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Dystopian Lawyer #1
Rule of Capture
Better Call Saul meets Nineteen Eighty-Four in this first volume in an explosive legal thriller series set in the world of Tropic of Kansas—a finalist for the 2018 Campbell Award for best science fiction novel of the year.
Defeated in a devastating war with China, America is on the brink of a bloody civil war. Seizing power after a controversial election, the ruling regime has begun cracking down on dissidents fighting the nation’s slide toward dictatorship. For Donny Kimoe, chaos is good for business. He’s a lawyer who makes his living defending enemies of the state.
His newest client, young filmmaker Xelina Rocafuerte, witnessed the murder of an opposition leader and is now accused of terrorism. To save her from the only sentence worse than death, Donny has to extract justice from a system that has abandoned the rule of law. That means breaking the rules—and risking the same fate as his clients.
When Donny bungles Xelina’s initial hearing, he has only days to save the young woman from being transferred to a detention camp from which no one returns. His only chance of winning is to find the truth—a search that begins with the opposition leader’s death and leads to a dark conspiracy reaching the highest echelons of power.
Now, Donny isn’t just fighting for his client’s life—he’s battling for his own. But as the trial in the top secret court begins, Xelina’s friends set into motion a revolutionary response that could destroy the case. And when another case unexpectedly collides with Xelina’s, Donny uncovers even more devastating secrets, knowledge that will force him to choose between saving one client . . . or the future of the entire country.
Defeated in a devastating war with China, America is on the brink of a bloody civil war. Seizing power after a controversial election, the ruling regime has begun cracking down on dissidents fighting the nation’s slide toward dictatorship. For Donny Kimoe, chaos is good for business. He’s a lawyer who makes his living defending enemies of the state.
His newest client, young filmmaker Xelina Rocafuerte, witnessed the murder of an opposition leader and is now accused of terrorism. To save her from the only sentence worse than death, Donny has to extract justice from a system that has abandoned the rule of law. That means breaking the rules—and risking the same fate as his clients.
When Donny bungles Xelina’s initial hearing, he has only days to save the young woman from being transferred to a detention camp from which no one returns. His only chance of winning is to find the truth—a search that begins with the opposition leader’s death and leads to a dark conspiracy reaching the highest echelons of power.
Now, Donny isn’t just fighting for his client’s life—he’s battling for his own. But as the trial in the top secret court begins, Xelina’s friends set into motion a revolutionary response that could destroy the case. And when another case unexpectedly collides with Xelina’s, Donny uncovers even more devastating secrets, knowledge that will force him to choose between saving one client . . . or the future of the entire country.
336 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 13, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 68 reviews
August 14, 2019
Review:
“The first class they taught them in law school was called Property. The first case they taught them in Property was about how you make the things in nature your property through kill or capture.”
There was a big war, it was lost, whilst fresh out of law school in a law firm with the country broken, that was then, and now, Donald Kimoe has great test unlike any other before, a task at hand being..
“Getting justice at secret trials for people the government wanted to disappear was not easy.”
Whilst there is this status of the country:
"Defeat meant the end of empire. Economic sanctions, scarcity where there had been abundance, more people fighting over the less that was left. The rich hoarded what they had won in the years before, hiding in gated communities and shell companies guarded by privatized police and smart lawyers. The more irrelevant the American flag became in a time of worldwide crisis, the more some people started to wave it, on the news and on the job, trying to conjure the return of a past that had never really been.
The instability was compounded by deeper changes in the population, changes everyone had long known were coming, the same way they knew the heavy weather was coming, neither of which changes anyone could stop. The people who had the power saw that to keep it, they needed to use it to make sure those changes didn’t take it away. So they went to war on the future.”
Christopher Brown, an author, also a lawyer who is successfully one of these, “Texans with good bullshit detectors and a strong sense of justice,” running parallel with his memorable protagonist, a fighter of injustices and undoing terrible histories or at least, “I’m fighting with them, right here, the only way I know how. One case at a time.”
A needed tale with at its the core zealous advocacy, fiction writing with speculative realism in a dystopian America needing saving.
This one a birth of imaginative writing from something like characters, thoughts, and worlds of The Firm, Better Call Saul, and 1984 combined.
I like what he’s doing with his writings.
The first book Tropic of Kansas was more adventure and thriller this one more slow burner, deeper and cerebral, a lawyer in conflict with the system all adding to this Tropic of Kanas world.
You may learn to keep away from using White-Out and being recipient of a Mary Lou.
