New Books In Science Fiction

The massive corporation at the center of Eliot Peper’s Analog trilogy, which he completed last month with the publication of Breach (47North, 2019) is radically different from most science fictional companies. It aspires to do good.The growth of Commonwealth into a benevolent behemoth is chronicled in the series’ first two novels, Bandwidth and Borderless (which Peper discussed on the New Books Network last fall.) By the end of Borderless, Commonwealth, which controls the near-future version of the internet, has become its own sovereign entity, one whose ownership of the “feed” has given it enough soft power to force nations—through a clause in its terms of service—to implement an international carbon tax.Breach opens 10 years later. By this point, Commonwealth has instituted open borders and replaced national currencies with “feed credits” (if that sounds implausible, see Facebook’s recently unveiled plans to create its own digital currency, Libra). Commonwealth is now considering implementing something that