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| RebelFire: Out of the Gray Zone | 
 enlarge | Author: Claire Wolfe; Aaron Zelman
Publisher: RebelFire Press
Category: Book
Buy New: $13.95
New (1) Used (7) from $3.67
Avg. Customer Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 380426
Media: Paperback
Pages: 227
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 0964230488
EAN: 9780964230484
ASIN: 0964230488
Publication Date: May 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
The World Our Children Will Inherit July 22, 2005
17 out of 19 found this review helpful
I am not going to tell you about the plot of this book. All you need to know about the plot is in the little blurb above the reviews. I'm not going to gush about how thrilling, engrossing, well written and vibrantly emotional this book happens to be -- though it's all those things.
I'm addressing this review to two groups:
Science Fiction fans, because this is the real deal, my fellow brothers and sisters in sense o' wonder. And to parents, because this is a book both you and your children need to read. This is a book about the world your children are going to inherit.
I won't lecture you on politics (neither will the book) but I'll extend you the benefit of the doubt that you are observant, thoughtful and interested enough in your life to notice those little changes that seem to come a little quicker with each passing day. Those little sacrifices you are asked to endure. While they happen, they tend to be painless, like a mosquito bite. But...they do pile up on you. What happens ten years down the road as these daily little sacrifices are counted? Fifteen?
That's where the SF part comes in. Wolfe and Zelman tackle what I consider the toughest nut in literary SF: the near term immersive novel. They pull it off spectacularly. This is no guided tour through a future. It's not a dystopia or a utopia. The authors do not fall to the temptation to take the easy way out. Instead, they give us a vivid, believable, but scarily different society that resembles today the way a gangly teenager resembles his baby pictures. I say this as an absolute and utter science fiction snob. Rebelfire is a wonderful first novel for any genre, but for the authors to tackle such a difficult type of SF novel on the first go and succeed so well is quite the feat.
The world they present is one we do not wish to believe, but it's constructed from things going on now. If anything, it's conservative in it's doomcrying.
And that's where you parents come in: this is an important book. Its themes are the same as almost every laudable young adult novel I can name: the power of believing in yourself and your dreams. The importance of bravery in the face of adversity. The supreme need for loyalty to and from those we love. There is no lack of adventure, but it's adventure of an oddly personal, realistic type. There are no shining heroes or last ditch rescues. The people and events of Rebelfire are conflicted and fallible; the events are quiet but no less momentous.
This is a book that you and your children need to read, and discuss. This is a book that may make your children pay a closer eye to current events, and ask clearer questions about social institutions like government and politics.
So. SF fans, pick up the book and be one of those people who can say 'Oh yeah. I remember that when it was just a small press book.' Our genre is being compressed and overwhelmed by franchise crap based on TV shows and movies. Major publishers seem less and less willing to take a chance on anything provocative, or deeply felt, or passionate. Remember that [i]we[/i] are the people who demand books like Rebelfire. If we don't support them when they appear, well...we'd better learn to enjoy STAR WARS novelizations.
And parents, buy this book. Read it first, then pass it to the kids. Be prepared for some hard questions. Some thoughts your child may have never encountered before. Some thoughts you may have never encountered before. This is a book from which many conversations will be born.
Because, I'm sad to say, in this book is the world your children will inherit, unless we start changing things in our own small ways now.
And it's not too late.
Super Story -- Can't Put It Down! June 17, 2005
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
I just finished RebelFire: Out of the Gray Zone - this is one fascinating, stirring, compelling story, exquisitely told !
No kidding - I have never read a sci fi book that so effortlessly flowed from page to mind to imagination to understanding. This is an exceptional book - as good as any sci fi or future-world novel I've ever read. Just by comparison: George Orwell's 1984, the deservedly-revered benchmark in the genre, is slow and plodding by comparison to RebelFire. Yet RebelFire tells a comparable story and transmits a related message but so much more clearly.
