The world needs more race-based dystopia. JK, that's called the news. In this novel set in the near future, convicted murderers and rapists are given the opportunity to enter a bloody entertainment circuit and shorten their term to three years of weekly death matches.  The novel follows individual "Links", select spectators, and the activists who protest this system. In a particularly adroit twist, the many scenes of prison brutality and torture are much more horrifying than the death matches or the sometimes eruptive tension between prisoners on the chain gang. The use of end-of-chapter notes is also highly effective, mixing narrative elements with real-life statistics about incarceration.  Like <i>The Hunger Games</i> meets <i>The New Jim Crow</i>. The narrative arc between Thurwar and Staxxx does run out of steam a little at the end, in my opinion, but the overall experience of reading this is harrowing in all the right ways. Now let's just hope they don't try to make this into a movie, because that would be all wrong.