Adam Rakunas “Like a Boss” (Angry Robot, 2016)
Right off the top I should note that Like a Boss is the sequel to Rakunas’ PKD Award nominated Windswept. Do you need to read Windswept first? I haven’t read it, and I never felt lost or
confused. I assume that there were some
background elements that I missed, but it certainly didn’t negatively affect my
reading pleasure.
We’re on a hot planet where the primary cash crop seems to
be sugar cane, and by extension the making of rum. It’s sold off world & the trade credit is
used to buy a variety of items that aren’t manufactured on the world. Almost everyone is part of huge union that
negotiates the contracts with the off world corporations. And soon after the
book begins, there’s a general strike, and chaos ensues.
I loved this book.
It’s too rare that we see the hidden side of space opera. This book is full of it. Here is a whole planet of people working crap
jobs to keep from going hungry. And that’s
still better than the corporate life that they’ve escaped from! The pretensions and false pressures have been
removed, and now they are just making it work.
It may be harder, but it is theirs.
And in a genre where conflict is normally decided by
violence and solitary actors, here solidarity and cooperation save the day. There is heroism, because it is heroic to
stand up in the face of oppression. But
not the kind of heroics you’re used to seeing in the Saturday Matinee.
A few months ago I read a novel where a positive view of
capitalism was literally written into the structure of the world. Here’s the antidote. It’s dirty hungry people standing up
together, for each other & saying “No Mas”!
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