Book Review of Sleepless by Louise Mumford

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This is an excellent, page-turning thriller. The heroine begins by fighting insomnia and ends up fighting to stay alive against a malicious entity that she sees as a “Big Tech” company and that her mother describes as a cult. The author explores the difference between the two and ultimately finds that there is none. Many Big Tech companies are indeed run the same way as religious cults (and God help the customers and shareholders in the long run). Commentators and especially cartoonists were describing Apple, the Corporation and its strangely-loyal customer base, as a religion back in 1986 and it hasn’t altered course much in the following third of a century. Sleepless, however, is timely, because we are now at a fork in the road, where Big Tech’s proprietors either get their way (which will be perfect only in their own minds, while to most of us it will be intolerable) or they finally receive the wages of high-handed arrogance.

Not every large company producing tech products is like this: I can’t remember Joseph Lucas telling me how to live my life the way that Bill Gates, for example frequently does -and considering that Joe was paying me, while it’s me who pays money to Bill Gates, I cannot see from quite where Mr Gates obtains the moral or legal right to have things this way round. 

 Sleepless by Louise Mumford is published on December 11 2020 by HQ and HQ Digital.