Not Heroes, Not Villains: The Shared Pulse of Vicious and High Tech Low Life

V.E. Schwab’s Vicious thrives on questions of power, morality, and the blurred lines between villain and hero. It asks: what happens when survival turns into obsession, when brilliance curdles into monstrosity, and when the people you trust most are the ones most likely to destroy you?

High Tech Low Life carries that same ruthless pulse. Both books live in the space between morality and monstrosity, fueled by broken bodies, sharp intellect, and characters who refuse to fit into neat boxes of good or evil.

Power Born of Suffering

In Vicious, extraordinary powers are born through near-death experiences. In High Tech Low Life, they’re forced into existence through experiments that leave scars deeper than flesh. Devlin doesn’t gain power—he’s broken into it.

Devlin’s form flickered—like a corrupted video file skipping frames. One second, he was standing in front of Ethan, and the next, he fragmented, pixels scattering before vanishing entirely. 

Like Victor and Eli, Devlin is proof that the path to power is paved with trauma—and no one walks it without bleeding.

Morality in Shades of Gray

Neither Vicious nor High Tech Low Life deals in clean-cut heroes. Devlin himself admits as much:

“I’m a murderer, you ape. I tortured countless people. Including you.” 

Yet Garrett pushes back with brutal honesty:

“You’re just as much the victim as any of the beings you were forced to harm, Dev. And you don’t get to take the easy way out by being a dick to everyone just so they’ll hurt you or kill you or leave you to rot in your misery.”

This tension—between guilt and survival, self-destruction and redemption—is exactly what gives Vicious its bite.

The Bonds That Break and Bind

Vicious is as much about relationships as it is about powers: Victor and Eli, friends turned enemies, locked in a cycle of destruction. In High Tech Low Life, Devlin and Garrett orbit the same volatile gravity—equal parts conflict and connection.

“Dead fucking serious,” Devlin responded, his voice sharper than it had been in days. “You want me to weep on your shoulder? Want to get close again so you can have a tender moment with Sam’s living remains?”

Garrett’s breath seized. “You’re such a fucking asshole, do you know that?!” 

That razor-sharp intimacy—the push and pull between love and hatred—makes both stories crackle.

Science Turned Monstrous

In both books, the pursuit of knowledge is never neutral—it’s weaponized. Just as Eli and Victor turn their research into a factory of monsters, HATE turns science into chains:

“Fascinating, isn’t it? … Tip it just enough, and suddenly you’re no more special than any other organism in the universe.”

Power isn’t a gift—it’s a corruption. And survival means living with the consequences.

Defiance Against the Narrative

Victor refuses to play the hero, and Eli twists himself into one. Devlin rejects both roles:

“Knock it off!” Devlin protested…“No!” Garrett exclaimed harshly. “If you’re not going to accept help willingly, I’m more than happy to do it by force!” 

He doesn’t fit the role of savior or villain—he glitches, literally and figuratively, out of every box the world tries to put him in.

✨ If V.E. Schwab’s Vicious is a meditation on power and the monsters it makes of us, then High Tech Low Life is the same story told through static and neon—broken bodies, scarred identities, and the refusal to be defined by anyone else’s morality.

—Kaitlyn & Michael 💜

🦾 High Tech Low Life

📅 Coming Jan 2026

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