GETTING BACK

Following his dynamic 1998 debut, the Antarctic thriller Ice Reich, ex-journalist and Pulitzer Prize—winner Dietrich moves on to Australia for this slower-paced future-world saga of malcontents and convicts roaming the outback in a deadly game orchestrated by an all-powerful corporate entity. Halfway through the 21st century, United Corporations has made the world secure—even if a plague born of genetic engineering did accidentally kill off the entire human population of Australia—but Daniel Dyson, a comfortably midlevel programmer, isn—t satisfied. His bad attitude earns him a reprimand, yet suddenly, out of the surrounding darkness of conformity, a ray of hope shines forth in the shapely form of Raven. She entices him into a subterranean escapade, then turns him on to Outback Adventure, a secret, selective tour agency offering the ultimate challenge: a no-gadgets survivalist trek across now plague-free Australia, with only those reaching the coast able to get back home. Although Raven vanishes, Daniel still signs up, trusting he—ll run into her over there. But, as he and the group he’s teamed with learn to their dismay, when Raven saves them from dying of thirst, their ultimate adventure is just another means for Big Brother to stifle dissent—by throwing together the restless and the criminal in a place apart, with no intention of bringing any of them back. Raven proves to be not the fellow free spirit Daniel had fallen in love with; she is instead an agent of the corporate monolith he detests. As they traverse the continent, however, with a pack of killer convicts pursuing them for the key to escape, which the two possess, a new understanding grows between them, as does a new hope for humanity. The pro-wilderness, outside-the-box message is hammered home in ways ranging from clever to clunky, but when the action stops and the pondering begins, a lack of character depth makes this story about as succulent as a mouthful of desert sand.