The Facility

This dystopia had a massive amount of potential to be fantastic.The story was great, but the execution didn t in my humble opinion quite capture it The idea of a brand new lethal virus spreading is not new, but for me it never gets boring I would have wanted to know of the virus itself, it s symptoms, progression, possibke origin etc To make the threat real A sexually transmitted plague didn t quite convince me Neither did the scientist.I would have made it bigger The epidemic could have been [...]

I m quite fond of dystopian novels, but I was ready to chuck this book in the bin about half way through There are too many holes too much uncertainty Was the disease intended or not Either answer requires explanation than was given, and because it s so ambiguous, the reader is left to deal with a bland, indecisive ending I m not often interested in reading books that leave me saying, Wellat happened I want I didn t mind parallel storylines, but once the journalist lost the direct connection t [...]

Had rather a strange reaction to this short novel I loved the first chunk of it so much I wanted to read everything Lelic has written However, by the time I finished The Facility, I wasn t so sure It was unclear if the disease experienced was intended, perhaps, as a mirror of life in a creeping dystopia I can live with a lot of ambiguity in novels, but here a craved a bit certainty Was there really a disease Why approach it this way, when there are other means quarantine legislation, for exampl [...]

33 THE FACILITY 2011 Simon Lelic Billed as a thriller, you will find that this novel depicting a dystopian Britain has a lot to say about the direction in which our society is moving In America, since the tragedy of 9 11, we have seen the explosive growth of the security industry In Great Britain, the movement towards increased government control and monitoring of personal activities has almost kept pace Individual rights are slowly being eroded In this novel, the government has discovered the [...]

That difficult second novel This book can t seem to decide what it wants to be If it s a dystopian near future Britain, yet there are only 86 people who are inconvenienced If it s a thriller, there s an awful lot of stopping off to buy sandwiches for lunch and having a drink down the pub If it s a political novel, it s caught between the 2000 s threat of terrorism and a throwback to the AIDS epidemic of the 1980 s Either in its conception it just hasn t been thought through imaginatively enough, [...]

Kafka meets Orwell in contemporary England says the blurb on the cover Well, not quite, but one can see how they arrive at the comparison Simon Lelic simply extrapolates some trends in British society and politics into the near future, and the picture he gives is generally quite believable All it needs is the detention without trial legislation that some British politicians desperately wanted, but didn t get.Franz Kafka and George Orwell wrote about dystopian futures in which there are extreme c [...]

Disappointed by this book Spoilers I felt like the beginning of The Facility implied that the disease was actually non existent, so I kept waiting for the big reveal that it was actually manufactured by the government, or that the government had used a made up illness to arrest subversives, or that it didn t exist at all and the facility was just an excuse to use human guinea pigs for drugs trialsbut it never came In fact, nothing ever came There seemed no real point to this book, no proper stor [...]

Slightly disappointed That s how I felt by the end of The Facility I haven t read Lelic s other two novels but this had an intriguing premise and the first third was strong enough to get me hooked Unfortunately any mystery in the plot quickly evaporates and from then on the rest of the book feels rushed Interesting characters like Dr Silk are woefully unexplored and long sections away from the facility itself detract from the most interesting feature of the tale Still, it was a fairly quick read [...]

Bit of a missed opportunity Great idea about the rights and wrongs of forced internment using terrorism legislation, and the balancing act between individual freedom and society s need for safety and protection However the ideas were not sufficiently explored and it descended into a rather boring pursuit scene at one point The tone was almost jokey at times and the characters weak Three stars for its central premise, not for execution

I ll try to be as vague as possible to avoid any spoilers in this review So what can I say about this book exactly Well there was a lot of potential for something great Since Lelic was fairly new at writing novels,I gave him two chances I started off with The Child Who which was alright, it was not something partiularly amazing but it had some great highlights, some of the parts that made you want to feel tense really did a good job Now when it comes to The Facility , I have to say, this is by f [...]

About the first page of the first chapter, I thought, What the Yet, I was riveted.The story takes place in a growing English police state concerned with napping terrorists and innocents that they think are terrorists than they are in protecting the innocent My husband is not a terrorist, Mr Clarke Whatever he s into, I can assure you it s not terrorism He s a dentist That s no deterrent All it takes is someone to point the finger.I found the novel so real, it was frightening I feel myself in Ar [...]

So glad to pick up another book by Simon Lelic, after the frankly brilliant Rupture This is a little different, a disturbing look at a Britain in which the police have been given sweeping new powers I found it elegantly written with a lot of space around the edges for the reader to fill in.

Lelic s debut, Rupture my review , played about with the conventions of the police procedural to produce an interesting examination of bullying, and the issue of where our sympathies should lie if someone who is bullied takes extreme measures The author s follow up novel, The Facility, looked set to do a similar thing with a different subgenre and moral issue, namely the near future political thriller, and the issue of government responses to security threats but it s not quite as successful.Sev [...]

Every once in a great while a book comes along that is both subtle and direct with its message In the great novels that play this dangerous balancing act, the reader is left wondering not so much what it all means but rather what does it all mean for who I am In The Facility, you ll be left angry, heartbroken, and asking yourself just how far you would be willing to go for life and country To say it is set in a dystopian future separates the reader from the truth It is set in England in what cou [...]