Jeremy, the main character in RebelFire, is a teenager who is growing up in the America that looms in the near future. It's an America where drinking, smoking, eating animal fat, and listening to impolitic music will get you captured and reprogrammed. Everyone is tracked day and night via radio-frequency ID tags implanted in their wrists. Mind-altering drugs - Prozac on Steroids - operate to calm people into comfortable submission. Roving security patrols assure full compliance.
Yet Jeremy has a passion for music and excitement, and he starts to find ways to subtly rebel... and then he makes some fateful decisions that launch him into a very new and dangerous world.
It's a wonderful story featuring colorful characters and fast-moving action. There's a very special girl ... and a wonderful dog ... who play key roles in Jeremy's ascent to freedom of mind and soul. I won't give away the ending - it's a rush!
This story could so easily become a screenplay for a movie or miniseries. Every sentence is perfect. If you like the TV series "24" - the danger, the strategies, the unpredictability, the struggle - then you'll like this book.
Aaron Zelman has previous experience with fiction, and Claire Wolfe has published several strong non-fiction books, so this joint fictional effort really rocks. Nothing off-color or sordid, the story flows and the characters express themselves without dropping to the low end. The sequencing, timing, shifting context and working the reader's focus from macro to micro, and delivering descriptions that live (both of stationary items and moving events) - this is marvelous work. I don't think Larry Niven or Ayn Rand or Isaac Asimov wrote anything more entertaining than this.
I highly recommend RebelFire for anyone of reading age. (It comes with a rock music CD, too!)
A Chilling, But Not Unreasonable Look Into The Future... June 15, 2005
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
One can't help but cheer for Jeremy as he comes to grips with a society where freedom has been forgotten, where music, games and moods are managed by government, and where privacy is a myth.
A good read for teens and adults alike...it manages to be exciting, depressing, and hopeful all at the same time.
Outstanding Read! June 8, 2005
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
For anyone who is concerned over the rapid growth of the American Police State, RealID, random "Papers Please" Seatbelt Checks, RFID or the growing body of laws which seek to keep us safe from ourselves, this is truly an important book.
Jeremy is us...all of us....in the very near future. He's been coddled, drugged, threatened and brainwashed by The State in a monochromatic world where few things make sense. A world in which virtually everyone is a criminal for lack of ability to keep up with all the new laws and regulations. A world in which "Why?" becomes a pointless question.
And, like us, Jeremy is helpless and unskilled. But as the pages turn we realize that, like us, Jeremy yearns for freedom, self dependence and self expression. We follow the amazing journey of this young man as circumstances demand he come of age, become a man and finally step up to the plate as the Hero he can be.
Written from the viewpoint, nobility and passion that only our teen years can muster, this is hardly a book just for that age group.
The Afterword provides chilling references to Laws and technologies (seemingly far fetched in the book) which are already reality; already embraced in the USA of today.
Rich Lucibella
Publisher
S.W.A.T. Magazine
"For your own good" June 7, 2005
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Rebelfire is a dystopia set in an all-too-plausible near future, where the only thing that's gone wrong with the world is that every little thing you say, do, eat, drink, or use in any way is monitored, surveilled and generally spied upon "for your own good." The chilling thing about the book's setting is that it is simply a projection of what we're already allowing "them" to do to us. There is no difference in form between Jeremy's world and ours. There's only a difference in degree.
Since the book is written for teenagers, this middle-aged reader had to push a bit to get past the first few chapters of teenage angst and whining. But it's worth the trip, because once Jeremy gets going on his journey out of the Zone and out of his own callow self-absorbtion, the story just grabs you by the collar and doesn't let go until the end. At which point, alas, it drops you like a rotten orange and leaves you whining for more.
It's hard to believe this is Claire Wolfe's first fictional work, because the pacing, dialogue, and characterizations are marvelous. Any fans of her non-fiction will not be disappointed. But be careful about letting it fall into the hands of your kids. It might start giving them independent ideas, so it's definitely not "good for them."
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