Sexbots of the Underground City
Sexbots of the Underground City is a bittersweet satirical novel set in a fascist society.
In Tiger Shane’s lively dystopian novel Sexbots of the Underground City, a woman is on a mission to find her brother.
Unlike most people in Underground City, Spark grew up in the Orchard Colony. Born to a mother and father rather than in the central breeding facility that controls reproduction, Spark’s existence is illegal—and so is her brother Bee’s. When Bee goes missing, Spark undertakes a treacherous quest to get him back.
Spark’s world is vivified through mentions of its smells in particular, including of decomposing flesh and feces in places of poverty and warm citrus in the air of the Orchard Colony. Horrors including mass graves are conveyed in brutal, unflinching detail, giving shape to the fascism, puritanism, anti-natalism, state-sanctioned violence, and eugenics that characterize Underground City.
In ironic contrast to these concerns, people have names like Unity, Freedom, and Temperance. Also illuminating are features like Cop-U-Stations in public restrooms that provide frustrated citizens with masturbatory relief. Indeed, the book’s explicit sexual content and themes add a satirical layer to the dystopian setting. Spark navigates this terrible world with trepidation, facing unknown dangers throughout.
Beyond its thorough worldbuilding, the book is slow to start. And despite edifying mentions of sensory factors, its prose is often quite straightforward, sacrificing embellishments in service of action and momentum. Further, the prologue is exposition heavy, delaying the more exciting events to come.
However, tensions rise after a second narrator, Drill, is introduced. He has a “vintage sexbot,” Alaska, whom he rents out by the minute, and whose programming he’s modified for personal defense. Drill—like all men in the matriarchal Underground City—works disgusting gigs for low pay; women run the government and perform office jobs. While this sexism falls flat in terms of social commentary, it adds further tension to Spark’s tale.
Both Spark and Drill are compelling narrators, though Drill’s perspective is sometimes sidelined by Spark’s. Spark is wary yet excitable, while Drill is harsh yet hopeful, even while being subjected to dehumanizing poverty. Spark winds up in elite company, and the contrasts between her everyday experiences and Drill’s flesh out the inequities of Underground City well. Further, complicated issues are handled with depth and care in the course of Spark’s quest, which works toward a bittersweet ending that ties the book’s many themes together.
In the explicit dystopian novel Sexbots of the Underground City, two people from quite different backgrounds navigate the challenges of their fascist society.
Reviewed by
Leah Block
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