Zed

By Joanna Kavenna,

Book cover of Zed

Book description

'Fun and erudite' Sunday Times
'Snort-inducingly funny' Daily Mail
'One of the cleverest books you'll read this year' Telegraph

Every system, however immaculate, has a few little glitches.

The latest in domestic tech should have predicted that businessman George Mann was about to murder his family. But instead it crashes…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Zed as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

A dystopian future that's so close to now it made me squeal. Mega-techcorp Beetle is in charge of – well, basically, everything: CCTV, your household appliances, virtual assistants, robot cops, predicting the future... Only one problem: individual human cussedness/autonomy – the elusive variable Zed – keeps gumming up the algorithms and really shouldn't exist. I love the way the Beetle founder and his assiduous employees just can't see why their beautifully controlled society is quietly driving its citizens nuts with despair. Apart from my constant horror-laughter of embarrassed recognition, there's a scene involving robot hospital orderlies which is one of…

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