High Steel - Softcover

Grab-bag of a yarn involving Native Americans, aliens, artificial intelligence, and covert corporate warfare, from Haldeman (Vector Analysis, 1978) and Dann (The Man Who Melted, 1984; More Wandering Stars, 1981, etc.). In the medium future, two corporations, Trans-United and Macro, now dominate the Earth and--somehow--have enslaved America's native peoples, forcing them to go into space as construction workers, or to disappear as Sleepers in illegal hibernation trials. John Stranger, on the verge of becoming a medicine man, is taken into space, where--thanks to his astonishing intuitive ability to make correct decisions--saves a Trans-United station from an attack by Macro. Back on Earth, meanwhile, Stranger's mentor, Leonard Broken-finger, has contacted some aliens via the spirit world; the same aliens have beamed a coded message to Earth carrying a secret of a faster-than-light space drive. Unknowingly, Stranger has helped build a ship with such a drive; it's commanded by Einstein, a computer-intelligence genius. Macro, by plotting, assassination, and subversion, seize Einstein--or so they think--with Stranger still on board. Hereafter, matters become steadily less intelligible and coherent. The mysterious aliens never show up. Lots of people die in untimely fashion. Dazzling ideas caught up in a hopelessly confused swirl of a plot--along with a curious backdrop that here gleams with polish, there crumbles at a touch. Many impressive and tantalizing parts, but no satisfying whole. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

A familiar scenario of a 22nd-century world dominated by megacorporations overpowers some promising elements--including Native American politics and spirituality--that Haldeman ( Vector Analysis ) and Dann ( The Man Who Melted ) envision in this SF thriller. Drafted from his reservation by the ruthless Trans-United company, John Stranger becomes one of the firm's best space construction workers. His unusual visualization skills--a reflection of his shamanistic training--attract the attention of director Gerard Leighton. Trans-United is locked in a race with other "corps" to decipher an alien transmission that contains instructions for a faster-than-light space drive, and Stranger may be the edge they need to crack the alien code. Meanwhile, people on Stranger's reservation are having visions that may come from the aliens themselves, and intercorporate politics threaten to destroy not only the reservation, but the entire planet. The wild mixture of elements initially seems promising, but the novel plows little new ground since the Native American experience pictured here seems to have changed little in two centuries. Perhaps this problem might have been corrected if the authors had given themselves more room; as it is, this slim novel, combining ethnic politics, corporate venality, alien contact and mysticism, seems hurried and underdeveloped.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.