But it's easy to see why Free Zone might be Platt's pride and joy; he had the notion of attempting to incorporate, into one reasonably short novel, every major science fiction trope and cliche which came to mind; a chart at the back of the book cites 71 examples. Platt has always been most comfortable with at least a certain measure of humor to his writing, and Free Zone is breezy and deftly-written fun, as a libertarian socialist enclave, the FZ, in a future/alternate world Los Angeles is not only chivvied by the collapsing fascist state the US has become around it, but directly invaded and/or besieged by all sorts of fantasticated menaces, including aliens, and Nazis from an alternate Earth in which they were victorious in World War II. The heroine, Dusty McCullough, is the chiefest if relatively informal administrator of the nearly anarchist FZ, with a tech-genius/geek male life-partner, and friends and fellow free citizens (including gang bikers), pitted against the sentient dogs and troglodytes, among others, who attack them...also assisted by a hyper-sophisticated robot from the future, sent back and capable of seeing into multiple realities. Platt at his website reports that at least some readers would complain about the affectionately satirical nature of the work, whether because they felt Platt was showing disrespect to his predecessors, or because they wanted a more serious extrapolation along the same lines, or both. I'd suggest the novel moves at an excellent clip, a tribute to how well Platt studied his literary idol Bester, and makes seemingly every point it intends to make, even if he seems at times to think he's created the concept of libertarian socialism (which would've come as news to people ranging from the Anabaptists through the Communards to Noam Chomsky)...I've needed to seek out more of Platt's fiction for quite some time.simultaneously.
Patti Abbott has the lists of contributors this week and probably a review or two...
