"Of course, without people like us Marstens, there wouldn't be anybody to do the manual labor that makes this country run. Without penal workers, who would work the production lines, or pick the melons and peaches, or maintain the streets and parks and public lavatories? Our economy depends on prison labor. Without it everybody would have to work -- whether they wanted to or not."It's 2076 in the good ol' USSA (United Safer States of America). Pretty much anything "dangerous" is illegal. And people who show any type of violence end up in prison, doing manual labor. For hitting a fellow student & starting a psychosomatic hysteria outbreak at school, Bo ends up making pizzas at a McDonald's surrounded by hungry polar bears in Canada. Then he's recruited to play highly illegal games of football, while the AI he created becomes sentient & promises to break him out of jail--for a price. ...And it just gets weirder.
For me, Hautman's books either hit or miss. This one straddles the fence. The story didn't feel really believable, and I had trouble caring about Bo, but seeing all the weird rules the author created for his dystopia & following how he deals with Bo's predicaments were interesting.
For more good Hautman titles, try: Invisible, Godless & my favorite of his: Sweetblood. (mkr)
