Insignia by S.J. Kincaid
Tom Raines and his almost permanently drunk father, are barely scraping by, if you could even call it that. Each day Tom has to earn back the money his father gambles away, in the VR parlours and at the many casinos his father attends. So it’s no surprise what he chooses, when the Indo-american alliance ask him, Tom Raines, to join them in the Pentagon Spire (formerly the Pentagon), in the fight against the Russo-Chinese. Each day Tom would be fighting with his fellow Indo-Americans, for the precious metal deposits scattered across the solar system. But in the future things are very different, companies rule the world, not governments, secretly manipulating the Governments to fight their petty battles for them, writing their favourable laws and forcing the Governments to deliver their resources for them, rendering democracy virtually non-existent. As well as this wars are no longer fought on land but in the vacuum of space. Each vessel controlled by it’s relative human counter part back on earth.
To do so Tom still has to convince his legal guardian, his Dad to let him go and fight for his ‘country’ in the Pentagon Spire. But his Dad, being the paranoid parent he is, is constantly telling anyone he meets about his many crazy theories involving the Government. Each one about what actually goes on in the Spire and how corrupt the Government really are. You can bet when he gives Tom’s legal guardianship over to the Government, Tom is amazed, his own untrustworthy father doing this, just to make him happy! But will the Spire be all it’s made out to be? Or will Tom’s Father’s crazy theories end up being not that crazy after all?
AGE RATING: 13+
TEEN RATING: 6/5
TEEN OVERVIEW: Easily the best Comedy/Sci-fi match-up I’ve read in a while!
