I got TV deal then book deal. It was best week of my life
A good book is the perfect way to escape the COVID-19 crisis for a few hours.
My latest escape read – The Loop, the young adult debut of Scots writer Ben Oliver – takes place in a time thousands of years beyond our own, so it’s about as far away from 2020 as you can get.
The story centres around Luka Kane. The 16-year-old has been inside a hi-tech prison called the Loop for more than two years. He’s doing time for a murder he did not commit, with a death sentence hanging over his head.
The day-to-day routine inside the Loop is boring and repetitive. He gets up with an alarm from the intelligent Happy – think Alexa – that maintains life as they all know it. He selects his breakfast from Happy before it’s delivered via conveyor belt.
Then Luka exercises for hours on end before the back of his cell opens out to the exercise yard where he sprints for the permitted hour until he’s utterly knackered and returns to his cell.
During this hour, inmates have conversations but can’t see each other due to the never-endingly high walls between each cell.
Once the hour is up, Luka is back inside before it’s time for lunch and the only human interaction inmates get a day. Wren, a sympathetic warden, is kind to the inmates, and she and Luka have ignited a friendship. She delivers him books to break up the monotonous day-to-day existence. At the end of the day the energy harvest takes place, where the mechanics suck out all the energy from inmates to power the prison. This six-hour process is treacherous and leaves prisoners feeling close to death. Once the energy harvest is done, the government-issued rain falls at midnight, Luka sleeps, and the entire process begins again. There’s no way out of the Loop. Every six months, prisoners can opt to be executed or be experimented on in what’s called a Delay – which can either enhance the human body or kill it. It’s the risk prisoners must take to stay alive. Then everything gradually starts to change. The rain stops falling and there’s whisperings of war in the exercise yard. Inmates are split into two groups. The Delay comes much earlier for them all. On Luka’s last day, Wren issues a warning. He has to save himself but little does he know, he’s going to have to take a stab at saving the world too. I’m not the target audience for The Loop but I was dragged into Luka’s world with my eyes pinned open. I’m desperate for more so I’m lucky it’s book one of a three-part series. I had to know more about the inner workings of the man who brought us The Loop, Ben Oliver…