The Marsco Dissident

Fans of science fiction seek out different things when reading the genre: sometimes it’s being able to relate with something going on in our current lives that can be glimpsed in a future time; sometimes it’s wanting a new and better world to enjoy and get lost in; and sometimes it’s a relatively near-future story setting that feels like the inevitable to what our world will become, giving you chills you didn’t know a story could. The Marsco Dissident is this latter type of science fiction, doing just what a good story should do.

In this world, there have been plenty of wars and plagues and even technology pushed to cyber-warfare; the result was a controlling, domineering megacorporation that now rules the world. Actually, Marsco rules Earth, as well as the colonies spread throughout the solar system. The year is 2092, and Marsco controls just about everything, including computers, and who can use them, through microchips embedded in the fingers of those authorized.

Our unlikely hero is Walter Miller in this first of four planned books in the quartet. Miller works for Marsco as an astroengineer, but hates everything that Marsco stands for in this dystopian world and wants to do something about it. Then there is his daughter, Tessa, who is a firm ally and believer in everything Marsco. And then there is Tessa’s boyfriend, Anthony “Zot” Grizotti, who shares Miller’s philosophies about Marsco. It’s one big happy family of conflict, all thanks to one megacorporation.

Meanwhile, throughout the solar system there are those rebels, technological Luddites, who keep very much to themselves and their own ways, employing religious fanaticism to fight against Marsco, while, elsewhere, there are those who were once in power plotting their return.

One might call The Marsco Dissident the next generation’s 1984, as it employs many facets of life that are all too apparent in our modern world as the rich get richer, the poor reach new levels of poverty, corporations act like people, and everything is about money and power.

Author James A. Zarzana has created some strong characters and introduces plenty of conflict right from the beginning to keep the reader hooked. This is good science fiction doing what science fiction is meant to do.