Red Queen: The Substrate Wars
By Jeb Kinnison
IR Verdict: RED QUEEN is a tempered look at politics and science in the near future. It is a coming of age novel where the characters reach out beyond the safety of their university to take back their right to self-determination.
RED QUEEN is the first book in The Substrate Wars series. On the surface, it is a tale of insurrection against a government that believes that the ends justify the means. Where this plot diverges from other of this type is that the government is not a fascist state nor the result of a coup but a duly elected government that uses the terrorist attack to stifle dissent and maintain order according to their politically correct philosophy. The prologue begins with a quote from Robert Heinlein, “There is nothing in this world so permanent as a temporary emergency”. This quote from 1950 eerily foreshadows life in the United States in the immediate future where there is only one political party with true power. The idea of freedom and the right to self-determination are explored throughout the book as the students seek a refuge from the ubiquitous spying from Homeland Security. The plot occasionally bogs down when discussing the physics behind quantum computing. The author attempts to work through this with footnotes and an appendix with “notes” on politics and science that are somewhat long and a bit too academic for this type of story. These are only minor drawbacks to an engrossing book about life in the near future that is neither perfect nor dystopian.
RED QUEEN is a tempered look at politics and science in the near future. It is a coming of age novel where the characters reach out beyond the safety of their university to take back their right to self-determination.
~IndieReader.
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