Lee
While I did not love the narrative nor the characters much, there is no denying the prescient impact of how well this parallels what is occurring in the United States. I like the concept and framework of Dream Hotel, just didn’t thoroughly enjoy the characters and their development. Not to make qualitative comparisons, what Lalami accomplishes is in the same vein of Philip K. Dick’s pre-crime parables in Minority Report—PKD himself of course being directly influenced by Huxley, Orwell, Wells, and Bradbury. All the terrible things occurring in Dream Hotel are not only real, but occurring as we write and read this (to a slightly lower degree of dream reading tech so far).
The likes of Palantir are undeniably actively pursuing and researching how to make this mind and dream reading tech a reality, which when paired with their already existing invasive facial recognition tech, will essentially erase any sense of privacy. Think the pre-crime AI pool girls from Minority Report blended with the dream marketing tech of Nic Cage’s Dream Scenario, backed by big money secretive corporations like in Inception, now multiply it all by 5 and weaponize it. Oh you had a dream where you punched your terrible boss in the face? Well, now we’re legally able to place a premeditated assault charge on you and imprison you. What’s that, you had a dream you went on a date with your celebrity crush and things went well let’s say? Well, with a good lawyer, the government might be able to smack you with a sexual assault charge just because you thought of it. I know a lot of people would be sent to Dream Hotel’s Risk Assessment Administration system just for day dreaming of a certain orange individual disappearing…
Suffice it to say, I’m curious what Lalami follows this up with, as I do think she has a strong voice that could work well within a realistic near future sci-fi realm.
While I did not love the narrative nor the characters much, there is no denying the prescient impact of how well this parallels what is occurring in the United States. I like the concept and framework of Dream Hotel, just didn’t thoroughly enjoy the characters and their development. Not to make qualitative comparisons, what Lalami accomplishes is in the same vein of Philip K. Dick’s pre-crime parables in Minority Report—PKD himself of course being directly influenced by Huxley, Orwell, Wells, and Bradbury. All the terrible things occurring in Dream Hotel are not only real, but occurring as we write and read this (to a slightly lower degree of dream reading tech so far).
The likes of Palantir are undeniably actively pursuing and researching how to make this mind and dream reading tech a reality, which when paired with their already existing invasive facial recognition tech, will essentially erase any sense of privacy. Think the pre-crime AI pool girls from Minority Report blended with the dream marketing tech of Nic Cage’s Dream Scenario, backed by big money secretive corporations like in Inception, now multiply it all by 5 and weaponize it. Oh you had a dream where you punched your terrible boss in the face? Well, now we’re legally able to place a premeditated assault charge on you and imprison you. What’s that, you had a dream you went on a date with your celebrity crush and things went well let’s say? Well, with a good lawyer, the government might be able to smack you with a sexual assault charge just because you thought of it. I know a lot of people would be sent to Dream Hotel’s Risk Assessment Administration system just for day dreaming of a certain orange individual disappearing…
Suffice it to say, I’m curious what Lalami follows this up with, as I do think she has a strong voice that could work well within a realistic near future sci-fi realm.