City of Folding Faces
by Jayinee Basu
2019
City of Folding Faces is a literary scifi novel set in the near future. It introduces us to kind of a shocking new technology, one that seemingly redefines what it means to be human, and shows us, on an intimate scale, a microcosm of how that technology affects society. Author Jayinee Basu starts with a very high-concept premise, but then allows its consequences to play out in the everyday lives of a dating couple.
The future tech that drives the action in City is known colloquially as Roulette, a machine and a process housed in a building called the Casino. We do eventually learn was Roulette was intended to be, but initially, it seems like a technology without a purpose, its capital-D Disruptive effects foisted off on society without regard for its consequences basically just because it exists, and having invented it, the corporation that owns it can't just not release it. (Or rather, they could, but they're not willing to, because the profits go to them, and the problems go to everyone else.)
So, Roulette is described as a game. You wager money, you step in the booth, some time later you emerge and collect your winnings. We're told that the larger the wager, the bigger the payout, and the shorter your time inside. We're told that the median time within is 3 weeks, but it can be months, possibly years. Roulette works like a Star Trek transporter, but with a shocking lag time between when you dematerialize and when you reappear. In between, something happens to your consciousness, although no one seems to be able to say what. When people reappear, they're physically the same but mentally and emotionally transformed.
This isn't really gambling, not in any traditional sense. It's like a carnival ride that maims its riders, a virtual reality game that inflicts disabling brain damage on everyone who plays it. By all rights, the Casino should be seen as a disreputable menace; Roulette held on par with commercial suicide booths.
The people who emerge are called 'Ruga,' and they're a new breed of humanity. They struggle to resume their former lives, many unable to relate to their friends and loved ones, or unable to hold jobs, or both. Ruga people experience their senses and emotions heightened to an overwhelming, almost unbearable degree, they lose some or all of their memories, and to form new memories, they have to discover a new way to encode information for themselves.
Many Ruga feel an unbearable bodily dysphoria related to their new emotions, an inability to express themselves with their old faces and voices. Fortunately, the Casino also sells a surgery that allows the facial and vocal muscles to wrinkle and fold in a much more finely-controlled way. 'Ruga,' I assume, comes from the word 'rugose,' which means wrinkly.
Roulette is a technology that it's easy to imagine appearing in one of Iain M Banks's Culture novels, or maybe on an episode of Star Trek. But it would be used very differently in those stories than it is here. Basu uses Roulette as a kind of inciting incident for her domestic drama, then drops us into it halfway through, when everything is falling apart.
Mara is one of the Ruga, and the book opens with her receiving the surgery that will let her face express her new emotions. What happened before the beginning is that Mara and her long term boyfriend Arlo moved cross-country for Arlo's work as a biologist. While Arlo spent all his time in the lab, Mara decompensated. She never made new friends, never found a new job, never got used to the new city. She and Arlo fought often. Eventually, Mara gave up on her life and played Roulette in the Casino, though afterward she can no longer remember exactly why. Instead of solving her problems, becoming Ruga initially worsens them. She stops dressing or feeding herself, and spends all day trying to relearn how to form memories and endure her emotions. The surgery is kind of a last resort.
So the novel starts with Mara finally able to crumple and wrinkle her face in ways that only other Ruga can understand. From Mara's perspective, it's a success. Able to express her emotions again, she no longer feels so overwhelmed by them, and by building nests and cages out of wires and found objects, she's able to create a model of her own mind that functions as a diary, so she finally has a some help holding onto her memories. From Arlo's perspective, it's a failure, because his girlfriend still can't leave the house or function socially, and he can't interpret her new expressions.
Mara spends the book working on her healing process, including, at one point, moving into a group home with other Ruga, helpfully sponsored by the Casino. Arlo spends the book deciding if he wants to stay with Mara, or if the grass might be greener with his attractive coworker Hanne. I don't know if he could've hidden his cheating from anyone; but he certainly can't hide it from an emotionally hyper-aware Ruga woman. Mara is partially motivated by her desire to repair her relationship. She wants to win Arlo back, and never considers breaking up with him, even when she moves out, although I sort of think she should.
Interwoven through Mara and Arlo's story are various media accounts of the effects of Roulette on society - commercials, news reports, daytime talk shows, press releases by scientists. We also check in on some workers for the Casino corporation, including the person who runs the group home. A lot of what we learn about Roulette comes through these interludes, including the story of how it was invented. And if you thought it sounded like irresponsible capitalism run amok in its present form, wait til you learn what it was supposed to do, and how they hoped to make money from it! This part reminded me of a similar revelation about the planetary AI in the show Mrs Davis.
