11 exciting new SFF releases that will blow you away in March
By Lacy Baugher
Docile – K.M. Sparza
This queer dystopian sci-fi novel is like nothing else you’ll read this month. Fair warning, however, Docile is not a story for the faint of heart: It deals with disturbing themes and uncomfortable sexual situations, as well as the dark side of capitalism.
Docile is set in a version of our world where the wealth gap has grown so substantial there are really only two kinds of people: Trillionaires and those who owe money to others. These debtors inherit their family’s debts, meaning that what they owe simply compounds and grows over time. As a result, many people sign up to become sexual slaves for a certain amount of time, and use a pharmaceutical called Dociline to help them remain blissfully unaware for the length of their contract.
But when 21-year-old Elisha Wilder’s contract is purchased by Alex Bishop, the CEO of the company that manufactures Dociline, he refuses to take the drug, and as a result, undergoes a disturbing and uncomfortable “training” session that ultimately changes both men.
This story is complex and hard to explain, so here’s how the official synopsis describes it.
"To be a Docile is to be kept, body and soul, for the uses of the owner of your contract. To be a Docile is to forget, to disappear, to hide inside your body from the horrors of your service. To be a Docile is to sell yourself to pay your parents’ debts and buy your children’s future. Elisha Wilder’s family has been ruined by debt, handed down to them from previous generations. His mother never recovered from the Dociline she took during her term as a Docile, so when Elisha decides to try and erase the family’s debt himself, he swears he will never take the drug that took his mother from him. Too bad his contract has been purchased by Alexander Bishop III, whose ultra-rich family is the brains (and money) behind Dociline and the entire Office of Debt Resolution. When Elisha refuses Dociline, Alex refuses to believe that his family’s crowning achievement could have any negative side effects—and is determined to turn Elisha into the perfect Docile without it."
Docile is available on March 3.