And three: after Valide, then Vaillante, here is Vandals. Chris Bergeron continues his dystopian saga to come here to the story of the revolution of a certain part of 5% of the population. A story that aims to be about learning, emancipation, obviously diversity, but above all humanity. And hope, on top of that.
We are in 2046, in an autocratic society ruled by an all-powerful artificial intelligence. Big Brother meets ChatGPT, if you will. This is obsessed with the standardization of humans for recovery and especially the maintenance of order. To do this, all differences have been erased. And everyone who doesn’t fit into the boxes, the famous 5%, has been abandoned. Savagely.
Does that ring a bell?
If you already know the world of Chris Bergeron, the trans author to whom we undoubtedly owe the first science fiction autofiction (Valide), you are on familiar ground here. Otherwise, no problem, we end up finding our way, even if the first pages are rather difficult (real experience). But it’s also the nature, and above all the pleasure, of the genre, right?
With plenty of allusions of all kinds, from The Odyssey to Star Wars, including the world of advertising, pop culture, and culture in general.
“It’s the story of a revolution,” explains the author, met a few days before its launch, earlier this week. It’s the story of what happens in a world where queers, who no longer have the right to exist, decide to sabotage the artificial intelligence that controls society. »
The story is therefore a logical continuation of Valide, where the author wanted to “exorcise [her] fears about the future”. “Here’s what could go wrong,” she sums up, if a handful of billionaires came to control all the means of communication and thus managed to shape society according to their opinions.
A certainly political reflection, “very political” even, on the place of technology in our lives, but also on the “price of order”. A price that we paid collectively not so long ago with the pandemic, it should be remembered. “And there will be other crises, we know that…” slips Chris Bergeron.
Because yes, there is hope, in this world, as futuristically dark as it is, the finale remaining largely and virtually open. And we understand that Chris Bergeron has not said his last word. “I like to delve again and again into this universe,” she says, “which can be read in order or disorder. But in order, there is added pleasure, because the more you read, the more you understand! »
She doesn’t hide it, writing this third book was hard. It’s even written as is in his acknowledgments: “The climate of transphobia that reigns in many political circles across the continent, including in Quebec, has taken a toll on my morale and nerves. »
“It’s hard to find inspiration when you read extremely negative articles about trans people every day […]. It’s hard when we attend a debate and are told that we are a “theory”, then we propose to set up a “committee of wise men”, as if we were not wise,” says she said in an interview, alluding to this scientific committee project from the Legault government, to look into questions of gender identity. “It infantilizes us. And to infantilize is to marginalize. […] The world I imagined is coming into being…”
Chris Bergeron says it frankly: she hopes that Prime Minister François Legault and the leader of the Parti Québécois, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, among others, will read her book. “Really,” she said, “because I think there is a very deep misunderstanding of transidentity. »
And how might his trilogy shed some light on them? “Behind it all, there are individuals. However, we must be careful of the populist turn where we are less interested in reality than in discourse. […] We have to think about the direction in which we could go if we are not careful. » Think about it: “If we forget the power of empathy, if we give in to fear, we stop caring about others. But a world without diversity is a bland world without ideas. »
It’s written in the text, like a final bold prophecy to ponder: “I believe that queers are among the last of the righteous. To prohibit difference is to prohibit imagination. » “It seems radical, saying that, and that’s what I like,” the author concludes with a smile. We are not seen as moral people. But today, where are the immoral people? It’s the politicians, not… the drag queens! »
