In a future world divided into hemispheres, a young invisible woman sets out to find her missing brother, the prime suspect in a high-profile political murder, while navigating a society rife with discrimination and corruption. The novel explores themes of power, discrimination, and resistance in a thought-provoking dystopian setting.

Reader Review Summary

"This Great Hemisphere" is a wildly imaginative and thought-provoking speculative fiction novel from Mateo Askaripour. Set in the year 2529, hundreds of years into the future, it takes place in the Northwestern Hemisphere of an Earth that has undergone major upheaval and restructuring. Society is now starkly divided between the privileged "Dominant Population" and the oppressed "Invisibles" - a marginalized segment of the populace who are quite literally invisible to the naked eye.

The world-building is a tremendous strength of this novel. Askaripour has conceived a rich, vividly realized future society with its own complex rules, structures, languages, and technologies. His rendering of the invisible people and the ingenious ways their invisibility manifests is both wildly creative and disturbingly believable. The use of invisibility as a metaphor for how certain groups are rendered invisible and oppressed in our current society is incredibly powerful.

The novel is anchored by the compelling protagonist Sweetmint, an intelligent and diligent young Invisible woman who has worked hard to secure an elite apprenticeship usually reserved for the Dominant Population. Sweetmint's arc of radicalization as she uncovers harsh truths about the deep injustices and corruption at the core of the Northwestern Hemisphere makes for a gripping emotional journey. Her efforts to find her missing older brother Sweetsmoke, accused of murdering a powerful political figure, drives much of the nail-biting tension.

Askaripour blends suspenseful mystery and political thriller elements into the speculative premise. The novel is incredibly propulsive, with tension ratcheting ever higher amidst a backdrop of an unfolding political crisis and looming election. The world and characters he has created are multi-layered, with even supporting players given shades of moral complexity. Readers will be quickly immersed in this futuristic society that simultaneously feels chillingly plausible.

What's most impressive is how "This Great Hemisphere" uses its imaginative sci-fi lens as a means of holding up a mirror to our own harsh realities regarding systemic racism, marginalization, and inequity. Askaripour's imagined future feels less like a total departure and more like an inevitability if humanity does not course correct. His themes pack a powerful punch while also delivering an absorbing, entertaining story full of twists and turns.

Askaripour's lyrical prose has an almost fable-like quality, giving scenes a visceral, cinematic quality that renders his creative vision with striking lucidity. "This Great Hemisphere" is a tour-de-force of speculative worldbuilding combined with searing social commentary. It's a monumental novel that will spark conversation while also immersing readers in a propulsive, mind-bending narrative. This continually surprises and challenges perceptions about power, identity, and the universal quest for justice and human dignity. Highly recommended for fans of thoughtful, visionary fiction in the vein of N.K. Jemisin and Octavia Butler.