Review: Economics theory and some seeds restore commerce
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 21, 2013
With his fifth in the "The Empire's Corps" series, Christopher G. Nuttall takes a unique approach to his apparent continued analysis of economic collapse on a galactic scale. Earth is a repository of 80 billion human beings and totally dependent on the rest of the universe for its manufacturing and food production. The wall-to-wall humanity won't last long without a continued connection to its far-flung worlds and corporate-controlled distribution system. However, there's trouble and quite a bit of it. This installment is the story of Sameena, a girl whose trader father taught her all about being a merchant and the power of knowing the parties of a sale and how each benefits. She applies her knowledge as soon as she's forced to stow away on a freighter departing her backward planet. Sameena is muslim, her world a bastion of believers who cherish the "true" Islam. For her that meant women are to be seen under veils and not heard. Her brother's questioning of authority gets her family arrested by the authorities, and Sameena's fast thinking serves her well as she escapes and befriends a spacer family. She doesn't know much about the outside world, but she learns quickly. And her fortunes change as she figures out how things work. Nuttall uses the story as an economics primer, starting each chapter with an excerpt of a book written by a historian that analyzes the events that led to the decline of the empire. Sameena sees opportunity in the decline. The system is failing, people are losing their livelihood and descent into barbarism is a distinct possibility if the trade networks disappear. She decides to replace them with a more free-trading system. The controlled system under the all-powerful Senate was rife with corruption and lack of competition, setting up the current disaster. The story doesn't slow down and the characters continue to evolve. Sameena is the most multi-dimensional. Her education is the reader's. Her success and scrapes with disaster feel very close to home. By the end, I was hoping she'd pull something out of the hat.