RIGHT HAND OF THE RESISTANCE

Linked dystopian stories explore the future of migration and global politics in Peters’ speculative novel.

In his preface, the author invokes The Canterbury Tales and One Thousand and One Nights as inspirations, presenting his own future world through a series of distinct points of view. In the first chapter, parishioners gather in the basement of a crumbling church, recounting how “the world we knew crumbled into madness overnight.” One man raises a stump where his right arm used to be and is identified as a follower of the faith of Francisco Jesús De La Vega, who leads the Resistance of the Right Hand. In the chapter that follows, readers learn more about Francisco, through his own account and that of Dona Ávila, an immigrant (“pilgrim” in the language of the novel) seeking political asylum from the tyranny of Amazonia. Through Dona Ávila’s perspective, Peters develops his modern immigrant metaphor, detailing the brutal immigration process that involves a chemical spray-down, forced head shaving, and manual labor on farms in PaxAmericana (the former United States of America, the story implies). As the connections between characters and the rise of Francisco become clearer, the narrative’s scope broadens to include people in power, including the president of PaxAmericana preparing a speech about the border (known as “the Barrier”) and an interpreter working for the People’s Pacifica Party, a stand-in for China. The future world the author creates feels consistent and well realized, though the eastern nations, including a Russia analogue, are not fully explored. While some of the stories contain a fair amount of speechifying (the pace starts to lag in the dialogues between politicians and reporters), pulpy twists and Peters’ natural flair for action scenes keep the larger narrative consistently engaging. Readers will hope the author chooses to expand this world further in future volumes.

A compelling vision of a possible future, filled with insightful commentary.