Where the Axe is Buried : A Novel

Krotov had told him the state was not interested in whether people believed its lies. The state was not looking for plausible deniability. A good lie could always be punctured, with enough work. No, Krotov had said-all they needed was implausible deniability. A lie the population would see through immediately but would have to pretend they believed. Even to themselves.

Making themselves believe the bad lie made them complicit. And no one would dare speak the truth. Few would dare even think it.

Our setting is maybe 50 years in the future. Super-intelligent AI is ubiquitous, as is near-impermeable state surveillance (which is supercharged by AI). The story’s plot spans from democratic London to an anonymous, benevolent-AI-governed eastern european state to the (not benevolent at all) Russian Federation.

The Federation is a totalitarian dictatorship with an immortal leader thanks to neural connectome transplants. Naturally, the federation government system is AI-assisted which enables a brutal system of social/political credits and punishment. Russia being Russia, there is (as always) a shadowy, ruthless, resistance movement. As the book begins, the leader of the Federation is in failing health (caused by “upgrades” in the previous transplant/rebirth) and this situation is the catalyst for the story.

A wide-ranging, complicated and compartmentalized scheme hatched by Russia’s resistance aims to replace the Federation’s leader with someone more benevolent. The story tracks various characters, who, whether they know it or not, whether they survive or not, are participants in, obstacles to, or collateral victims of the scheme. Here are a few of the more memorable characters:

• Zoya, an elderly, highly influential, exiled Russian dissident, is contacted by the resistance who have an idea of how she can help them replace the government.
• Lilia, a genius programmer, trapped in the Federation but rescued by the resistance so she can give them some software that can compromise an AI.
• Nurlan, a legislative assistant in Eastern Europe. He lives through the collapse of his country’s AI-controlled government.
• Nikolai, a doctor who is helping transfer the president’s brain-state to a replacement body.

While the plot slithers to its resolution the action is embroidered with a multitude of intriguing ideas, such as:

• Social status scoring systems of control
• the AI as deus ex machina (belief in AI infallibility)
• the AI subverting/escaping built-in guard rails
• the AI as human romantic partner
• The ecology of the Russian Taiga
• Russian folk-lore, (the Baba Yaga, bears, magical huts)
• Split-brain syndrome and its implications
• Massive immortal cloned colonies of plants.

This book is disturbingly plausibly terrifying, yet also so fascinating that I finished this densely structured novel in two days.