Templum Bellonae

Follow-up to my recommendation of The Administration.

The following is part of another Administration novel, Good Citizens. This is set in the Administration, but has an entirely new cast of characters, taking the spotlight away from the corporate world, and the offices and I&I, and turning it onto citizens at the other end of the Administration’s social scale. There is no guarantee it will be finished, and may be revised or removed at any time—read at your own risk. At the moment I’m not working on any Administration stories, so Good Citizens is unlikely to be finished in the forseeable future.

Even though it isn’t and may never be finished, Good Citizens is an incredible read. When I read The Administration, I had a hard time really feeling the resister point of view. I understood it intellectually, but not viscerally.

But now I get it.

I fervently wish to see this story finished, although I’m afraid it probably won’t be. It hasn’t been updated since late 2003, anyway, so don’t look forward to new material anytime soon.

ETA: Seems to have been removed from Manna’s site, although I couldn’t find anything there saying why.

ETA: Good Citizens is no longer available online. Manna has said that she’s done some work on it lately, so it may eventually be finished, and possibly published, along with the main Administration series.

Good Citizens by Manna

This series really ought to be published. (ETA: And now it has been–check out my post for the details.) It’s better than a lot of books I’ve read. It is dark, but not in the way I’d feared. I was expecting an outrageous dystopian future like that of Blade Runner, but it’s not like that. In The Administration, there are a lot of people fighting to maintain the status quo, and it’s easy to see why.

There is torture, rape and non-con sex, but it’s mostly incidental to the story. The BDSM is explicit, but I found it a lot of fun to read, even though I don’t usually enjoy BDSM scenes.

There are no bad guys. There are no good guys. There are only better guys, and worse guys.

One of the worse guys is Val Toreth. In a world where torture is a legitimate part of the investigative process, he works for the Investigation and Interrogation Division .

One of the better guys is Keir Warrick, a corporate director. His small corporation, SimTech, is developing a ’sim’ system which places users in a fully-immersive virtual reality.

Their world is the dark future dystopia of New London, where Europe is controlled by a totalitarian bureaucracy, which shares political power with powerful corporations. The oppressive government uses torture, violence and the various Divisions of the feared Department of Internal Security to maintain power. The corporations fight amongst themselves, using lethal force under the euphemism of ‘corporate sabotage’, uniting only to resist attempts by the Administration to extend its control over them.

The Administration is a series of three novels, three novellas and twenty-seven short stories, starting with Mind Fuck. They’re listed in reading order on the Administration page.

Also, see this follow-up recommendation.

The Administration by Manna