The Ten Percent Thief

"This is a mosaic novel , which I suspect is a specialism of science fiction and fantasy – think of Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles . Lakshminarayan’s narrative is set in a dystopia centred on Big Data and algorithms and is effectively laid out in short stories, with characters rarely recurring between chapters. There’s no Winston Smith or D-503 for us to identify with or root for; we have to adjust or question our allegiances every few pages. The novel trusts us to do part of the world-building and yet it can wrong-foot us."