The Unincorporated Man

The Unincorporated Man by Dani and Eytan Kollin is a political and financial science fiction story of the twenty-fourth century. After The Grand Collapse, the solar system-wide economy is rebuilt with each person being incorporated at birth. Five percent of their stock goes to the government, twenty percent to their parents, a percentage to each sibling, and it is further sold off until people work for decades to become majority stockholders in themselves, if they ever do. Then Justin Cord, who placed himself in cryogenic storage in the twenty-first century, is awakened and becomes the only unincorporated person alive.

This is science fiction as a genre of ideas similar to Robert A. Heinlein’s novels. As in much of his work, our protagonist’s education about society makes up the bulk of the book. Although the action moves along at a sufficient pace to keep things interesting, Cord’s conversations with his friends and enemies are as significant as anything else that happens. The pacing at the end does feel slightly off, which interestingly is also a problem suffered by many of the Heinlein novels that this book brought to mind. Let’s hope that the Kollin brothers’ next book is at least as thought-provoking and that they write many more over which to work on small improvements.

-- Kristen, Main Library