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Dystopias are speculative fictions with a close connection with the present condition and focus on the transformative potential of human agency. Paul Johnston’s futuristic crime fiction  Body Politic  (1997) presents a dystopian government set in 2020 Edinburgh, where the murder investigation soon transforms itself into the investigation of the whole society. The space of the city opens up to reveal a dysfunctional landscape of dissimulation and becomes the creative space both for the author and the detective character to engage with multifarious aspects. Johnston’s narrative addresses geopolitical issues, bioethical issues related to medicine advancement, society’s institutions and power relations. The private eye turns inward and presents an introspective analysis both of the individual and of society; if the purpose of dystopia and speculative fiction is a defamiliarization of the present in order to critically engage with it, Johnston brings the genre a step further as he establishes an uncanny experience of the present itself which leads to a critical engament of the individual with the deeper aspects of his personality.

Paul Johnston’s Body Politic : A Speculative Fable