Religion vs. Technology: Unholy Domain
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Author: Dan Ronco
Title: Unholy Domain Genre: science fiction In the ten short years since the PeaceMaker virus brought commerce and communications – and darned near civilization as a whole – to a halt, the US economy and infrastructure alike have collapsed in a heap. The divide between haves and have-nots is wider than ever; and that divide now manifests itself in a religious war. On one side are those who continue to use and advance technology; on the other are a conglomeration of ragtag religious groups who consider that technology to be a manifestation of all that is Evil. One leader is all it takes; one leader who can light the fuse on a powder keg of resentment and frustration; one leader who can call forth an Army of God to slay the technology-wielding infidels. That army’s weapons are the usual weapons of an underclass fighting a more powerful enemy: guerrilla warfare, stealth, and terror. Into this uneasy mixture strides David Brown, twenty-something son of the reviled Raymond Brown – the man the world holds responsible for releasing the PeaceMaker a decade ago. When a time-delay email message from his dead father suggests that the elder Brown was framed, blamed for a disaster he had actually been working to prevent; David drops everything to investigate. The search for the truth about his father will place him square in the middle of a crossfire between “Technos” and religious fanatics who have sworn their destruction. As he follows the faint trail his father left behind so long ago, David’s path leads him not only into the sights of Church of the Natural Humans, but likewise makes him a target of The Domain – the secret technological cabal that is exactly what the cultists think it is. Good thing David’s a galaxy-class hacker (not to mention quite the lady-killer), he’s going to need all the skills he can muster… While Dan Ronco’s Unholy Domain shows initial promise – the poor and disadvantaged of a depressed US economy form armed bands of religious fanatics (turning to religion and guns, just like Barack Obama said, eh?) – it’s a promise that the novel fails to keep. Ronco’s plot starts out well, but s oon descends into hackneyed threads and tropes like religious leaders who despoil their young (very young) and beautiful followers to sustain the action. Where action fails him, the author turns to cheesy sex – his female characters are unfailingly gorgeous and fabulously-endowed; and most are apparently unable to resist the mysterious charisma of the much younger Brown. The mere fact that Ronco assigns a buxom female character the nickname “DoubleD” is all one need know. When it's not concentrating on the excesses of religion, the plot often begins to resemble those fantasies played out in “Penthouse Forum.” Several plot twists appear from far out in left field, particularly a plot point concerning artificial intelligence and human interface that is both difficult to swallow and difficult to marry to the rest of the novel; a sort of literary kludge. To top it off, Ronco’s writing style tends to the choppy and sparse as well: much of the text is short, simple sentences that impart an almost sing-song rhythm. All of which, unfortunately, detracts from what might have been an interesting tale. Fleshed out with… well, less flesh, and more plot; and with more attention to the craft of writing (blame his editor – I do), Unholy Domain would have been a pretty good novel. But it wasn’t, and so it’s not. |