The Barcode Tattoo

-Suzanne Weyn

Another cyberpunk dystopian novel! Now that I think about it I went through a stage when I was younger where the majority of my reading list was comprised of such books. You learn something new everyday.

You hear of some Westerfans drawing flash tats (sorry if you don’t know the lingo) on themselves when they’re bored. Some fans of this book have been known to draw barcodes on their arms. Believe it or not I’ve run into a few of these people. It’s like a nerd code. My conversations sometimes go like this:

“Oh I see from your flash tat that you, sir, are an Uglies fan… Wait, you believe Extras was actually a good addition to the series? Totally bogus! A trilogy has three books, foolish rusty! Hoverboard away!“

Or something like that.

Again with a futuristic society controlled by a single corporation. I’d be lying if I said the concept wasn’t interesting, I mean, who doesn’t love a good conspiracy? What I really liked was the way the media was utilized in this book. It illustrates a successful brainwashing of the populace via the teen generation. For most of these types books, the new world order (or whatever) has already been established. In a lot of them the new society is being destroyed by awesome rebel teen anarchists (Uglies). In The Barcode Tattoo, the new world is forming. The transformation takes place as the plot goes on and the characters don’t really notice. That I liked.

If you ever want to engage in a geeky dystopian novel discussion with someone under the age of 18, (awfully specific, I know) you may want to read this for references sake.

abi