I have to admit that this book is not my normal kind of book to read Probably if I had not already agreed to read and review it, I may not have finished it But in many ways, I am glad I persevered The story was very realistic, and perhaps the romantic in me did not like that But I did find that at the end, I actually cared about the people involved and even wished things might have been different for them.I will warn you right off the bat The language of the book is realistic, and profanity is r [...]

Like many other reviewers I was eager to read The Facility having loved Simon Lelic s first novel Rupture and I was not disappointed While different in scope and subject to its forerunner Lelic once again unflinchingly tackles some of the thorniest issues facing modern society The Facility, which is set in the near future, depicts a nation in which stringent anti terrorism legislation is regularly used to curb the civil liberties of a populace all too willing to shrug its shoulders and accept th [...]

It took me a few chapters to get into this one, but once I did it held my attention to the end.The description of the book says that it is set in a near future dystopian Britain, but it didn t seem dystopian to me, at least not in the sense that everything was unpleasant or bad However, the government in this story has sacrificed some civil liberties for the sake of their Unified Security Act, which they claim is designed to protect the citizens of the country from threats of terrorism but which [...]

It s a well written thriller with a very modern style The characters are a little typical and the plot is predictable I must say that I did not enjoy it It offers no hope and no insight I do not find the fear compelling or the apathy that seems to be the antagonist to be convincing SO in the end, it offers no insight, hope, surprises, or people that I was impressed by.My bias here is that I am a romantic at heart and while I am actually a fan of Orwellian fiction I feel that it has to offer tha [...]

I quite enjoyed this book though on closer exam I felt there were some things that brought it from a 4 star to the 3 star rating I ve given I have not ready any of the author s other writing so I read without any expectations and found the book compelling from the start and only mildly dystopian The first half to 2 3rds of the book seemed perfectly good, quickly paced, the prison overseer character was well done Plenty to keep me grasping for the next chapter to see what was next The end though [...]

To say that Simon Lelic s latest offering, The Facility, bears a passing resemblance to late Nobel Prize winning author Jose Saramago s classic novel Blindness would be than fair Both stories deal with an eerily similar premise which entails the rise of a strange illness of unknown origin and the government s attempts at controlling the crisis that ensues through means of imprisonment Rather then being content with producing a clone however, Lelic takes his tale in a slightly different directio [...]

I received this book as part of the GoodReads giveaway program.This is a story, set in England, in the near future, and deals with the issue of a state that has too much power, and no accountability It is somewhat disturbing, in that the scenario described is entirely possible The storyline, people are getting sick with a highly contagious illness and are whisked away to a secret facility where they become experiments for a cure, has a number of holes, but they don t detract entirely from the re [...]

The press releases say The Facility is setup to protect the citizens, but when new information shows otherwise, are those in charge still comfortable with their roles What happens when men and women are taken in for treatment without notification or warning Does anybody have the whole story of what s going on in Simon Lelic s dystopian Britain With ever changing points of view, Lelic lets us into the minds and hearts of those in charge, those behind bars, and those still safe on the outside The [...]

Hmm, bit of a strange book this one The plot was great as was the plot of Lelic s previous novel, Rupture , but somehow it seemed lacking in suspense Much of the book was concerned with the goings on within the Facility itself I think could have been made of the plot which concerned the actual hunt for the Facility It seemed as if the book ran out of steam before the end, and for me, this was disappointing, as it had been such a promising storyline I still enjoyed the book, but I can t help but [...]

The characters are quite believable and the situation they find themselves in is, unfortunately, possible However, I felt the author s presence and heard the axe grinding a little too often I would have liked about how the society changed to the extent that people would so readily ignore the forced quarantine of their fellow citizens and how the government became so brutal and corrupt.

Loved this dystopian thriller The government has powers of unlimited detention and The Facility supposedly houses people thought to be suffering from a new virus Arthur should not be there, but when Arthur s wife joins forces with a journalist to investigate, the government close ranks Only the governor of the facility develops a conscience.

I picked this up as a bargain buy I subsequently read some of the reviews on , which were varied I loved it Well shaped characters, believable,and a plot which moved at a sensible and realistic pace.A prison created to detain people with an incurable, deadly virus, designed to play on the public s greatest fears, prejudices and stereotypes Read it, please

Based on Lelic s other two books, I was a little disappointed This is a thriller, based on a dystopian society where the government are secretly detaining people in prison It s quite a page turner, but I thought it ended quite abruptly and almost in the middle of the story without really having a satisfying ending.

I only liked t because it was so creepy, scary in a than slightly possible dystopian world sort of way It is well written and it kept my interest Some of the characters were better drawn than others but it worked for the type of the story and the length of the booked So, it could be a really liked for the style and writing the story was just too real for my liking.

Simon Lelic is a master of psychological thrillers and his newest book, although a bit of a departure from his previous two, is excellent He foretells a frighteningly realistic world where the police have virtually unlimited power and can disappear citizens on a whim I opened this compelling and thought provoking novel and couldn t put it down

Modern day dystopia that takes place in England.People are disappearing off the streets Why Who is taking them, where, and why Will they be seen again Who is in charge An interesting idea for a story, but it pretty much peters out In the end, unsatisfying.