The Die

There are a lot of different ways to be smart and just because you are one, does not automatically make you the other. The classic is book versus street, you may know your way around an academic essay, but would fail to talk yourself out of a tricky situation outside the pub at closing time. If you are lucky, you may be both times of smart, but it is good to see that in the near future supposedly clever people still do stupid things. In Jude Berman’s The Die someone bets not only their own job, but those of their teammates, on the roll of a die. 

The near future has seen many technological developments, but it is not a better place to be. North America has split between parts owned by ‘The Dictator’ and the free states such as California. The citizens of California live a charmed life compared to many on Earth with their advance technology and settled society. They are working on the fight against climate change and even have time to develop game software. One team discover that their company is working on more than just a simple App. This ‘Happy App’ could be used to manipulate the masses, and who would want to do that? 

Die is a curious book and once you understand the origins, it makes more sense, but I will get to that later. The book opens like a classic speculative science fiction novel, it throws some future tech the readers way and has a cyberpunk feel to it. A group of young professionals all live and work together for a game designing company in a pod. When a rivalry between their pod and another gets out of hand, they lose everything, but discover even more. 

From the opening pages I thought this was going to be a full-on cyber tale, but Berman backs out of this in favour of the characters. The chapters are split into different perspectives of the story from the pod members. This allows for some different voices and means that we stay with the main narrative throughout as it swaps to the most important character at that time. What this also does is highlight the naivety of the characters. These are some of the leading software developers, yet they make some stupid decisions. 

None more ridiculous than the pod leader's decision to gamble the livelihood of all the team on the roll of a dice. A dice that could easily be manipulated. The fall of the group if needed to get to the real meat of the story; the fact that this rival pod are not as they first seem. The rest of the book is our protagonists trying to save themselves and the country as they know it. 

What is odd is that this is done from a farmhouse. It feels like a lockdown book, as if the author found themselves stuck in a house, so they will stick their characters in their house. There is little in the way of action, a lot more in the way of conversation. This is where knowing where the origin of the story comes from makes sense. In Berman’s notes they mention this book being a modern teaching of the Mahabharata. It is here that different readers will experience the book in different ways. I found the talk of wishing the solution to work and not caring if it is successful or not as naive, but others will see the wisdom in this. From a story perspective I imagine that the approach the characters would have failed miserably when it came to execution. 

Science fiction is a great vehicle to explore theories of religions, many classics do just this, but it must work with the plot. In the case of The Die the characters come across as immature and the last people you would want to save the world. At one point the group explain that no one could think they are that naive, but as a reader we do. They were naive, and downright stupid enough, to gamble their livelihoods away and not even consider that some people have ulterior motives. A stronger story that holds up to scrutiny was needed for the teachings to work.