“The Radius”
Harmony
Author: Keikaku (Project) Itoh
Distributor: Viz Media
Release date: July 20th, 2010
Format: Paperback Book / 300 pages
Genre: Sci-Fi
Age Rating: Not Rated, suggested +16
Overall Rating: B
The world has changes and the bureaucrats and medical authorities have taken over. Everything is looking great, people are generally very positive and helpful toward each other, medical science has advanced to the point where people know if they are living a balanced life, but for three young girls this could not be more wrong. It is up to them the save the world from it’s own madness.
Synopsis:
In a time when all adults are monitored by nano technology in their blood stream, three girls discuss the past and dream of killing themselves to make a statement. One of the girls, Miach, knows things that she should not know and lives through the books she can get on the black market. The other two girls, Tuan and Cian follow her in amazement and wonder. Miach develops a med that halts the bodies ability to absorb nutrients and they all end up in the hospital and Miach manages to go all the way.
Years later, Tuan has gone to work for the World Heath Organization in their Helix division. Tuan had been stationed in a war zone were she can get away with drinking and smoking, but once her superior officer finds out about this unruly behavior, she is sent home.
Her homecoming is the beginning of the journey back in time. Her close friend Cian meets her at the airport and within a few hours her life will change forever.
Commentary:
The concept of a world controlled by a bureaucratic amalgam of medical watchers is not all that far fetched. With the continual pressure on society to conform to a general heath standard, it only seems natural that the next step in medicine is to create the nano tech that helps control and monitor everyone.
I found the concept very interesting and the natural tendency for youth to rebel, also seemed to make sense to me for as the general vehicle for the plot. After I got into Harmony I began to find it somewhat forced and almost unnatural. The flow of it seemed to stutter. I also lost my connection with Tuan. I have a feeling that the uses of html style coding to define and provide filler information left me cold and broke the stream of thought. AsI moved through this story, I began to get the feeling that Keikaku (Project) Itoh is just trying to prove himself to be a cool hip writer, rather than a writer of Sci Fi.
I was able to set my diversions aside and get back into the story and found it to have plenty of timely insight. The entire premiss is worth every word. The loss of Utopian Society to the failure of the human condition will never get old for me.
Overall Grade: B
If Keikaku (Project) Itoh would have been just a little less worried about being cool and better at maintaining cohesive bonds I think Harmony could have been a real hit. I do take my hat off to him for having vision and creativity.
