The High-Rise Diver

Riva is a "high-rise diver," a top athlete with millions of fans, and a perfectly functioning human on all levels. Suddenly she rebels, breaking her contract and refusing to train. Cameras are everywhere in her world, but she doesn't know her every move is being watched by Hitomi, the psychologist tasked with reining Riva back in. Unquestionably loyal to the system, Hitomi's own life is at stake: should she fail to deliver, she will be banned to the "peripheries," the filthy outskirts of society. For readers of The Handmaid's Tale, The Circle, and Brave New World, this chilling dystopia constructs a world uncomfortably close to our own, in which performance is everything.

"What makes Julia von Lucadou's novel so impressive is the accuracy with which she describes this high-gloss, modern, but by no means completely fictional world. Every detail is so precise that, lurking beneath the flawlessness of the text, the central theme of perfidious self-optimization seems to always be present." -Süddeutsche Zeitung

"Julia von Lucadou's science fiction is close. Against the backdrop of the gleaming images used to portray this Orwellian-style city-state, the tragic moments of direct human encounters take on a dimension of clever criticism." -Spiegel Online