A Military and martial law kaleidoscope with an articulate and intelligent tale with inception to the dystopian and the relevant world becoming undone before your eyes, set by step, law by law, with the land of residency under scrutiny, all penetrating the consciousness of the reader for further contemplation and serious concern of the world to come in the next episode of this world of Tropic of Kansas and never reality.
In my interview with the author he said what follows about this work:
Lou Pendergrast
You have a novel out August 13, 2019, described by publisher Harper Voyager as the “first volume in an explosive legal thriller series set in the world of Tropic of Kansas.” So this is both the first volume and a follow-on from the previous book. What can readers expect to find in this new work of yours? Especially in terms of characters and setting.
Christopher Brown
My new novel Rule of Capture is the story of a burnt out lawyer named Donny Kimoe who makes his living defending political dissidents in a USA drifting into totalitarianism. He represents alleged insurgents who have been hauled before a special emergency court created after martial law is declared in disaster-ridden parts of the Gulf Coast. His main client in the book is a young journalist named Xelina Rocafuerte who is accused of being a terrorist in an effort to silence her after she witnesses the assassination of an opposition leader. When Donny screws up Xelina’s case because he’s distracted with another matter, and with his own personal problems, he has just days to fix the mess he’s made before she is sent to the secret prison camp from which no one returns. That means breaking the rules, exposing the conspiracy behind the regime in power, and risking the same fate as his clients.
The book is set in the same world as Tropic of Kansas, and both Donny and Xelina first appeared in that book as secondary characters. But Rule of Capture takes place earlier in time, in a setting that feels closer to our contemporary reality, and yet even more different—an America that has been defeated in a war with China, ravaged by extreme weather, and subjected to international sanctions and austerity. Rule of Capture is a dystopian novel, but one that tries to make more room for humor—even if it’s gallows humor.
The book I’m writing now for publication in 2020 as a follow-on to Rule of Capture tells the story of the same lawyer defending people in front of the tribunals of a post-revolutionary utopia. My idea is that you first have to go deep into the dark places to find your way to the light. “Utopia” by definition is a place that does not exist, but I’m trying to get as close as I can. And I think ecology—which thematically underpins all three books—is the key.
Read the rest --> Interview with Christopher Brown On writing and his new novel Rule of Capture
Excerpts @ https://more2read.com/review/rule-of-capture-by-christopher-brown/
“The first class they taught them in law school was called Property. The first case they taught them in Property was about how you make the things in nature your property through kill or capture.”
There was a big war, it was lost, whilst fresh out of law school in a law firm with the country broken, that was then, and now, Donald Kimoe has great test unlike any other before, a task at hand being..
“Getting justice at secret trials for people the government wanted to disappear was not easy.”
Whilst there is this status of the country:
"Defeat meant the end of empire. Economic sanctions, scarcity where there had been abundance, more people fighting over the less that was left. The rich hoarded what they had won in the years before, hiding in gated communities and shell companies guarded by privatized police and smart lawyers. The more irrelevant the American flag became in a time of worldwide crisis, the more some people started to wave it, on the news and on the job, trying to conjure the return of a past that had never really been.
The instability was compounded by deeper changes in the population, changes everyone had long known were coming, the same way they knew the heavy weather was coming, neither of which changes anyone could stop. The people who had the power saw that to keep it, they needed to use it to make sure those changes didn’t take it away. So they went to war on the future.”
Christopher Brown, an author, also a lawyer who is successfully one of these, “Texans with good bullshit detectors and a strong sense of justice,” running parallel with his memorable protagonist, a fighter of injustices and undoing terrible histories or at least, “I’m fighting with them, right here, the only way I know how. One case at a time.”
A needed tale with at its the core zealous advocacy, fiction writing with speculative realism in a dystopian America needing saving.
This one a birth of imaginative writing from something like characters, thoughts, and worlds of The Firm, Better Call Saul, and 1984 combined.
I like what he’s doing with his writings.
The first book Tropic of Kansas was more adventure and thriller this one more slow burner, deeper and cerebral, a lawyer in conflict with the system all adding to this Tropic of Kanas world.
You may learn to keep away from using White-Out and being recipient of a Mary Lou.
A Military and martial law kaleidoscope with an articulate and intelligent tale with inception to the dystopian and the relevant world becoming undone before your eyes, set by step, law by law, with the land of residency under scrutiny, all penetrating the consciousness of the reader for further contemplation and serious concern of the world to come in the next episode of this world of Tropic of Kansas and never reality.
