Major General, he is stunned to be assigned to a secretive job in England. For commercial reasons, Jackson-Burgess (UK) Ltd steps back from administering four work camps designed to reduce poverty in Britain. He swore to the Crown to uphold the rule of law.

Kayla Nettleton has two lives. Online, she's a veteran Cultural Warrior and defender of social justice through hacking. In real life, she's trapped with her family in a sink estate, and is swept up into the poverty eradication programme run by Jackson-Burgess.

Together, the three unlikely allies spearhead a small resistance group to fight back in the Disinformation War.

There is a regularly seen joke that dystopian fiction has been moved in books shops to non-fiction. A bleak bit of gallows humour. But it raises questions on what is the impact of dystopian fiction if it doesn’t prevent it? My thoughts are dystopian fiction is indeed a warning but often more about this is happening now; it can always get worse and perhaps eventually a line in the sand must be drawn. Authors are always using reality to be mirrored in fiction – all stories talk about our world. In SJ Groenewegen’s disconcerting novel The Disinformation War we get to experience an insidious dystopian version of the UK that is terrifyingly plausible, quite powerful and watch a small group try to stop it.

Due to national emergencies the general election has been postponed indefinitely. The government of the day is very focused on eliminating poverty and is working hard with think tanks and corporate partners to make the necessary changes to those it feels need support. This may mean you and your family are like Kayla required to work for the company indefinitely while it supports you and if you rebel there will be consequences. It may mean you’re a civil servant like Libby who is finding that their external work to call for a new election at last is leading to targeted harassment and pressure to quit. When a new government scheme to house the poor in certain camps goes wrong the British Army is asked to support as the corporate troops are pulled back. The officers find Kayla injured and in pain and soon senior officers find their loyalties torn.

This is an unusually structured story. We focus initially on Kayla a bright woman in her twenties to whom the world has decided as she is poor means she cannot progress. Instead, she is limited to a tower block and the forcibly moved to a new camp. We get to witness the scary day this happens but the wider life in the camp is only revealed afterwards in diary entries. Initially I thought this was removing the reader from the story but the diary entries mean we have to witness quietly the banality of a system that is cruel and violent and chilling, but this novel is more interested in the bigger picture/ We’ve probably seen those prison scenes in so many dystopias by now is another one going to show us something new? Instead, we jump in when the private security company has to withdraw from the camps and the army pulled in while investigating. This is a story exploring system and how can it be perverted for ideology and corporate greed.

Kayla is a injured prisoner who is being punished as her injuries from a beating means she cannot work. The new Army commander meets her and ties to put her in his team’s safety. It slowly allows us to explore that this injury is just part of a bigger policy programme, and some would say mass corruption. Kayla is just something this machine has absorbed and its horribly impersonal they see her as a problem to society to fix. As the Army investigates it finds out more of the programme’s aims and what exactly has been going on in the camps Is horrific. What I find clever is the story is exploring real world issues – government’s relationships with big business donors, businesses politicians are involved with; right wing think tanks politicians and media re related to help change the dial on opinions and think of course poverty needs tackling – by removing the poor from our sight. The scary think is it’s all things we know are happening now and it wouldn’t take too many more moves for something in our world to be tried.

With Libby’s storyline we get to see the political machine and civil servant balance on these kinds of issues and how it’s often easy to force people out. That Libby is a lesbian and Black mean it becomes even easier for the media to treat her desire for an election as sinister and traitorous to the people. We see a government that rails against concepts as diversity and that too rings rather true of the UK at the moment. Again, quite plausible with anyone looking at news stories where the government blame a ‘blob’ too obsessed with the rule of law to not do their bidding. It a sobering section and as Kayla and Libby meet their storylines are about how exactly can you fight back such a amorphous enemy – ots not a smarmy villain it’s the whole system of powerful forces to navigate and being right isn’t sometimes enough. One fascinating idea is how governments can create extra judicial bodies themselves to do their bidding - corporations not government departments for whom the law is design to prevent security rather than be part of the government and subject to transparency. We’ve seen this already in some parts of the state and this is a chillingly plausible concept.

The one storyline that I struggled with a bit more was that it’s a small group of British Army experts within a particular division who links our two characters and become instrumental to aid the fightback (but important to note that this is not story imagining that the revolution can be delivered easily – its about making small but key differences). Now the characters we met are a diverse and liberal group – I really like them particularly Derek the leader who feels a honourable and decent human being. It’s a reminder that the Army too is a force that by necessity should obey rule of law it is not a government’s propaganda machine and often soldiers do come from a variety of backgrounds not simply using force. At the same time the army has slightly more blurred histories with more right-wing governments and so while our group eventually have to split off and do their own thing it felt a little too convenient that every soldier we first meet knows this is all wrong; instead the enemy is private security groups. If the government of the day has got to this level of popularity and power then I’m surprised the army got overlooked to such an extent by now. A small investigative army group aiding them may have been for me more effective. Despite this it’s a group who do the right thing and their skills do lead to necessary escapes and infiltrations.

The Disinformation War is a novel of ideas. Less dystopian action movie and more a Wyndham style quiet dystopia where a small group are in a world that’s changed, and they have to find a way through it. As its less explosions and more theme focused I found it really interesting and terrifyingly plausible – we don’t notice the water is boiling us to death until its too late. It’s food for thought and I am very intrigued what Groenewegen has in store for us next.