Review: The Unincorporated Woman

Amazon  

In case you can’t tell from the title, THE UNINCORPORATED WOMAN (Amazon) is the third in the Unincorporated series by the Kollin brothers Dani and Eytan. It follows THE UNINCORPORATED WAR which was a sequel to THE UNINCORPORATED MAN. I believe subsequent volumes will be titled The Unincorporated Gas Station and The Unincorporated (fill in here).

I kid about the titles. In all honesty I like these books overall. I was thrilled to read the first one and really rather enjoyed it. It felt like something Heinlein would have written in his prime (and that’s saying a lot). The second volume was a large departure from the tone of the series in my mind. It did some things I didn’t expect. It had one flaw that kind of irked me, but on the whole I was able to enjoy it (though not as well as the first.)

This latest book follows in much the same vein as the second book. It’s better, in my opinion, and I was happy about the changes made. I’m looking forward to the next book (which I think is the concluding volume, but don’t quote me on that), but I still wish they would get back to what made the first book so good.

The best addition in my mind to this book is the Unincorporated Woman herself. By the way I’m about to get all spoilery here on the Unincorporated War so if you haven’t read it–and plan to–then just skip to the end of the review where I’ll say, this was a fun read, and be done. If not then by all means keep reading. Where was I? Oh yeah, the Unincorporated Woman… So at the end of THE UNINCORPORATED WAR, Justin dies… well, is assassinated more accurately. So to fill a void there, another stasis pod found with another human alive from the 20th Century. It also happens to be the person that helped Justin set up his own stasis pod. Welcome back to life, Sandra.

Sandra is a much more interesting person than Justin was in the last book. We get back to the “wow” factor of someone coming back to life and experiencing this world with fresh eyes. She’s also headstrong, manipulative and brilliant. That makes for a fun character. On top of that she’s thrust into the role of president–a position that is supposed to just be a figure-head type of role with no real power, and a lot of the fun in the book comes with watching her gain some power through manipulation. I was glad to have her in the book and the series definitely took an upswing with her addition.

The rest of the book was much the same as the last. It is still fun to read about Janet Delgado winning battles and plotting the strategy of the Outer Alliance. I’ve really enjoyed the story line of the AI’s trying to keep themselves hidden from mankind while still twisting and turning events to their favor. All in all the book was fun.

I do however have the same complaints with this book that I did with the last one. The world is built upon (and indeed the war itself is being fought over the idea of) incorporation. The idea that a person can sell stock in themselves and lose the ability to make major decisions for themselves (those decisions would be left to the stock holders). The idea of buying a majority in oneself. The whole idea of running a life like a major business. What a great idea! Yet once again that idea is shoved to the background and remains completely unused. Bummer.

Other than that I have no real complaints for the book. It was a little hard to believe that a newly awoken person would be thrust into a presidency (you’d think such a job would require a basic understanding of the world they live in). But hey, I’m willing to suspend my disbelief. It was fun. This isn’t the greatest thing I’ve ever read, but it’s certainly good enough that I’ll keep buying them and enjoying the ride.