The High-Rise Diver

Press Quotes

“A searing work of speculative fiction.”
Kirkus Reviews

“With shades of Brave New World and 1984 alongside current concerns about social status and job security being determined by continuous electronic assessment, The High-Rise Diver portrays a chillingly credible world with no place for individuality, with a poignant depiction by von Lucadou of the compassion and humanity that nevertheless refuses to be extinguished.”
Herald Scotland

“As much as The High-Rise Diver presents a cautionary tale of a society in thrall to corporate and surveillance capitalism, it’s also a distressing portrait of a woman, bereft of familial and physical affection, searching for meaning in a cold, antiseptic world.”
Locus Mag

“Piercing prose propels the story forward…in Julia von Lucadou’s cerebral dystopian novel.”
Foreword Reviews

“Read it while it’s still fiction!”
Powell’s Books

“The High-Rise Diver is the perfect book for lovers of Brave New World, 1984, and The Handmaid’s Tale. This book rises to the ranks of amazing pieces of dystopian literature, stories you will never forget and refer back to for the rest of your life. You will think back one day and say to yourself, ‘Remember when that author wrote about this? It was a prediction of things to come.’”
Perfectionist Wannabe

“Not a cranky luddite manifesto, The High-Rise Diver is a clear and clamoring warning bell, a classic Zen koan kick in the head. Beautiful and strange and scary, the book is a call to stick our heads above the water and breathe fresh air.”
Rain Taxi

“Deftly crafted by novelist Julia von Lucadou and expertly translated into English for an American readership by Sharmila Cohen, The High-Rise Diver is an inherently riveting read.”
Midwest Book Review

“The High-Rise Diver is chillingly beautiful dissection of perfected capitalism. Lucadou creates a horribly convincing world where every aspect of existence has been monetised. In a taut, delicate narrative an implacable and disinterested cruelty faces the human ache for tenderness, mercy, contact and affection.”
A.L. Kennedy

“Straightforward and cool, the author’s short, unadorned sentences reveal how the promise of salvation through greater efficiency, growth, and individual luck actually represses, stifles, and destroys the very essence of life: spontaneity, pain, dirt, emotion, poetry.”
MARTIN HALTER, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

“A glistening novel about the blockade of welfare that is closing in on the entire world.”
CLEMENS SETZ, author of Indigo

“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.”
KATHLEEN HILDEBRAND, 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.”
STEPHAN LOHR, Spiegel Online

“The author’s precision in depicting the process of decay, later marked by delusional episodes, is the explosive force behind this text. It meticulously states the consequences of a society governed by totalitarian control and optimization. Welcome to neo-liberalism 4.0!”
BJÖRN HAYER, Berliner Zeitung

“In literary and discursive terms, the most exciting debut of the autumn season.”
CARSTEN SCHRADER, Kulturnews

“With clear analysis and precision, Julia von Lucadou describes the merciless surveillance of the world of big data.”
UTE BÜSING, Inforadio

“The High-Rise Diver is a highly intelligent, prescient, and entertaining novel about our brave new world of voluntary surveillance. An outstanding debut!”
BARBARA GESCHWINDE, WDR