In my interview with the author he said what follows about this work:
Lou Pendergrast
You have a novel out August 13, 2019, described by publisher Harper Voyager as the “first volume in an explosive legal thriller series set in the world of Tropic of Kansas.” So this is both the first volume and a follow-on from the previous book. What can readers expect to find in this new work of yours? Especially in terms of characters and setting.
Christopher Brown
My new novel Rule of Capture is the story of a burnt out lawyer named Donny Kimoe who makes his living defending political dissidents in a USA drifting into totalitarianism. He represents alleged insurgents who have been hauled before a special emergency court created after martial law is declared in disaster-ridden parts of the Gulf Coast. His main client in the book is a young journalist named Xelina Rocafuerte who is accused of being a terrorist in an effort to silence her after she witnesses the assassination of an opposition leader. When Donny screws up Xelina’s case because he’s distracted with another matter, and with his own personal problems, he has just days to fix the mess he’s made before she is sent to the secret prison camp from which no one returns. That means breaking the rules, exposing the conspiracy behind the regime in power, and risking the same fate as his clients.
The book is set in the same world as Tropic of Kansas, and both Donny and Xelina first appeared in that book as secondary characters. But Rule of Capture takes place earlier in time, in a setting that feels closer to our contemporary reality, and yet even more different—an America that has been defeated in a war with China, ravaged by extreme weather, and subjected to international sanctions and austerity. Rule of Capture is a dystopian novel, but one that tries to make more room for humor—even if it’s gallows humor.
The book I’m writing now for publication in 2020 as a follow-on to Rule of Capture tells the story of the same lawyer defending people in front of the tribunals of a post-revolutionary utopia. My idea is that you first have to go deep into the dark places to find your way to the light. “Utopia” by definition is a place that does not exist, but I’m trying to get as close as I can. And I think ecology—which thematically underpins all three books—is the key.
Read the rest --> Interview with Christopher Brown On writing and his new novel Rule of Capture
Excerpts @ https://more2read.com/review/rule-of-capture-by-christopher-brown/
August 11, 2019
This was easily my favorite book I've read in the last year, if not two. I rarely enjoy legal dramas, but exploring the alternate timeline mirror world of our current slow motion societal collapse via the jaded lens of a burnt out criminal defense attorney was compelling, gripping, and frequently hilarious. If you've read TROPIC OF KANSAS, you have an idea of how the characters (and the world) will come out in the end, but that detracts nothing whatsoever from the thrill of the ride.
August 9, 2021
In dystopian fiction, some authors envision a future along the lines of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, a nightmarish post-apocalyptic world in which a trickle of survivors struggle to survive. Others picture a time yet to come when a tyrannical state enslaves those unlucky enough to lie within its borders. The classic examples are Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984. In Rule of Capture, Christopher Brown takes a different approach. He renders a disturbing portrait of dystopia in the making.
War, climate change, and a tectonic shift to the Right
In fact, the novel portrays the United States in the not-too-distant future. Someone very much like a certain former occupant of the Oval Office was elected President. The country went to war to subdue movements for change throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Then, came a catastrophic war with China, which the US lost. The price the country paid was to cede its Pacific Island territories and the state of Hawaii to China.
Meanwhile, the climate crisis has wreaked havoc on America’s heartland. Millions of refugees have been driven from the plains states southward into Texas, and much of the Gulf coast is now underwater. In Texas, where the novel is set, as well as Washington DC, Right-Wing politicians are moving quickly to suppress dissent. This is truly dystopia in the making.
Christopher Brown aptly sums all this up: “the more the old order started to collapse as the climate degenerated, the economy cratered, and the geopolitical order inverted, the most the state worked to preemptively police unrest.” It doesn’t take a great deal of imagination to foresee something like this in America’s future.
“No real law, just raw power, dressed up in a tie”
Houston attorney Donny Kimoe is a former federal prosecutor turned defense counsel. He scrapes by on the meager income he receives from indigent clients assigned to him by the court. Donny spends much of his time “on Monday mornings at the federal courthouse trying to help torture victims remember what happened to them in lockup over the weekend.” Justice is nowhere in sight, because it’s all “legal” under the martial law that’s now in force.
“There is no real law,” a friend remarks. “Just raw power, dressed up in a tie. It’s always been that way. And it’s starting to get a whole lot worse.” However bitter, that statement is literally true, because a coup is underway. The President has lost the election but is pulling every lever in sight in an attempt to overturn the results and stay in power, not just for four years but possibly for forty. Therein lies the endgame of this dystopia in the making.
