Toby Simmons has a silly—and self-induced—accident in 2008. He wakes up in 2088.
The skies are clean, but the rich-poor social gulf has widened. The biggest industries are entertainment and the prison system. Taxes have been cut — because the main source of government revenue is the confiscation of property. Many new, designer recreational drugs are legal, and many other drugs are mandatory. And while the US leads the world in cosmetic surgery, in most technologies America lags far behind.
America has changed. Toby hasn’t. And in the collision between America 2008 and America 2088, Toby brings the system to its knees—just by being his freedom loving, problem solving self. The turning point for Toby is when he is waxing poetic to his 2088 lover, Nightingale (“Night”) Enderhew (also a grad student studying the late 20th and early 21st century), about the problems in his old 2008 world and she asks him, “Did you do anything about it?” From that point, he is compelled to take action, aided by Night and the mysterious Boots DeVore.
Warning of the worst of government overreach, Isaak deftly immerses stranger Toby in a truly strange land. Extrapolating from laws of the 1990s when the DEA could confiscate a drug lord’s assets, and when everyone demanded that their taxes be lowered, by 2088 the government’s sole source of revenue is the confiscation of property. Jam-packed prisons are privatized, and government agencies arrest citizens with highly desirable skills on trumped-up charges, forced to work off their sentences performing slave labor in prisons that supply the government with goods. High on the government’s list of criminals is hacker Boots DeVore, who exposes the truth to the oblivious citizenry addicted to mandatory drugs. To help work off his obscene debt, Toby, with his hacker skills, is recruited to hunt down Boots. But whose side is Toby on?
With a diverse cast and polished prose, Isaak captures the startling extent to which government can debase humanity for its own economic benefit. It’s a world of segregated communities, children of prisoners losing their civil rights, government fines if you get fat, and an elite class exempt from all crime. Readers will be enthralled by the meticulous descriptions, relatable protagonist, and wide-eyed revelations of the slippery slope we’ll be headed for if we’re not vigilant.
Takeaway: A 20th-century hacker confronts a dystopian future with skepticism and hope.
Comparable Titles: Cory Doctorow; Agustina Bazterrica’s Tender Is the Flesh
Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A
In Isaak’s posthumous SF novel, an accident victim, awakened from decades of suspended animation, confronts a United States that has become a corporate-run police state.
Isaak contributes to a well-known SF subgenre known as the “sleeper wakes” plot. The hero is 33-year-old California IT professional Toby Simmons. The author of numerous computer-program and technology patents, Toby has a promising career ahead of him. But he accidentally falls from a balcony while distracted by an enticingly naked neighbor, and his severe cranial and spinal injuries lead Simmons’ parents to cryonically preserve him. Miraculously, 80 years later, Toby is one of very few “cryonauts” with the lucky metabolic circumstances to be successfully revived and healed. But 2088 U.S. is unrecognizable in some ways and all too familiar in others. Wonders include hologram movies whose narratives change in response to audience stimuli and cosmetic surgery that makes almost everyone attractive (and the sex outstanding). But media is still celebrity-obsessed trash, and a minority of the superrich controls America’s stagnant economy, which, under feckless politicians, has made no progress in space exploration or much else worthwhile. Even Toby’s software skills and hacking tricks have not fallen far behind. Toby quickly surmises the cause of the country’s decline: Early-2000s pathologies, like overzealous law enforcement and privatization of government, have metastasized and made the once-free country into a China-like capitalist/fascist dictatorship, brimming with public controls and constant surveillance. Many American citizens face arrests, punitive fines, and confiscation of all property for sham offenses like “sedition,” “hate speech,” or “child pornography” (or simply being fat) and wind up in forced labor camps. As in Brave New World (1932), drugs are virtually mandated to keep society pacified and obedient. Toby, owing millions in medical bills to the state, is no criminal—yet. But he must figure out how to navigate this tomorrow while he still has novelty value and marketability as an unfrozen human commodity. Otherwise, he’ll become enslaved or need to escape the fortified borders to the outside world (a world which, understandably, regards the United States with loathing).
As in many sleeper-wakes yarns, there are op-ed lessons to be imparted via the glimpse into the future. For those who like to keep score of such things, the author lays blame on George W. Bush–era Republicans for setting in motion this dismal treadmill to dystopia, though much of the finger-pointing is toward government overreach and human failings (corporate fascism, police power, privacy invasion, ignorance, and greed) rather than individuals. And, when we meet the rebel-underground resistance, they come off more like dogma-yelling twits than sensible heroes. A trim page count, semisatirical wit (the Marx Brothers get an acknowledgment), and, yes, some really hot sex helps hold interest throughout.
Readers should be well invested by the ending, which is more ambiguous than conclusive. Alas, sequels are not to be. A loving introduction is by Pamela Blake, the author’s widow (and high school sweetheart), who shepherded this narrative into print, along with several other novels in different genres, after Isaak’s death from cancer.
A cautionary tale of a cruel, authoritarian America of the future that’s leavened by barbed wit and irreverence.
