By Default - Paperback

By Default is a quiet dystopian novel about systems that reward composure, punish disruption, and call harm "balance."

Navi Vale is trusted, licensed, and precise-an ideal functionary in a world where decisions are softened by procedure and responsibility is distributed until no one feels accountable. Her work is to confirm outcomes, maintain order, and ensure that what has already been decided remains intact.

But when subtle inconsistencies begin to surface-names that do not behave, records that resist alignment, bodily sensations that arrive before language-Navi finds herself repositioned rather than confronted. Reassigned rather than accused. Watched, not warned.

As the system tightens around her, Navi must confront a truth it never intended her to hold: neutrality is not absence, and compliance is not safety.

Minimalist, unsettling, and emotionally precise, By Default explores how power hides behind politeness, how identity survives erasure, and what it costs to remain "reasonable" in an unreasonable world.

Perfect for readers drawn to cerebral dystopian fiction in the vein of Severance, Never Let Me Go, and The Memory Police.