Book #27 - The Unincorporated War

I had read the Unincorporated Man some time ago and this book was sitting in my car for weeks. I’d read the first few chapters of the Unincorporated War before setting it aside. With time on my hands during vacation, I finally finished it.

The book starts with Cord as the President of the Outer Alliance, basically everything from the asteroid belt outwards from the Sun. The Alliance has declared war on the Core, which is Venus, Mars, Earth, and the Moon. Hektor is in charge of GCI, and still plotting for a way to make incorporation work and Cord to be removed from his life.

Justin doesn’t love being President, but understands that he’s rallied people together and he finds the idea of incorporation to be evil. However he has to balance that since there are many people, and companies, in the Alliance that favor incorporation, just not the stranglehold of the large corporations.

The book progresses through the war, through years, as the Alliance tries to invade Mars, but is driven off. They manage to win quite a few space battles, despite being less outfitted than the Core, but slowly start to lose some of the asteroid belt as the Core has millions of people to throw at the war, slowly overwhelming the Alliance until the asterioid belt is “cut” in two at the 180 degree mark from the Alliance capital on Ceros.

We also find the avatars fighting their own war in this book, as they live in their digital world. One of the elders on Earth begins killing other avatars, and Cord’s avatar, Sebastian, flees with others to the Alliance. As the Neuro is cut in two, avatars choose sides and begin to fight in a way that mirrors the physical war.

I don’t know that I loved this book, but the story was fascinating and captured my attention. We have a culture that is fighting for its ideals and values against the entrenched system. We have advanced technology coming into play, and being stymied somewhat by the growth of religion in the Alliance. We have VR coming back to become a problem, one that must be dealt with. And we have many moral and ethical dilemmas that Justin must deal with.

I think the Kollin brothers have written at great trilogy, one that is incomplete in this book. It ends suddenly, and incompletely, making us wonder what the next book will do. However in this book, you must think, and you find yourself taking sides, not always the same side, depending on the issue. As evil as Hektor comes across, he does raise valid points at times. It’s quite the read, though please read the Unincorporated Man first. There’s so much background that you need to enjoy this book.