The Truth Machine

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The Truth Machine (1996) is a science fiction novel by James L. Halperin about a genius who invents an infallible lie detector. Soon, every citizen must pass a thorough test under a Truth Machine to get a job or receive any sort of licence. Eventually, people begin wearing them all the time, thus eliminating dishonesty in all parts of human interaction, and eliminating crime, terrorism and a great deal of general social problems.

Halperin makes this sound like a utopia— no innocent person will ever be executed again, just for starters. His characters are very difficult not to empathize with, and he does a fairly plausible job of describing each year's headlines from the present to 2051.

However, the question may arise whether a world government that demands total honesty from its citizens would not bear more similarities to George Orwell's dystopia depicted in 1984. Halperin claims that privacy is going to die eventually, anyway, so we might as well embrace it wholeheartedly. Some claim that this disregard, along with his naive optimism, hamstrings the effectiveness of his novel.

A sequel, The First Immortal, was released in 1998.

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