- Title:
- The Unincorporated Man (Unincorporated Man, #1)
- By:
- Dani Kollin
- Pages:
- 479
- Rating:
- 4
The Unincorporated Man is a provocative social/political/economic novel that takes place in the future, after civilization has fallen into complete economic collapse. This reborn civilization is one in which every individual is incorporated at birth, and spends many years trying to attain control over his or her own life by getting a majority of his or her own shares. Life extension has made life very long indeed.
Now the incredible has happened: a billionaire businessman from our time, frozen in secret in the early twenty-first century, is discovered and resurrected, given health and a vigorous younger body. Justin Cord is the only unincorporated man in the world, a true stranger in this strange land. Justin survived because he is tough and smart. He cannot accept only part ownership of himself, even if that places him in conflict with a civilization that extends outside the solar system to the Oort Cloud. People will be arguing about this novel and this world for decades.
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“The Swiss disappeared,” he sighed, “but Star Trek lives on. Go figure.”
This was a crackingly enjoyable story, with a pretty cool idea behind it. The whole concept of Incorporation is a little tricky to get your head around, but the social degradation due to the VR onslaught totally provides an ironclad reason for a tectonic shift in society. There are even some compelling arguments put forth for the whole system to actually work.
But, of course, there’s a spanner in the works of this postmodern, seemingly successful civilization, and that’s a cryogenically frozen hot shot from the twenty-first century, discovered buried in an abandoned mine, revived into a world very different from his.
This clicks together very nicely. The technology is cleverly thought out, emphasis is placed, not just on the tech, but the Humanity and psychology gets as much of a look in. There’s a load of politics and power, and also some very real thoughts about where government’s going and the consequences of encroaching on freedom.
I did feel that the end sort of walks up and bashes you over the head rather suddenly, but that is only a very slight minus in a story so otherwise full of good things.