The Unincorporated Future

Smooth, thoughtful, and compulsively readable, this expansive space opera completes the quartet that began with The Unincorporated Man (2009). The solar system’s Outer Alliance is beginning to win its fight against the inner planets’ United Human Federation, but unscrupulous UHF President Hektor Sambianco remains determined to exterminate the opponents of personal incorporation, which ensures that “every human was under corporate control and properly exploited.” As millions of people die on both sides, Alliance President Sandra O’Toole must consider how far a war can go before it destroys the combatants’ humanity. Meanwhile, massive battle fleets maneuver through the solar system, and clandestine artificial intelligences fight their own civil war, determining whether to aid or destroy the human race. Plots and counterplots abound. The Kollin brothers bounce deftly among characters and locations, alternating grandiose action and pages of political and moral debate. The result is a surprisingly successful melodrama of ideas that ties up the plot threads neatly and satisfyingly. (Aug.)