Renegade

This is a tense, fascinating, extremely well-written, thought-provoking book. I suspected it would be brilliant from the endorsement by Samuel R. Delany, but I had no idea it would be such a page-turner. Although it is the 2nd entry in the Marq'ssan cycle, I read it and it works fine as a stand-alone. It only made me more curious to figure out the political structure of the world I've landed in and how it came about that way. In the late 21st century, the U.S. is ruled by the Executive system - a complete social, political, and psychological (and possible biological, as you begin to wonder) division into two classes: executives and service-techs. It's a frightening paradigm, all the more shocking because it's no so removed from our reality in the present, only painted in more stark terms. As I inferred, in the 1st book of the cycle, the aliens - Marq'ssan - landed, and deployed an EMP bomb, frying all electronic devices. Taking advantage of the ensuing chaos, the north-western section of the US around Seattle breaks off and becomes a Free Zone - an anarchistic society, purged of executives, money, and all forms of government. Decisions are made by consensus of committees formed exclusively of women (men tend to behave rudely at meetings, so they were banned), and streets patrolled by vigilante gangs of armed women. Along with the portrayal of just how such a society might survive, we're given glimpsed inside the life of an executive woman in the U.S., two very contrasting paradigms. The story follows Kay Zeldin, former double agent for the Executives, turned traitor and currently living in the Free Zone. On the other side of the fence is Elizabeth Weatherall, one of the most powerful executives in the country, who had her own agenda for Kay. The most unsettling and powerful part of the book - I don't know if this is a spoiler, please let me know if it is, but I feel it is important to mention - depicts long-term continuous physical and psychological torture from the prisoner's point of view. Absolutely fascinating stuff. The ending floored me... devastating, although not surprising, and all too realistic. It's a complex, adult book that delves into the politics of relations: sexual, professional, class, between the torturer and the victim, the government and the governed. It's a compelling, can't-tear-yourself-away-from-the-page book.