The Bell Ringers (edition 2010)

by Henry Porter (Author)

Members	Reviews	Popularity	Average rating	Mentions
201	13	136,572	(3.76)	8
The death of a former British head of intelligence triggers an all-out resistance movement led by the Bell Ringers against an out-of-control, security-obsessed state.

▾Book information

Member:	pollycallahan
Title:	The Bell Ringers
Authors:	Henry Porter (Author)
Info:	Atlantic Monthly Press (2010), Edition: First American Edition, 288 pages
Collections:	Still to Finish, Government, Teen Books, Your library, Wishlist, Currently reading, To read, Read but unowned, Favorites
Rating:
Tags:	fiction

Work Information

The Dying Light by Henry Porter

all members

▾Members

Recently added by

hickoryonpenanghill, Bandmember, rudycos

▾Tags

▾LibraryThing Recommendations

▾Lists

None

▾Will you like it?

▾Conversations (About links)

No current Talk conversations about this book.

» See also 8 mentions

▾Member reviews

date ▼ | votes

Showing 1-5 of 13 (next | show all)

outstanding

what happens when the British Prime Minister uses data from surveillance of citizens (Britain is the most heavily surveilled democracy) to maintain his political power (

)

pollycallahan | Jul 1, 2023 |

Not my usual fare, but I enjoyed this book because it is a modernized version of George Orwell's 1984. In The Dying Light, the UK government has partnered with big business to collect and use data on citizens through drones, CCTVs, and mandatory ID cards that include your cell phone number. It's scary because it is so plausible that such action is possible even today.

The plot was good....complex but never confusing and the book was a real page turner for me. (

)

LynnB | Sep 23, 2021 |

I just read a review of this book that makes it sound like a 21st Century update to 1984, with more account of how the road to tyranny is paved with good intentions, and perhaps some redeeming cracks in the dystopia.

http://www.economist.com/books/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14164441

eldang | Sep 18, 2019 |

eldang | Aug 11, 2019 |

A great summer read. It starts a bit slow, but soon it grows into a page-turner. The story about the government spying on its people has been told numerous times, but Porter takes it to the next level. Here the government not only spies on its citizens, but also uses the results of its spying to supply the various government departments with actionable requests. So if your tax return was too low, but you had a couple of vacation trips, you may be served with a new tax bill, or imprisonment, by the department of revenue. Given that all machine learning algorithms get it right, when they do, on average, that means that there are a lot of innocent people that go to jail in this world...kind of scary since we are almost there. (

)

Alex1952 | Aug 28, 2016 |

date ▼ | votes

Showing 1-5 of 13 (next | show all)

▾Published reviews

no reviews | add a review

▾Other authors

» Add other authors

▾Series and work relationships

▾Awards and Honors

Awards

Crime Writers' Association Awards (Shortlist – Ian Fleming Steel Dagger – 2010)

view history

▾Common Knowledge

You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.

For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.

Canonical title

Original title

Alternative titles

Original publication date

People/Characters

Important places

Important events

Related movies

Epigraph

Dedication

First words

First was the fall, then came the death, and the death erased all memory of the fall, which was in any case handled in a very British way.

Quotations

Last words

(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)

Disambiguation notice

Originally published in Great Britain in 2009 as The Dying Light.
Published in the USA in 2010 as The Bell Ringers.

Publisher's editors

Blurbers

Ford, Richard

Lawton, John

Original language

Canonical DDC/MDS

Canonical LCC

▾References

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English

None

▾Book descriptions

The death of a former British head of intelligence triggers an all-out resistance movement led by the Bell Ringers against an out-of-control, security-obsessed state.

▾Library descriptions

No library descriptions found.

▾LibraryThing members' description

Book description

At his funeral the bells of the church were rung open rather than half-muffled, as is usual for the dead. Kate Lockhart has come with corporate leaders, ministers and intelligence chiefs to a beautiful town in the Welsh Marches to mourn her soul mate, David Eyam, the brightest government servant of his generation. All that remains of Eyam are the burnt fragments of a man killed far from home in a devastating explosion. But Eyam has left a devastating legacy and certain members of the congregation on that bitterly cold March day are desperate to suppress it. A group of locals come to feel the full weight of the state's determination. Kate Lockhart, now a Mergers and Acquisitions lawyer from Manhattan but a former SIS officer in Indonesia is equal to Eyam's legacy . She becomes the focus of the state's paranoiac power and leads the local resistance to it, with all the cunning of her former trade, directed from beyond the grave by Eyam. The state is no match for the genius of the dead.

Haiku summary