HARMONY IN CHAOS

The leader of a private army suffers a crisis of identity in Marco’s debut SF novel.

In the future, climate change runs unchecked, society is enthralled by a virtual reality system called Intratopia, and people upset with the government hire “Stick-it-to-the-man” robots to protest on their behalf. Eris is the commander of the Proxy, a private, non-ideological security force employed by the American president, Humbert, to prop up his unpopular administration. Eris has grown tired of being a killer-for-hire, however. “How much longer are we willing to sell our skillsets to the highest bidder?” she asks her officers. “How much longer will we play proxy to another nation’s conflicts? Until we die? Is this our great calling in life? To be…glorified hitmen?” She’s interested in self-determination, or at least independent statehood for the organization’s territory, Proximus Landus (previously known as Delaware, before it sank beneath—and then was reclaimed from—the ocean). Eris’ officers think she’s nuts. Their credo, and the credo of the Proxy at large, is to stay neutral and keep cashing checks. Eris’ personal crisis is exacerbated by the intrusion of two entities (who aren’t ghosts, precisely, but who don’t appear to be altogether “real,” either) who begin appearing at inopportune times. Rainbow Dancer is a frolicsome blonde woman who wears bright colors and keeps referring to Eris as “Harmonia.” Faceless Phantom wears a hood that obscures her identity and exposes Eris to nightmarish imagery. What do they want from her? And how do they fit into the larger intrigues of America’s collapsing political system? Eris will have to find out (about the strange beings and a lot of other covert happenings) to learn whether her purpose leads toward independence, neutrality, or a new kind of engagement with a world that seems hellbent on disengaging with reality.

Marco writes with unfettered imagination, creating a future America that, while outlandishly dystopian, manages to feel like an unsettlingly plausible outcome. Much of the action takes place in the wonderfully named New Fine City, a fully automated metropolis that has become a slum and whose operating system has been hacked to speak with the voice of a 1960s radio DJ. Eris laments about how the city has become too respectable under the control of the nation’s leading anarchist organization: “Ever since Shift Society took control of NFC, they’ve defined what’s morally acceptable and—rumor has it—shot all the pedophiles. I guess anarchists have moral thresholds. Now, it’s a more risqué Vegas.” The book’s subtitle bills the work as absurdist, but this is slightly misleading; the novel is satirical and sometimes cerebral, but it operates within the normal parameters of politically tinged SF. As is often the case with speculative novels, it takes the reader a while to get oriented within the vast invented world, but when this hurdle is cleared the political and technological machinations prove quite engaging. While the characters are not psychologically realistic—Eris, in particular, is hard to pin down from a motivational standpoint—they are big and intriguing in a way that keeps things fun.

A freewheeling, thoughtful work of cyberpunk with a political edge.