Got ahold of another quasi-millitary science fiction book/series. Still, I’m more than happy to read this series if the rest of the book in it are this good. First time reading Mr. Anderson, but it probably won’t be the last time. He writes a fantastic story in this book with some pretty good character development.
Now what’s this book about. Well, I can only tell you so much without giving everything away. It starts with a young man who has just recently separated from the US Army. He’s a former Green Beret who is now unemployed having just separated. As a Special Forces Operator he was used to the constant mission activity and being involved and part of something much bigger than himself. Now, as a civilian, he’s not sure what to do. He has a notice that he’s supposed report to the NCWA (The New Civilian Works Administration). He isn’t going to do that!
This is a future Earth. The Government has been creeping more and more into the daily lives of their citizens and those citizens have been blindly allow it to do so. The citizens, by not paying attention to anything but themselves have been voting more and more benefits for themselves at the cost of actually doing doing work for what they are getting. A large portion of the rights of the individual have gone by the way-side and the NCWA is a typical and big example. It’s basically a “slave labor” organization where you get told what to do, when and where to do it all for the good of mankind. Your wages are what they are and don’t even thing about grumbling about anything. That is way Kyle Lassiter isn’t reporting to the NCWA, no way, no how!
More and more governments of Earth are attempting to dominate their citizenship. Those in power have one aim and that is to stay in power. And it’s not just America that becoming more and more like a dictatorship, but other countries are doing the same or more. Flat-out denying human rights is happening every where with the world economy going in the tank. Plans are being made in Washington D.C. by the President of the United States to get a control on the US economy and that means nationalizing every major industry, that’s what he’ll do.
The only place that Kyle feels is not following this trend is Australia. That’s where he intends to head if this job interview he currently has with NanTech he could always sell his services as a mercenary for whomever could afford him. With a BA in History and an MA in International Relations, he didn’t see much for him to do with a company like NanTech. They were into the further development of nanites. Medical nanites to be specific. It was one of the major marvels of this future. Injected with medical nanites and your previous aliments would disappear. Kyle figured they might want him for a human test subject for future nanite development and that wasn’t going to work out.
So, instead of just up and heading for Australia, Kyle goes to his interview. He figures he’d be talking with some low-level recruiter giving his pitch for the company in order to keep his job. But that’s not what happened. After entering the thirty-story tower building, he was met by a young man who knew his name and escorted him directly to an elevator and said they were waiting for him.
Just who “they” were happened to be Paul Stephens and Sir Geoffrey Carlisle. The former was one of the richest people in the world and had taken nanotechnology as far as it could go today. Kyle didn’t know who the other guys was, but he turned out to be someone that Kyle would get to know very well during this book.
Now is when the story really starts. I won’t go into details because that would spoil everything, but I’ll tell you that Kyle does accept the job offer and away he goes. Oh, he does find out that the US Government had issued a warrant for his arrest for not reporting to the NCWA! That’s how screwed things were going in the good old US of A. Kyle Lassiter just might not have to deal with any of it, for now anyway.
I really like the way the story was written. Oh, there are a few places where we’re missing a word or two and sometimes it’s easy to lose track of who’s doing what, but you’ll figure it out soon. It’s not hard to understand, but the story is unexpected. I’m already pouring through book 2, “Come and Take It” and I see that books 3 and 4 are already on Amazon, so we have a lot of reading to do.