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Intelligent and thought-provoking science fiction

«The novel by Cristián Londoño Proaño is an easy-to-read proposal; bearable, enjoyable, with versatile language," commented the Bolivian critic Iván Rodrigo at the public presentation of the novel "Underbreak."

The event took place at the Fondo de Cultura Económica bookstore in the city of Quito. It was an evening with a good number of attendees who enjoyed the exhibitions of the Bolivian critic, the music of the Ecuadorian singer-songwriter Luis Quiroz and the reading of the work.

At the evening, both the writer and the critic talked about science fiction and extrapolation, especially in the theme of the novel. The Ecuadorian writer said that the story was born when he reflected on the power structures of societies, the same ones that acquire greater control over citizens. In his need to warn of certain changes in the future, he surmised that world powers - control societies - would like to control humans in their deepest secrets. He imagined a machine that had the ability to extract everything that made up the human memory and manipulate it to reinsert it into the brain. He called this new control technology: "Underbreak." This is how his novel was born.

In turn, Iván Rodrigo noted that: «Initially it should be said, regarding Londoño Proaño's science fiction, that it is suggestive and intelligent. Suggestive because it describes an atmosphere of permanent control, within a corporate State model – which no longer has anything to do with the present democratic States – where justice is exercised under a regime of corporate sovereignty; Through this, a super police officer, who obeys a global justice system, eliminates undesirables from any condition with the sole accusation of a crime. Within this society, where we apparently live in freedom, submission is already understood and naturalized because each individual has a built-in chip through which the corporate State controls as if it were one more chip within a productive functional program of respect for the human being. order. Even a technocratic religion prevails, which exercises control over consciences and actions. Londoño Proaño paints an extreme cosmo-capitalist society, a large city where comfort, provided by android servants, in addition to various machines and technologies, means that human beings are lost in their own daily tasks. "Such a possible world is reminiscent of cyberpunk trends."

At the end of the candle, the Ecuadorian writer distributed his novel for free to attendees and invited them to write their comments on the digital author's social networks.

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