DESTINY OF A FREE SPIRIT

In Ford’s speculative novel, a man is torn between two contrasting post-apocalyptic worlds.

When readers first encounter Peter, an everyman action hero, he’s launching himself at a deadly saber-toothed tiger who’s had the temerity to come prowling around Peter’s adopted family’s dwelling looking for a meal. The scene is harrowing, the stakes are pulse-poundingly high—and readers don’t even know who Peter is yet. From there, the author slowly reveals the setting—the realm of Ecologia—and Peter’s tenuous place in it. The time period is not initially established, but it eventually becomes clear that there’s been a nuclear war and that the Earth is now divided into two cultures. Ecologia is nothing more than a giant-game preserve where human beings exist in a near-Paleolithic state, fighting to survive off the land. The other world—Peter’s homeworld—is called Economica, and it looks a lot like our own, but with more advanced tech and even greater governmental suppression. (“Balance was restored by the establishment of the two Realms, Ecologia and Economica, to be forever held separated for the preservation of Gaia, our Mother Earth.”) Peter has discovered an undetected portal between Economica and Ecologia, and he uses it to easily travel back and forth in secret whenever the spirit moves him. He has an important decision to make when his access to the portal is set to close: Should he remain in Ecologia or return home to Economica? It’s an intriguing premise, and Ford compellingly draws overt parallels between Peter’s quandary and the very real questions facing contemporary society with the rise of Artificial Intelligence and ever-increasing automation. In the face of the cold authoritarianism depicted here, battling the stray saber-toothed tiger now and then might not seem that bad (especially when you’re got a supportive family around you and a wild and an untamable beauty pledged to keep you warm at night). If there is a downside to Ford’s provocative yarn, it’s that there seems to be a lot more potential to explore.

An enjoyable adventure that poses provocative questions.