A top-secret prison for “terrorists”
Now the court has forced Donny to take on the case of Xelina Rocafuerte, a journalist who is documenting the growing protest movement. The government alleges that she is a terrorist who produces recruiting videos for the nonexistent Free Rovers Organization. The “terrorists” are no more than scattered scattered and disconnected bands of activists seeking to protest the Right-Wing takeover. And Xelina is a radical environmentalist and a legitimate journalist, nothing more. But she is threatened with removal of her citizenship and confinement in a top-secret black facility said to be even worse than the refugee camps scattered about the Texas countryside. In his increasingly frantic efforts to defend her, Donny digs deeply into the government’s bogus charges . . . and turns up shocking evidence of the corruption and collusion between the courts and the government. Where men call the shots, and the rule of law is empty, dystopia has truly arrived.
The legal theory at the heart of this tale
The meaning of the novel’s title doesn’t become clear until well into the story, but it’s central to the author’s theme. In law, the “rule of capture” initially referred to “the way you make an animal your property is to mortally wound it in a net or a trap,” as Christopher Brown notes. It’s drawn from common law in England. But it “worked well for other things. Oil, gas, and water, for example. . . The same kind of theory was how the early American Supreme Court [in Johnson v. M’Intosh] was able to rule that the guy who bought his land from the U.S. government had superior title to the guy who bought the same land years earlier from the Indians who had lived there since before the Pilgrims. . . It was the law of the apex predator, the creature who takes what nature lets in.” Property rights as defined in the American legal system are grounded in this concept. And that concept is a bone of contention for the environmental activists Donny Kimoe defends in this novel.
About the author
As the entry in Wikipedia notes, Christopher Brown‘s “first novel, Tropic of Kansas, was published in 2017 and was a finalist for the 2018 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel of the year. His work frequently focuses on issues at the nexus of technology, politics, economics and ecology. His short fiction and criticism has been published in a variety of anthologies and magazines, including MIT Technology Review’s Twelve Tomorrows, LitHub, Tor.com, Reckoning, and The Baffler.” Brown also practices law in Texas, as any reader is likely to surmise from reading Rule of Capture.
War, climate change, and a tectonic shift to the Right
In fact, the novel portrays the United States in the not-too-distant future. Someone very much like a certain former occupant of the Oval Office was elected President. The country went to war to subdue movements for change throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Then, came a catastrophic war with China, which the US lost. The price the country paid was to cede its Pacific Island territories and the state of Hawaii to China.
Meanwhile, the climate crisis has wreaked havoc on America’s heartland. Millions of refugees have been driven from the plains states southward into Texas, and much of the Gulf coast is now underwater. In Texas, where the novel is set, as well as Washington DC, Right-Wing politicians are moving quickly to suppress dissent. This is truly dystopia in the making.
Christopher Brown aptly sums all this up: “the more the old order started to collapse as the climate degenerated, the economy cratered, and the geopolitical order inverted, the most the state worked to preemptively police unrest.” It doesn’t take a great deal of imagination to foresee something like this in America’s future.
“No real law, just raw power, dressed up in a tie”
Houston attorney Donny Kimoe is a former federal prosecutor turned defense counsel. He scrapes by on the meager income he receives from indigent clients assigned to him by the court. Donny spends much of his time “on Monday mornings at the federal courthouse trying to help torture victims remember what happened to them in lockup over the weekend.” Justice is nowhere in sight, because it’s all “legal” under the martial law that’s now in force.
“There is no real law,” a friend remarks. “Just raw power, dressed up in a tie. It’s always been that way. And it’s starting to get a whole lot worse.” However bitter, that statement is literally true, because a coup is underway. The President has lost the election but is pulling every lever in sight in an attempt to overturn the results and stay in power, not just for four years but possibly for forty. Therein lies the endgame of this dystopia in the making.
A top-secret prison for “terrorists”
Now the court has forced Donny to take on the case of Xelina Rocafuerte, a journalist who is documenting the growing protest movement. The government alleges that she is a terrorist who produces recruiting videos for the nonexistent Free Rovers Organization. The “terrorists” are no more than scattered scattered and disconnected bands of activists seeking to protest the Right-Wing takeover. And Xelina is a radical environmentalist and a legitimate journalist, nothing more. But she is threatened with removal of her citizenship and confinement in a top-secret black facility said to be even worse than the refugee camps scattered about the Texas countryside. In his increasingly frantic efforts to defend her, Donny digs deeply into the government’s bogus charges . . . and turns up shocking evidence of the corruption and collusion between the courts and the government. Where men call the shots, and the rule of law is empty, dystopia has truly arrived.
