In the not too distant future, after the Second Civil War, two seceded territories share a precarious détente with the United States. The Texas Territory, which includes much of the south, is a conservative state. The Colorado Territory, on the other hand, contains the southwest and the Great Plains, and is a pacifist, anarchist stateless society. The rump United States, suffering from bad economic policies and cut off from the Texas oil, struggles, resentfully, through a deep depression. This is the setup at the start of Jon Christian’s novel, Reclamation.
Amidst this uneasy balance, the United States brutally attacks the Colorado Territory, attempting to reclaim that territory. This act sets in motion a series of actions and reactions, involving a group of family members, friends, colleagues, an old love interest and a new one, who work through official channels and outside of them, to keep Colorado free.
This is a quick and fun read. Christian keeps the plot moving, cutting between events in Colorado, Texas and United States, as the protagonists converge toward the amor vincit omnes ending.
If I could make one change, it would have been to give a more in-depth illustration of how the economy in the Colorado Territory worked. One of the benefits of libertarian fiction, or for that matter any kind of utopian/dystopian fiction, is that it gives us the opportunity to explore other possible systems, to experience, through the lens of fiction, a society constructed on different principles than our own. Perhaps there is room for a prequel here?
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