Orphans

Tanzer’s slim dystopian novel opens inauspiciously with clichéd elements that include a vast, powerful Corporation and ubiquitous black helicopters, but as he focuses more and more intensely on the mind of narrator Norrin Radd, the story begins to gain in intensity. Radd’s past is mostly obscure; somehow he has incurred a debt he has to repay to Corporation enforcer Morg, and acquired a wife and son for whom he has to provide. He has no idea how to do either until, against all odds, he’s offered a job as a real-estate salesman on Mars. During Radd’s long absences from his family, a clone takes his place at home, and Radd’s brief bouts of hopefulness slowly give way to deepening despair. Channeling Orwell and Melville, with a nod to popular American culture, Tanzer (Lucky Man) creates a template for human disaffection and passivity in the face of incomprehensible and omnipotent forces. Under the shopworn elements, this bleak, powerful book is a harrowing cautionary tale about a future that threatens to overwhelm human individuality. (Nov.)