These events of City of Folding Faces are mundane, basically ordinary, but they're consequential for the people involved. In Roulette, Basu has a powerful metaphor, and one that's flexible enough to remind you of many possible technological innovations. The relationship problems Mara and Arlo face are highly specific, but also recognizable as similar to a number of real-world difficulties couples might have.
The future tech that drives the action in City is known colloquially as Roulette, a machine and a process housed in a building called the Casino. We do eventually learn was Roulette was intended to be, but initially, it seems like a technology without a purpose, its capital-D Disruptive effects foisted off on society without regard for its consequences basically just because it exists, and having invented it, the corporation that owns it can't just not release it. (Or rather, they could, but they're not willing to, because the profits go to them, and the problems go to everyone else.)
So, Roulette is described as a game. You wager money, you step in the booth, some time later you emerge and collect your winnings. We're told that the larger the wager, the bigger the payout, and the shorter your time inside. We're told that the median time within is 3 weeks, but it can be months, possibly years. Roulette works like a Star Trek transporter, but with a shocking lag time between when you dematerialize and when you reappear. In between, something happens to your consciousness, although no one seems to be able to say what. When people reappear, they're physically the same but mentally and emotionally transformed.
This isn't really gambling, not in any traditional sense. It's like a carnival ride that maims its riders, a virtual reality game that inflicts disabling brain damage on everyone who plays it. By all rights, the Casino should be seen as a disreputable menace; Roulette held on par with commercial suicide booths.
The people who emerge are called 'Ruga,' and they're a new breed of humanity. They struggle to resume their former lives, many unable to relate to their friends and loved ones, or unable to hold jobs, or both. Ruga people experience their senses and emotions heightened to an overwhelming, almost unbearable degree, they lose some or all of their memories, and to form new memories, they have to discover a new way to encode information for themselves.
Many Ruga feel an unbearable bodily dysphoria related to their new emotions, an inability to express themselves with their old faces and voices. Fortunately, the Casino also sells a surgery that allows the facial and vocal muscles to wrinkle and fold in a much more finely-controlled way. 'Ruga,' I assume, comes from the word 'rugose,' which means wrinkly.
Roulette is a technology that it's easy to imagine appearing in one of Iain M Banks's Culture novels, or maybe on an episode of Star Trek. But it would be used very differently in those stories than it is here. Basu uses Roulette as a kind of inciting incident for her domestic drama, then drops us into it halfway through, when everything is falling apart.
Mara is one of the Ruga, and the book opens with her receiving the surgery that will let her face express her new emotions. What happened before the beginning is that Mara and her long term boyfriend Arlo moved cross-country for Arlo's work as a biologist. While Arlo spent all his time in the lab, Mara decompensated. She never made new friends, never found a new job, never got used to the new city. She and Arlo fought often. Eventually, Mara gave up on her life and played Roulette in the Casino, though afterward she can no longer remember exactly why. Instead of solving her problems, becoming Ruga initially worsens them. She stops dressing or feeding herself, and spends all day trying to relearn how to form memories and endure her emotions. The surgery is kind of a last resort.
So the novel starts with Mara finally able to crumple and wrinkle her face in ways that only other Ruga can understand. From Mara's perspective, it's a success. Able to express her emotions again, she no longer feels so overwhelmed by them, and by building nests and cages out of wires and found objects, she's able to create a model of her own mind that functions as a diary, so she finally has a some help holding onto her memories. From Arlo's perspective, it's a failure, because his girlfriend still can't leave the house or function socially, and he can't interpret her new expressions.
Mara spends the book working on her healing process, including, at one point, moving into a group home with other Ruga, helpfully sponsored by the Casino. Arlo spends the book deciding if he wants to stay with Mara, or if the grass might be greener with his attractive coworker Hanne. I don't know if he could've hidden his cheating from anyone; but he certainly can't hide it from an emotionally hyper-aware Ruga woman. Mara is partially motivated by her desire to repair her relationship. She wants to win Arlo back, and never considers breaking up with him, even when she moves out, although I sort of think she should.
Interwoven through Mara and Arlo's story are various media accounts of the effects of Roulette on society - commercials, news reports, daytime talk shows, press releases by scientists. We also check in on some workers for the Casino corporation, including the person who runs the group home. A lot of what we learn about Roulette comes through these interludes, including the story of how it was invented. And if you thought it sounded like irresponsible capitalism run amok in its present form, wait til you learn what it was supposed to do, and how they hoped to make money from it! This part reminded me of a similar revelation about the planetary AI in the show Mrs Davis.
These events of City of Folding Faces are mundane, basically ordinary, but they're consequential for the people involved. In Roulette, Basu has a powerful metaphor, and one that's flexible enough to remind you of many possible technological innovations. The relationship problems Mara and Arlo face are highly specific, but also recognizable as similar to a number of real-world difficulties couples might have.
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