In the near future, companies have replaced States. Zem is a field police officer, a “dog” as the population calls them.
For a science fiction novel to be credible, it only needs to be based on a few facts known to everyone. The novel Dog 51 by Laurent Gaudé begins with the economic crisis in Greece. The country, bankrupt, was finally bought by a multinational GoldTex. The whole country, residents included. “ They are told that their only chance of survival is to be bought by GoldTex. They learn to say the word, to hate it. They will no longer be Greeks, they will be employees. And as GoldTex wants to give a modern image of its operation, we no longer say employee but ciliate. » Then Greece is sold piecemeal to subcontractors. Some parts are transformed into huge areas destined to become gigantic landfills.
Many choose exile, offered by GoldTex. Among these refugees with a completely new status, Zem Sparak who joins Magnapole, a megalopolis owned by the multinational. The plot begins 30 years later. A body is discovered in Zone 3 of the city. Gutted. Zem goes there. Disillusioned in his fifties, he is a police officer. Exactly dog. A simple field investigator without much power in zone 3, the one where the poorest live. Zone 2 houses the middle classes. Zone 1 is reserved for the GoldTex elite.
Zem who will have to investigate in duo with Salia Malberg, an investigator from zone 2 who despises dogs. Many will try to slow down his investigations. But for once, he decides not to give in and rebels.
Who is this mysterious dead man? Why did you steal his internal prosthetics? Why do the cops from Zones 2 and 3, who hate each other, have to work together?
This novel gives a terrifying image of our future if large corporations managed to take power. But objectively, isn’t this already the case with the famous companies known as GAFAM or, the worst of them, the one led by Elon Musk?
