T.L. Shane’s debut Spark in the Underground City is an ambitious dystopian thriller that tackles gender politics with unflinching boldness. Set four centuries after “The Last War,” the novel presents a totalitarian underground society where women hold all political power, men are relegated to dangerous lower levels, and laboratory breeding has replaced traditional families. In some ways, it’s like a mirror inversion of The Handmaid’s Tale.
The story follows Spark, an “Outsider” from the Orchard Colony who infiltrates the Underground City disguised as a boy to search for her missing brother. In this matriarchal dystopia, she encounters Drill, an aging rebel and skilled fixer who leads a group of outcast men, and Alaska, his modified android protector who’s been freed from standard “do no harm” programming. As Spark penetrates deeper into the city’s administrative heart, she uncovers the dark secrets behind the immortal dictator Citizen One and the brutal mechanisms that sustain this oppressive society.
The first-person narration is an excellent choice. By alternating between Spark’s and Drill’s perspectives, Shane creates an intimate, immediate reading experience that pulls you directly into their heads. You feel Spark’s fear, and Drill’s weariness and moral conflict. The prose itself is well-written, clear, evocative, and paced for maximum emotional impact. While some might find it feels YA-coded in places (the coming-of-age elements, the straightforward narrative voice, the focus on identity and belonging), it has some content possibly too mature for those audiences such as sexbots.
The matriarchal society concept is genuinely unique. While dystopian fiction has explored various forms of oppression, a fully realized matriarchal totalitarian state where men are systematically marginalized is rare territory. This reminded me a bit of the 2018 French film I Am Not an Easy Man (Je ne suis pas un homme facile), which takes a similar premise but as comedy. In that film, a chauvinist named Damien hits his head and wakes up in an alternate Paris where gender roles are reversed. Spark in the Underground City takes a similar concept but pushes it into full dystopian horror.
Shane’s worldbuilding is thorough and immersive. The stratified levels of the Underground City create a visceral sense of inequality, the clean, orderly upper levels governed by professional women contrast sharply with the abandoned, dangerous zones where men scrape by as laborers and scavengers. The reproductive control system, where men’s DNA is harvested through public “Cop-U-Stations,” leads to some both pretty dark and funny scenes. Likewise, the inversion of traditional gender hierarchies is handled with more nuance than expected.
I found myself increasingly invested in this world despite rocky start getting into it. The author’s willingness to tackle uncomfortable questions about gender head-on is refreshing. The Handmaid’s Tale connection is impossible to ignore. Where Atwood’s Gilead reduced women to reproductive vessels under male theocratic control, Shane’s Underground City reduces men to DNA donors while women wield absolute political power. Still, some may find the “Cop-U-Station” scenes (public machines where men deposit genetic material) are a bit uncomfortable to read.
Sometimes I felt the writing could have done with a bit more description. That said, there are moments of craft amid the functional prose, where the authors captures both the absurd homor and horror of this world with dark wit, “Alley entryways smell strongly of piss with undertones of vomit… I wondered if I was also smelling decomposing bodies in the pungent olfactory mix.” One practical complaint: the PDF formatting makes the font uncomfortably small, but that might just be my version.
Overall, I found this to be a highly entertaining, original debut from an author with a distinctive voice and clear commitment to exploring uncomfortable territory. Shane’s bold premise and willingness to examine power, oppression, and resistance from unconventional angles make this worth reading. I’m curious to see how she develops as a writer (especially if there’s a sequel).
Final verdict: For fans of adult dystopian fiction, readers interested in gender politics and AI ethics, Spark in the Underground City offers a thought-provoking, gripping read. The perfect winter read for anyone who enjoys writers such as Margaret Atwood, Octavia E. Butler, and Hugh Howey.
You can get your copy of Spark in the Underground City here!
