One Level Down, by Mary G. Thompson, starts with Ella, a fifty-eight-year-old woman trapped in the body of a child by a man who forces her to act like the daughter he lost to illness long ago. They live in a simulation where there is pain but no illness, and the only death is deletion—which this man, who Ella must call Daddy, has full control over. Ella must fool the unknowing children of this world into thinking she’s a child like them, but all the adults know exactly who and what she is. “Daddy” deleted her stepmother, the only adult who ever stood up for her, and the rest live under the threat of their loved ones being deleted if they try to help. The only hope Ella has is the technician who’s coming to fix a glitch in the simulation in just a few days—and if she can’t get them to help her escape, she won’t see another technician for sixty more years.
I think the best recommendation I can give for One Level Down is that I stayed up until one in the morning to finish it. I was immediately invested in Ella and absorbed by the incredibly thorough world Thompson created with this book. For me, there are always a lot of “what about” and “why would they” questions when it comes to simulation worlds, and here they were all meticulously answered. The pacing made this impossible to put down, and without spoiling things, the plot managed to resolve itself in unexpected ways on multiple levels!
Overall, Thompson delivered in her usual delightfully messed-up way, questioning how a frightened collective can manage to so entirely fail an abused person who only needed them to refuse to comply with one tyrannical man. I enjoyed the heck out of this book and strongly recommend.
Information about One Level Down:
Author: Mary G. Thompson
Publisher: Tachyon
Release date: April 1st, 2025
Print length: 196 pages
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