Customer Reviews

RebelFire: Out of the Gray Zone

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Claire Wolfe and Aaron Zelman are doing something quite wonderful. They're talking to kids. And what they're talking about is freedom, determination, and self-reliance.

OUT OF THE GRAY ZONE is the first in a projected series of "young adult" novels, a category of fiction dominated until now by adolescent warlocks, happy dragons, and high school girls angst-ridden over their latest crush. You won't find any of that in this initial "RebelFire" book. This is the story of teenaged Jeremy, whose rock 'n roll inspired dreams are being quashed by CentGov-sanctioned spycams, sensors, monitors, permits, and doses of dope - "all for his own good." In the Gray Zone of America's Pacific Northwest, even his favorite rock band, RebelFire, has been silenced and replaced by "a cheerful bleat of very bad march music" on the satellite link. Jeremy's always lived under the control of CentGov and its Departments of Firearms Elimination, Drug Enforcement, Homeland Serenity, ad nauseum, but he's become increasingly dissatisfied. And now that they've taken RebelFire away...

Jeremy's adventures are exciting, sometimes shocking, often violent. The characters he meets will stir you. And if you don't fall in love with Hero, the furry mutt who joins Jeremy along the way, you've got a heart made of steel wool. Shame on you.

This new RebelFire series is just what the Freedom Movement ordered. I can't recall a libertarian novel as truly perfect for teenagers (yet entertaining for adults) since J. Neil Schulman's ALONGSIDE NIGHT, and that was 25 years ago. If you have a kid, or even know a kid, who enjoys reading, drop OUT OF THE GRAY ZONE into their hands. It's a terrific tale of despair, perseverance and, ultimately, hope. It may turn their heads around. And you'll like it, too.

(Final note: The book comes with a nifty CD that contains two distinct versions of the RebelFire anthem "Justice Day." The first, by Rockne Van Meter, is classic rock and very good. The other, by Opium War, is labeled "heavy metal" but reminds me of X, the greatest punk band I ever heard or saw in the early '80s. I can imagine John Doe and Exene cranking out this song on a tiny stage in West L.A. Chinga, it sounds good!)

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.

So I sat down with Claire Wolfe and Aaron Zelman's RebelFire 1.0: Out of the Gray Zone a couple of days ago stopping only briefly here and there to move the laundry from washer to dryer or to grab a snack.

There are two sure signs that I enjoyed a book.
1. I read it cover to cover in one marathon stretch.
2. I finish it thinking, "Why the heck isn't the sequel to this out yet?"

Both of those happened. And, I might add, I cannot remember the last time I read a book in one stretch. I used to do it all the time as a kid (can't put Nancy Drew or Trixie Belden down until everyone's out of danger or you'll have all sorts of nightmares), but somehow I've lost that as an adult.

It was really a good read. RebelFire is sort of a 1984 for 2005. This is not stuffy, difficult literature you slog through. It's fast-paced, suspenseful, gory at times, rather ominous throughout, but it still leaves you on a hopeful note at the end. I liked that it conveyed the seriousness of the situation without leaving me in utter despair at the end and ready to kill myself. I was bawling on p. 172- it upset my dog greatly. Then I had to clean my glasses to be able to finish the book. There was only one scene where I sort of popped back into reality thinking that it was just too good to buy as true, but then I remembered I was reading fiction and I consciously suspended my disbelief and in a couple of pages was back into the story. I also didn't get some of the italicized lingo. But other than those two little things, I really loved reading it and I'm looking forward to a sequel.

Having read Ms Wolfe's non-fiction books("The Freedom Outlaw's Handbook" and "I Am Not a Number") and liking her friendly one-on-one writing style, I pre-ordered a copy of "Rebelfire: Out of the Gray Zone" anxious to see her first foray into fiction.

My creative writing teachers alway preached hooking the reader in the first sentence. I'm not a teenager and the first couple of pages dealing with Jeremy's music/light fantasies didn't hook me. Neither could I identify with his teen angst before he decides to make his break for freedom. Thank goodness I didn't stop there or I would have missed a great story that not only has a message but is a good adventure as well.

Once Jeremy is on his own and starts to learn what the outside world is like the story takes off like a missile and I could not put it down (always my sign of a good book). His education reflects my own, though not as dramatically, in how the government wants to track and domesticate us. His future world is easily seen in what's is going on in our world now.

And the comparison to Harry Potter, you might ask? Harry, like Jeremy, is youngster trying to reach his potential. In the last two Potter books, I found Harry something of a petulant teen and my liking for him declined. But I think Ms Rowling knows that he has to go through this phase, like any teenager, and will bring him back to being the hero we know and love. Jeremy, being older than Harry, matures a little more quickly under some equally dire circumstances--practical rather than magical.

Once I got fully immersed in Jeremy's story, like Harry's, it rang a deep chord in me. I may be chronologically older than these protagonists, but in my heart, nothing's changed. That yearning for "potential" or "freedom" remains in all of us and learning can take place at any age. We are never too old to learn from the young.

I am eagerly awaiting the sequels which I know must follow. My only real criticism is that is was too short. Claire and Aaron, better get 2.0 and 3.0 out soon.

As an adult I really liked this novel. If you are a parent, you could not do better for your child than to get her/him to read this book. The future is up to them and I hope it will help them make a stand.

Jeremy is trapped in a distopian future. His every move is tracked, via the chip in his arm. The level in his bloodstream of his required medications is checked regularly. RebelFire, his favorite band, his link to the spirit of liberty, has disappeared from his Player. He can no longer practice his art. He is only sixteen years old, but he must escape.

Claire Wolfe and Aaron Zelman tell of Jeremy's journey, warn of the darkness of our possible future, and remind us of the importance of dreams, of decency, of will.

RebelFire: Out of the Gray Zone is a page turner from beginning to end. A frightening prediction of where America is headed. And the conclusion blew me away. Tears and sobs. Joy and hope. Wow!

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!)

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

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."

I pre-ordered this gem, and could not WAIT for it to arrive. As soon as it did, well, let's just say I left work early that day.

From start to finish, this book is a great story, and it is well-put. The two authors are both veteran writers and it really shows.

This book is for every free thinking human who is concerned about the erosion of our Liberties, or just someone who likes a great sci-fi type book.

Some of the authors "inventions" are spooky and others are just plain cool.

Plain and simple, but the book, you'll be glad you did! :)

Being 16, and having dreams, is not unusual, but for Jeremy, those dreams seem almost impossible to fulfill.
In a not too distant future, in an all too plausible world, where every one is watched, all the time, where drugs are used to keep the people placid, and where everything is regulated "for their own good", Jeremy wants to be a lightmaker for a rock band--a band who's music rebels against what the government stands for.
This book is about Jeremy's search for that band, and what he finds on his journey out of the Grey Zone towards Freedom.
An excellent book with fine characters, and a move-along plot, that will keep you reading for hours.