The legal theory at the heart of this tale
The meaning of the novel’s title doesn’t become clear until well into the story, but it’s central to the author’s theme. In law, the “rule of capture” initially referred to “the way you make an animal your property is to mortally wound it in a net or a trap,” as Christopher Brown notes. It’s drawn from common law in England. But it “worked well for other things. Oil, gas, and water, for example. . . The same kind of theory was how the early American Supreme Court [in Johnson v. M’Intosh] was able to rule that the guy who bought his land from the U.S. government had superior title to the guy who bought the same land years earlier from the Indians who had lived there since before the Pilgrims. . . It was the law of the apex predator, the creature who takes what nature lets in.” Property rights as defined in the American legal system are grounded in this concept. And that concept is a bone of contention for the environmental activists Donny Kimoe defends in this novel.
About the author
As the entry in Wikipedia notes, Christopher Brown‘s “first novel, Tropic of Kansas, was published in 2017 and was a finalist for the 2018 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel of the year. His work frequently focuses on issues at the nexus of technology, politics, economics and ecology. His short fiction and criticism has been published in a variety of anthologies and magazines, including MIT Technology Review’s Twelve Tomorrows, LitHub, Tor.com, Reckoning, and The Baffler.” Brown also practices law in Texas, as any reader is likely to surmise from reading Rule of Capture.
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September 28, 2019brown knows his law and knows how to make it both compelling and clear to the reader... he makes the law matter, in a way other legal thrillers do not... because the world that his lawyers have inherited matter. world building through procedure might seem like a grinding task, but brown makes the law sing... this is a spoonful of sugar with your precedent. enjoy!
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November 4, 2023too mid and depressing to continue
February 21, 2021
This one was on my to-read-list for quite a while. I knew I wanted to read it but did not know if this would be a story for me. I was pleasantly surprised. This is a very unique blend of dystopian eco-fiction. It might not seem like it in the beginning, but the story is as much about ecology as it is about law and I loved it!
June 6, 2019
This is a sequel to Tropic of Kansas, a political thriller about a near-future where things are rotten.
This one ramps up the stakes high, with a fractured America under a lawless regime, which sounds like a headline I just read on HuffPost, but the author uses modern politics as a starting point, not as a wink and a nod.
Christopher Brown digs deep into the conspiracy-thriller genre here, starring a lawyer who defends enemies of the state. It's good stuff, with incisive comments on politics and government and society. It's well worth a look. Grab Tropic of Kansas and binge-read them together.
This one ramps up the stakes high, with a fractured America under a lawless regime, which sounds like a headline I just read on HuffPost, but the author uses modern politics as a starting point, not as a wink and a nod.
Christopher Brown digs deep into the conspiracy-thriller genre here, starring a lawyer who defends enemies of the state. It's good stuff, with incisive comments on politics and government and society. It's well worth a look. Grab Tropic of Kansas and binge-read them together.
September 13, 2019
4.5, actually. Beautifully written, intelligent, and something completely new.
August 9, 2020
If John Brunner and William Gibson, with a dash of Rudy Rucker, were to collaborate on a book, this frightening wake up call might be the result.
September 10, 2020
Believable, harrowing, and very much worth a read. If I were still practicing, and if I ever do again, I think I’d want my shingle to share the name of this series - “Dystopian Lawyer.” This book gets a lot of little details about people, the law, and power correct. Don’t miss it.
December 4, 2020
Recent Reads: Rule Of Capture. Christopher Brown's dystopic legal thriller explores a Houston in the throes of climate collapse and with an authoritarian government about to clamp down. Lawyer Donny Kimoe must tread carefully to save a client. But he can't, he wants justice.
January 13, 2020
All I wanted was a fun, light read that brought something different to the table. A legal thriller sounded like it would fit that bill quite nicely. And it probably would have if it didn't take itself so damn seriously. However, if that was the only issue with this book, it wouldn't be getting the rating it's getting.
I think it's best to start off with what I enjoyed. The main storyline had its moments and whenever we got back to it, I was curious to see what would happen next.
As for the rest of the book, it was unfortunately plagued with poor writing that drained the few embers of enjoyment I started to develop. Aspects like the dialogue, for example, felt so unnatural that it made the already improbable world just feel that much more silly. And speaking of the world, I have to note that this was some of the worst world-building I've read in a very long time. Every scene got littered with completely useless information that not only killed the pacing of the entire book but also distracted from what was happening.
