Best Blurred Boundary - The Kingdom by Jess Rothenberg

Publisher - Macmillan

Published - Out Now

Price - £7.99 paperback £3.99 Kindle EBook

Welcome to the Kingdom, a dazzling fantasy theme park where ‘happily ever after’ is not just a promise, but a rule…

Seven beautiful Fantasists - half human, half android princesses - are programmed to make wishes come true, no matter what. But when Fantasist Ana meets theme park worker Owen, her fairytale ends in blood. Now she’s on trial for experiencing human emotions beyond her programming and must come face to face with what she is, and what she’s done.

But the truth is dangerous, and no one wants the Kingdom to fail…

Since Frankenstein modern SF has been intrigued by the idea of us creating our own forms of life and that raises questions of will that life be - an improvement or a disaster? And that possibly reflects our own uncertain view on the future of our own species. Are we responsible enough? In The Kingdom Jess Rothenberg takes us to a far future Kingdom that bears no relation to anyother where AI has taken humanoid form but perhaps has gotten out of control.

The story focuses on Ana one of seven humanoid avatars specially created to meet guests, shareholders and be the face of the brand. Each day they wander their kingdom before being placed back in their hallway to recharge and be made ready for the next day. But we Ana we see two timelines crashing into each other. Ana is increasingly puzzled by inconsistancies she sees in the park; some of her Princesses suddenly act scared or want to escape and some of her human employees take a strange stance with her. IN the near future we see Ana is on trial for the murder of Owen Chen a human she seemed to have a great obsession with. The story starts to reveal the truth of the Kingdom and we have to decide exactly what is Ana’s agenda.

There is a lot to like with this tale of a cross between Disneyland and Westworld but I came away a bit ambivalent on if the novel had been successful. The premise is excellent and I liked how most of the narrative is seen from Ana’s point of view. She is very pleasant and reasonable but you see a woman who is starting to realise her world isn’t quite adding up in the way you think it should. As Ana is an innocent there are certain scenes where the reader fills in the unspoken blanks and that adds some disturbing context for how the Fantasists are being treated by their employer/owner. This raises questions of abuse and slavery - the Fantasists must do their jobs forever never leaving and any reduction in performance or likeability ratings can lead to a character being dismantled. I saw interesting similarities with the many stories of theme parks who don’t like their employees or animals acting out of line. To bolster this impressive world that’s being created we get multi-media interludes including trial snippets, news stories or pieces of Kingdom literature often showing the glossy side of life compared to what Ana is coming to realise. I also enjoyed seeing how the Fantasists all had developed their own world of special sentences and locations where they could be themselves. They really came across as something quite different to a normal human

But unfortunately I never felt this story was being executed fully to its potential. Instead we move into a form of instalove with Owen and Ana crossing the boundaries of their roles and so that quickly loses the ambivalence of can we trust Ana’s worldview. it’s all a bit too black and white and top of that the themes getting raised seem to be put to the back as we reach the story’s conclusion which while violent I don’t feel actually achieves much. The court case is glossed over and the aftermath feels too neatly wrapped up while the plot threads of what are the Fantasists and their treatment felt abandoned instead suddenly focusing on Ana and Chen’s personal story.

This was an enjoyable YA read with a fascinating premise but didn’t really add anything new to the genre and for me didn’t fully grasp it’s potential the story progressed. An interesting read and would still like to see how Rothenberg progresses as an author.