Zarzana’s (The Marsco Dissident, 2013) bravura second installment in his ongoing saga continues his broad-canvas approach to political power plays, betrayals, and invasions at the end of the 21st century.

In this novel, three factions scheme to attack or subvert Marsco, an Earth-based corporation with a virtual monopoly on software, advanced munitions, and interstellar-travel technology. The company decisively seized power from the corrupt governments of Earth in the mid-2000s. The planet is now a shattered, semi-occupied former battleground strewn with peasants known as “PRIMS,” while elites jockey for positions in Marsco’s ruling autocracy. The latter’s success is defined by finger-disc implants that signify rank, mobility, and access to Marsco cybernetworks. To many, these military-corporate rulers of mankind are no better than the fascist Continental Powers who brought on the planet’s ruin. Among the disenchanted is Anthony “Zot” Grizotti, an “iceman” who’s expert at tending humans in hibernation during long space voyages. He’s curious and incautious enough to join an alliance of secret Marsco opponents; one of them is the remaining fragment of the Continental Powers’ attack fleet, hidden in the asteroid belt, and the other is the Nexus, a fanatical, cultlike PRIMS rebel group underground on Earth. Meanwhile, Walter Miller, who was once one of Marsco’s premiere innovators, works with fellow insiders on the next generation of spaceship propulsion—a technology that’s potentially far beyond Marsco’s reach. Like its predecessor, this installment is heavy with dialogue. However, the speakers are all well-drawn characters who are either heavily conflicted or deeply committed (romantically or politically). When action arrives, it comes on like a firestorm of Tom Clancy–esque ordnance, aerospace feats, and strategy, though with considerably more introspection and less of the slam-bang video-gaming style that often makes similar material resemble a live-action cartoon. A helpful glossary of Marsco-era slang is essential, especially for newcomers to Zarzana’s universe.

Compulsively readable military sci-fi with a strong humanist side that isn’t overwhelmed by bloodshed and doomsday weapons. 

After 21st-century wars and catastrophes ravage Earth, the omnipotent multiplanetary corporation Marsco assumes control—but forces within and outside the company plot its downfall.

First-time author Zarzana brings to bear an academic background in this hefty start to his planned sci-fi series, a compulsively readable future history detailing a catastrophic 21st century and the political, economic and social pathologies that leave beaten-down humanity dominated by a callous one-world (one solar system, really) corporate empire. In the 2090s, billions have died as a result of decades of wealth inequality, global resource wars, pandemics, climate change and backsliding scientific ignorance. Enter Marsco (est. 1999), a giant software/IT/space travel monopoly, possessing some of the less savory aspects of Microsoft and the Union Pacific Railroad. Based in Seattle, Marsco remained largely untouched during mankind’s darkest days; using cyberwarfare and conventional weapons, the company technocrats stepped in and seized Earth away from governments. The ruthless corporation has barely improved life on Earth. PRIMS, a vast, war-displaced peasant class, live in backward squalor, while elite castes are marked by Marsco finger-disc implants, permitting social mobility via levels of access to all-important cybernetworks. Opponents of Marsco include Walter Miller, once one of the company’s iconic engineers/innovators, now dwelling amid PRIMS as a high-profile dissident; defeated nationalist leaders and warlords left older but no wiser thanks to cryogenic stasis; and savage, cultish Luddites composed mainly of rebel PRIMS. Zarzana’s story—short on action, dialogue-heavy, but seldom hectoring or pedantic—recalls early Heinlein, without quite so much faith in altruistic, laissez-faire capitalist heroes coming to the rescue. The scale of Zarzana’s imagination is practically Asimov-ian, though one suspects he has many other wonders unrevealed behind the curtain; we never enjoy a tour of Marsco’s actual Martian HQ, for instance. But there’s still plenty ahead and plenty to look forward to in upcoming volumes.

Socioeconomic sci-fi on a broad canvas that reads like dire headlines from tomorrow.