Sweet Harmony – Claire North

Claire North, as I’ve discovered in previous literary encounters, doesn’t write books to comfort or reassure you. Or at least that’s the way it seems looking at things on a superficial level. Her 84K was a disturbing and wholly realistic twist on 1984, on a world of surveillance and enslavement to corporate interests with political power behind them and most recently the legacy of the horrors of colonialism were given a supernatural twist in The Pursuit of William Abbey.

You don’t have to look too far into the past or ahead into the near future to see that these ghosts of the past and the present circumstances point all too credibly towards an unpleasant and worrying future. The dangers of technology and artificial intelligence expanding beyond a level that we can control has however been thoroughly explored elsewhere in science-fiction, but Claire North has a unique take on it here in Sweet Harmony. Again, it’s not that reassuring an outlook, but perhaps there’s more here than it just being premonitory speculative vision of a dystopian future.

Harmony Meads is a successful young woman building an impressive career working for an estate agent. She’s beautiful, has everything going for her until the day that a spot appears on her chin. It might not sound like something life-changing, but In a world that not only values but expects perfection, this pimple is about to destroy her life. When you can have nano-bot implants that can sculpt and modify to not only achieve that kind of perfection but also protect and warn about serious health conditions, well… why wouldn’t you?

Well, clearly there are good reasons not to rely on nano-technology running around inside your body, where upgrades and ‘at your own risk’ body enhancements are easily and conveniently downloaded via the app on your mobile phone. You can probably guess that your online healthcare provider is going to be more interested in selling you additional services than looking after your personal best interests, their services stretching beyond basic healthcare to less essential modifications, but again, if inhibiting a blush reaction, improving a smile, perfecting stubble and enhancing sexual prowess helps build confidence to be a better person, well, again why wouldn’t you?

Needless to say, Claire North provides many good reasons why you shouldn’t trust technology in the hands of private health care providers, and inevitably North has a way of making this get very scary very quickly. And very real. Maybe the technology isn’t there yet, but the danger of unregulated medical services and private healthcare is already a growing reality and it’s not inconceivable that this could realistically go to this stage (if it isn’t already there to some extent). When it comes to scary advances in technology, what is often the underlying cause of the problem is the lack of human involvement, and we don’t need to look too far to see the amount of control that we hand over to corporations and algorithms.

Essentially this more than anything else is what Claire North is writing about in this short and perfectly proportioned novella - available as an eBook only - but more than just alerting us to the inevitable terrifying consequences of technology controlling our lives, North is actually reminding us that, at the moment, we still have some degree of control and need to make some careful choices now. Likewise, Sweet Harmony is not written to any standard SF plot to an inevitable outcome, but there is also very much human agency involved here in North’s writing, showing a deep understanding of human behaviours, weaknesses and insecurities that can make those choices more difficult than you think.