WHEN LANGUAGE IS A CRIME, ONLY THE TRUTH CAN SET YOU FREE.

Harper Adams was six years old in 2012 when an act of viral terrorism wiped out one half of the country's population. Out of the ashes rose a new government, dedicated to maintaining order at any cost. The populace is controlled via government-sanctioned sex and drugs, a brutal police force known as the Blue Coats, and the slate, a mandatory implant that monitors every word a person speaks. To utter a forbidden, Red Listed word is to risk physical punishment or even death.

But there are those who resist. Guided by the fabled...