HellSans by Ever Dundas
Published by Angry Robot
Age Group: Adult
Format: Fiction
Genres and Categories: Disabled and Neurodivergent Authors, LGBTQIA+ Authors, Scottish Authors, Lesbian Characters, OwnVoices Representation, Diverse Representation, Scientist Characters, Cyborgs, Chronic Illness, Medical Scenes, Dystopian Sci Fi, Futuristic Setting, Eugenics
My Rating:
Published on: 8th November 2022
Pages: 400
Disability Representation: Allergies, Chronic illness, Fictional Condition, Myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS), Social Model of Disability
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HellSans is set in a fictional UK, where HellSans is a ubiquitous typeface, enforced by the government in all communications and in all public spaces. It is the ultimate control device. The majority of the population experience bliss when they see the typeface, but there’s a minority who are allergic to it. The HellSans Allergic (HSAs) are persecuted, and live on the streets or in a ghetto on the outskirts of the capital city.

Jane Ward, CEO of the company that manufactures the Inex (a cyborg doll-like creature that has replaced the smart phone as the essential aid and accessory) has everything: fame and fortune, until she falls ill with the allergy and becomes embroiled in the government’s internal power struggles. She loses her job and her wealth, ending up in the ghetto until she is rescued by Dr Icho Smith. 
Icho is a scientist who has developed a cure for the allergy, but she is on the run from the government and the Seraphs (the ghetto ‘terrorist’ group), who all have their own agenda for the cure. Jane and Icho work together, aiming to expose government corruption and bring the cure to the HSAs.

HellSans is written in three parts. Parts one and two can be read in either order which provides a unique approach to the perspectives of the haves and have-nots in the run-up to the revolutionary conclusion.

This book was provided for free by NetGalley, Rockstar Book Tours and the publishers in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book!

Content Warnings:

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I’m late to the HellSans by Ever Dundas party, and I’m glad I am, as it means my review is perfectly timed for GeekDis. While I’ve read books that have made me feel seen, I’ve never read one quite like HellSans. Continue reading to find out what makes this book so unique and significant!.

HellSans by Ever Dundas is unlike any book about disability I’ve ever read, and make no mistake, this is a book about disability. Dundas dedicates HellSans to “all queer crips and people with M.E. who have endured decades of cruelty and neglect with love and rage”, which made me feel so seen before I had even started the actual book. HellSans offers the reader the choice of starting either narrative first. One narrative is from the perspective of Dr Ichoriel ‘Icho’ Smith, a doctor working on a cure for the allergy to HellSans and the other is from Jane Ward, the CEO of The Company. Jane is the creator of several cyborg robots that have become a staple in society. Everyone now uses an Inex, a cyborg that connects to them and monitors them emotionally and physically, tracking and maintaining every single part of their life. They also use one called an Ino, which takes care of all chores and housekeeping duties, including making food. Both can administer some first aid and some basic medical care.

The other way the HellSans universe differs from ours is that a form of typography has been utilised by the Government as a drug. It’s referred to by its narrators as ‘HellSans’, for reasons that become obvious throughout the book. This drug creates a sensation that is known as “bliss” in most of the population – but not all. Some people have a natural resistance to it and are “unblissed”; they get no high from the font. Others have an allergic reaction to it, and they are immediately outcast from society, forced to live in slums outside the city.

At first, it seemed strange to think of a font as being able to give people a high, and then I realised how clever such an idea would be. Fonts are everywhere. I’m using one right now as I write this review, just as you’re reading one. By creating a font that is a drug, a group of people can mass control everyone, and that is exactly what has happened in HellSans. The HSAs, the HellSans allergic, are unblissed. They see the world the way it really is, the control and oppression, and that terrifies those in control. They react with the only tool they know: more oppression, and create the narrative that HSAs are deviants.

