Joie de Vivre

Alex Eastwood-Williams

• 31 oktober 2025
• 9780473753863

Samenvatting:

Deep in the void of space, the last remnant of humanity lives aboard the Joie de Vivre—a vast starship where torture is routine, suffering is mandatory, and kindness is a crime.

Under the watchful eye of MACHINE, an all-powerful artificial intelligence, daily life is an endless cycle of ritualised humiliation and brutality disguised as purpose.

One nameless shipmate tries to endure it. To obey MACHINE and suppress every instinct for compassion. But when MACHINE’s cruelty finally goes too far, their psyche begins to fracture. They start to question everything—the rituals, the indoctrination, the authority of MACHINE itself.

As their reality begins to unravel, they are drawn into a phantasmagorical world of philosophical labyrinths, hive minds, false epiphanies, and the possibility—however faint—that kindness matters, even when nothing else is real.

Joie de Vivre is a hallucinatory descent into psychological horror, existential dread, and the illusion of the self—culminating in a terrifying final revelation that turns everything inside out.

There is no escape from the Joie de Vivre.

There is no escape from MACHINE.