In Blake Fisher’s debut science fiction novel, CRYO, Louis King is a college professor who teaches religious history at the University of Nebraska. King’s life unravels when he experiences a blackout while driving home and runs his car off the road. When his symptoms continue, he goes to the hospital and is diagnosed with aggressive, inoperable brain cancer. Devastated, Louis prepares for death when his wife, Violet, stumbles upon a slim reed of hope: cryopreservation, in which his body will be frozen and preserved until a cure can be found. Louis agrees to undergo the procedure, more for his wife’s sake than his own.

Louis wakes up in 2231, emerging into an unfathomably transformed world. The United States is no more, having been absorbed into a vast empire formed from the ashes of a cataclysmic world war. At the heart of the realm is the massive walled city of Arcadia, a seeming utopia utopia whose citizens—some of whom, at least—live in blissful luxury. Mourning the loss of his beloved Violet and his old life, Louis settles into a new existence as part of the Scouts, Arcadia’s security forces. As he explores more of this strange new world, Louis discovers that beneath Arcadia’s opulent grandeur is a cruel, bloodthirsty society built on oppression and slavery. Faced with the grim reality of Arcadia, Louis must decide whether to resign himself to this inhuman future or join the struggle to build a better world.

The fantastical elements of the novel are grounded in ordinary scenes from Louis and Violet’s married life: their teasing banter over breakfast, the unspoken fear beneath the tenderness of their hospital bed conversations, etc. These everyday moments, which Fisher renders with artful precision, amplify the poignancy of his loss, drawing the reader into a profound empathy. And Fisher—who clearly knows the pleasures of a good fish-out-of-water story—doesn’t rush through the mundane details of Louis’s assimilation into Arcadian society. Minutiae such as Louis’s arena exercise routine, or his awkward introduction to far-future public restrooms, imbue the novel with pulsing realism. The imagery is pretty sparse, so it’s these little details that add up to the bigger picture—and often to good effect: “After leaving the bathroom, I sat down, and the bench slid out sideways on its own to point me in the direction the train must be heading.”

Readers of high-concept dystopian sagas (such as The Hunger Games and Divergent) will feel right at home in the nightmarish future of CRYO, with its decadent Aristocracy and brutal gladiatorial games held for the amusement of the elites. CRYO is also reminiscent of time-hopping genre romances (including Outlander and Jack Finney’s sci-fi classic Time and Again), as Louis struggles through grief and his heartrending memories of his wife. But while the novel explores familiar sci-fi tropes, Fisher delivers a compelling take on the “ostensible utopia is in fact oppressive anti-utopia” premise, with immersive world-building and a briskly-paced narrative. Overall, CRYO is a delight for dystopia fans, and will leave them excited for the follow-up novel.

In CRYO, Blake Fisher skillfully combines elements of science fiction, action, and romance, elevated by the author’s skillful, polished storytelling.

~Edward Sung for IndieReader