I read the narratives in the order that they are presented because I can’t read things out of order, and I find it difficult to switch back and forth. Icho and Jane’s narratives are very different from each other. Icho is trying to help HSAs, although her motives for doing so do not become clear until later in the book. As a result of her work directly with HSAs, she is more aware of how they are treated, the abuse that they suffer in the city and in the slums. In comparison, Jane is one of society’s elite who looks down on HSAs with complete disgust, as is expected of her as one of the “blissed”. When a traumatic event triggers HSA in her, Jane is in complete denial. Denial that she has HSA and that she, the CEO of the most powerful company, is being stripped of her power and position. She is Jane Ward, and this shouldn’t be happening to her!

On the run with a working cure, Icho recognises the symptoms of HSA in Jane and realises that Jane is her best chance of surviving. Jane has the resources, and she needs Icho. Each of their narratives tells their stories up to the point where they find each other, and after that, it becomes a combined narrative. The way Dundas has experimented with narrative in HellSans is brilliantly innovative and is something to explore all on its own. My focus, however, is on how she has captured the way that society and especially the medical profession has treated people with ME/CFS for decades. People with other chronic health conditions will be able to draw comparisons with this, too. I mention ME/CFS especially because of the dedication at the start of the book.

Jane’s denial in particular was familiar, especially in a post-COVID world, because there are so many people who were “healthy” that fell in with Long Covid and ME/CFS who previously would have looked down on disabled people for being “unhealthy”. We were ill due to our own actions. It was all because we didn’t look after ourselves, or we were overweight. There are many reasons we’ve all heard. Then COVID came along and didn’t discriminate. Likewise, HSA in HellSans can affect anyone at any time in their life if the circumstances are right. ME/CFS is the same; if the body undergoes enough physical trauma, it can trigger ME/CFS. I know because that is exactly what happened to me.

Dundas doesn’t skim on detail when it comes to how messy having a chronic illness is, and looking at reviews, I can see how much that went way over non-disabled readers’ heads. There is a lot of “body horror” in HellSans because guess what? Being disabled, especially being chronically ill, involves a lot of bodily fluids and not the fun ones. There is no difference between showing revulsion for fictional ill characters and real disabled people. You’re still showing revulsion about the same thing happening. Even by referring to symptoms as “body horror”, there is a suggestion that what we go through is something from a horror story, that in some way it’s not real, or that being disabled is so bad that it is “horrific”. Dundas could have written a neat story where Jane’s symptoms are perfectly timed and aren’t as severe. But HellSans isn’t that type of story.

I also appreciated that Dundas showed the ugly side of her characters. Being disabled is rough, and Jane and Icho were in a very difficult situation. Suddenly becoming ill doesn’t suddenly make someone a saint. Jane was a nasty person before she developed HSA, and she’s still a bitch afterwards. Likewise, being a medical professional or scientist doesn’t mean you’re a good person. Both characters are very complicated, and that is as it should be. If you’re heading into this book expecting to find likeable characters just because it’s about disability, then this isn’t the book for you, and you need to check your ableism.

HellSans is a dark book that feels like Dundas was watching over my shoulder while I struggled every step of the way to get a diagnosis for ME/CFS, and has listened to every scream of frustration I’ve ever made as a chronically ill person. HellSans is unlike anything I have ever read. When I say this is a must-read for disabled readers, I mean it. I was going to say it is a must-read for everyone, but having seen reviews from non-disabled readers, I honestly don’t feel that many can understand what HellSans is saying. This is very much a love letter to the disabled community and written in our language for us. If non-disabled readers gain some understanding of our everyday fight, then that’s great, but if they don’t, then that is their loss.

About Ever Dundas

Ever Dundas writes literary fiction, fantasy, horror, and sci-fi. Her first novel, Goblin won the Saltire First Book Award 2017. Her second novel, sci-fi thriller HellSans, is out now.

Website | Goodreads | Instagram | Blue Sky

Thanks for reading my book review for HellSans by Ever Dundas! This review was part of the GeekDis event, which you can follow on social media using the #GeekDis. You can also view all this year’s content at the GeekDis 2023 content hub!

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