Review by Booklist Review
In a dystopian near-future where overpopulation and climate change wreak havoc on Earth, a company called Combine offers a unique solution: merging two consciousnesses into a single body. Amelia Anderson and her mother Laurie are candidates for The Merge. Amelia hopes that merging with her mother will stave off Laurie's quickly progressing Alzheimer's and allow them to continue to live together as one person. Told through alternating points of view between Laurie and Amelia as they progress through the preparation period with a group of other participants, Walker shows how the two slowly come to realize that becoming one consciousness is not the euphoric and happy continuation of life that they'd hoped for. The tension builds slowly as Amelia and Laurie realize that Combine's leadership may be hiding the true intentions of their solution to relieve the burgeoning population and strain on resources. Eco-fiction adjacent, Walker's debut creates a thought-provoking narrative that focuses on the emotional consequences of societal cleansing, social engineering, and the lengths people will go to in order to save their families.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Walker debuts with a frightening glimpse into a near-future London ravaged by climate change, where the government, in an effort to conserve resources, has launched a new procedure called the Merge, in which the minds of two people are joined in one body known as a Combine. Those who refuse are hit with a heavy tax and made into social pariahs. Amelia Anderson, a 23-year-old videographer, stridently opposes the Merge, but when her painter mother, Laurie, is diagnosed with Alzheimer's, they sign up to be the first Combine involving someone with dementia. Amelia secretly plans to abandon the Merge at the last minute, keeping her intentions even from Laurie, and she films the preparations for a planned documentary. Somehow, though, their merging is completed, and they wake up at a heavily controlled treatment center where the surgeon greets them as Laura-Amelia. From here, the novel is narrated in the first-person plural, as Laura-Amelia tries to figure out what happened. It's an impressive swerve, and Walker effectively blends climate dystopia and body horror, especially in the novel's chilling final twist. Readers of The Great Transition by Nick Fuller Googins will enjoy this. Agent: Liv Maidment, Madeleine Milburn Literary. (Nov.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
DEBUT Walker's vision of a dystopian world set in a severely overpopulated near future is disturbingly believable and oddly intriguing. A revolutionary technology that merges two consciousnesses into one body has been developed and is embraced by a police state. A round of trials is implemented to combine the consciousnesses of healthy people with those are ill. Amelia and her mother, Laurie, are considering merging to combat Laurie's Alzheimer's. Through chapters devoted to the alternating perspectives of Laurie and Amelia, readers meet four other pairs who are engaged in the same process, contending variously with drug addiction, cancer, and pregnancy. Merged people, called combines, are given preference in all aspects of society, so there is a real incentive to merge. As Amelia and her mother learn more about merging, they develop doubts and then decide to back out but are forced to go through with the process. The second half of the narrative, post-merge, finds Laurie-Amelia experiencing life as a combine and ultimately discovering some chilling truths about what the merging really means. VERDICT Walker's debut is an innovative dystopia that offers a fascinating look at how science, social control, and information manipulation intersect in a totalitarian future.--Henry Bankhead
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
In a climate-ravaged future, a mother and daughter from London plan to have their minds merged as a form of government-sponsored population control. In this taut thriller, a new kind of technology enables a person's mind to coexist in another's body. The two minds in one body are then called Combines, identifiable by their double names, mandala neck tattoos, and green clothing. A government-corporate enterprise, also called Combine, the process is marketed as a way of reducing the population and reversing climate change, but people who don't merge are punished through government mandates: Most are forced from their homes into government apartment buildings, menstrual cycles are monitored, prison inmates are involuntarily merged, Oxford will only accept Combines. Of course, if you have the money, you can remain as you are. Amelia Anderson, a videographer, and her mother, Laurie, have signed up for an experimental merge group of risky cases--Laurie has Alzheimer's disease, which will be cured when she merges into the body of her daughter. However, even with her failing cognition, Laurie is against the merge, as are many in London who protest in the streets and outside the Combine clinics. Secretly, Amelia volunteered them both as a form of gonzo journalism to have access to the inner workings of Combine during their three-month preparation period. She plans for them to escape before the merge, but doesn't realize how difficult that will be. Walker has produced an inventive exploration of climate change, class disparity, corporate influence, and biotech "enhancement," all of which converge in this frightening vision of a totalitarian Britain. Amelia and her mother discover Combine's deadly secrets, in a world where individuality takes on a new meaning. Whether they will be able to escape is another matter. An excellent addition to the growing catalog of 21st-century dystopian nightmares. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
