Review: 21 Erased by Barbara Rayne

Title: 21 Erased
Author: Barbara Rayne
Binding Type: Trade Paperback - 84 pages or e-book
Publication Date: 29 Oct 2011 (Kindle store) - 8 Nov 2011 (paperback)
ISBN: 1466489421 (paperback)
ASIN: B0061BQN76 (e-book, Kindle Store)

"The code is your identity, your bank account, your credit card, the bus fare... your existence. When they take it away, you disappear like you never lived at all. All it takes is a moment and you’re no longer a human being…you’re nothing. Everything you thought you owned is shattering into pieces in front of your eyes, you’re disappearing without leaving a single trace of your existence. You were that insignificant. The system had you that much, nothing was yours but the illusion. They own your life. When you got in their way, they spat you out like a chewing gum that lost its flavor. You no longer exist. You have been erased...


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Free Reading - The Lunatics by Kim Stanley Robinson

You can read Kim Stanley Robinson's dystopian SF tale The Lunatics on Tor.com.

At the end of the nineteenth century, coal mining had become one of the biggest, meanest industries in the United States. Unhealthy working conditions and a reliance on child labor caused accidents and blackened men’s lungs. Crooked business practices like debt bondage and wage-cheating were just part of the misery. But it was dangerous to stand up against the mining companies. Miners didn’t just face losing their jobs—their lives were often at stake, as mining companies fought against unionizing with violence.

The coal miners’ struggles for better conditions were captured in photos and songs that have become a warning for the workers of the world. But in the future, miners might not be so lucky.

What could be worse than working deep beneath the ground, never seeing the light of day? What could be worse than knowing the money in your paycheck was a token worthless outside the company’s store?

[“The Lunatics”] gives us a vision of a mine worse than anything in Pennsylvania. Powered by slavery and jump-started by torment, this mine might as well be hell. - John Joseph Adams