Not that I cared that much about any of it anyway. The protagonist was one-dimensional with his sole flaw being a drug addiction that everyone commented on, but which had no apparent negative effects and was seemingly forgotten by the end of the book anyway. The list of secondary characters was bloated, made even worse by the fact that they were as forgettable as the protagonist's drug problem. The few antagonistic characters were complete caricatures and seemed to be made up on the spot to give our hero something to overcome.
With all the above-mentioned issues, it's hardly a surprise that the story suffered as well. Multiple side-plots that ended up leading nowhere were probably the biggest culprit. The single aspect I was looking forward to - the court battles, were underwhelming and anti-climactic. The 2nd act was painfully bloated and glacial while the ending was disappointing, to say the least.
This ended up being a 1.5-star that would normally get rounded up since I didn't actually hate it, but even with the somewhat decent main plotline, this had nothing going for it. The world, while possible, felt improbable. The characters had no life to them and it even failed at being a competent thriller. Give this a skip as I should have.
I think it's best to start off with what I enjoyed. The main storyline had its moments and whenever we got back to it, I was curious to see what would happen next.
As for the rest of the book, it was unfortunately plagued with poor writing that drained the few embers of enjoyment I started to develop. Aspects like the dialogue, for example, felt so unnatural that it made the already improbable world just feel that much more silly. And speaking of the world, I have to note that this was some of the worst world-building I've read in a very long time. Every scene got littered with completely useless information that not only killed the pacing of the entire book but also distracted from what was happening.
Not that I cared that much about any of it anyway. The protagonist was one-dimensional with his sole flaw being a drug addiction that everyone commented on, but which had no apparent negative effects and was seemingly forgotten by the end of the book anyway. The list of secondary characters was bloated, made even worse by the fact that they were as forgettable as the protagonist's drug problem. The few antagonistic characters were complete caricatures and seemed to be made up on the spot to give our hero something to overcome.
With all the above-mentioned issues, it's hardly a surprise that the story suffered as well. Multiple side-plots that ended up leading nowhere were probably the biggest culprit. The single aspect I was looking forward to - the court battles, were underwhelming and anti-climactic. The 2nd act was painfully bloated and glacial while the ending was disappointing, to say the least.
This ended up being a 1.5-star that would normally get rounded up since I didn't actually hate it, but even with the somewhat decent main plotline, this had nothing going for it. The world, while possible, felt improbable. The characters had no life to them and it even failed at being a competent thriller. Give this a skip as I should have.
September 17, 2019
"If we want to build a better future, we need to build it on law.”
“If we want to build a better future, we need to take it.”
- Christopher Brown, Rule of Capture
It is the near future in an America, that is almost, but not entirely like our America. Things are going south and personal freedoms are being eroded away--all in the name of security and the good of the country. Check out my twitter thread detailing the world building in Rule of Capture: https://twitter.com/M_A_Frasca/status...
The tension between 'build it on law' and 'take it' forms the center of the plot. Public defender Donny Kimoe is torn by that tension as he represents an unjustly accused reporter. As he desperately pulls on threads, the curtain unravels and he uncovers more than he bargained for.
This novel hits close to home (If this goes on...) and is a highly recommended read.
A few notes:
- You don't have to have read Tropic of Kansas first. In fact, given the world building, I would suggest reading Rule of Capture first.
- If you are looking for a screed specifically against the Republican Party and/or Trump, you will be disappointed. The politicians and parties are unnamed and unidentifiable. And this is as it should be. What's important in the story is the way liberties and freedoms can slide away...and most people would be fine with that as long as they feel a little safer. Until it is too late.
- The novel is filled with many easter eggs. For instance "The Mayor Donald Barthelme Memorial Turnpike." Look it up. It's a hoot.
Pairs well with Naomi Klein's book about disaster capitalism, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism and Robert Towne's movie script Chinatown.
“If we want to build a better future, we need to take it.”
- Christopher Brown, Rule of Capture
It is the near future in an America, that is almost, but not entirely like our America. Things are going south and personal freedoms are being eroded away--all in the name of security and the good of the country. Check out my twitter thread detailing the world building in Rule of Capture: https://twitter.com/M_A_Frasca/status...
The tension between 'build it on law' and 'take it' forms the center of the plot. Public defender Donny Kimoe is torn by that tension as he represents an unjustly accused reporter. As he desperately pulls on threads, the curtain unravels and he uncovers more than he bargained for.
This novel hits close to home (If this goes on...) and is a highly recommended read.
A few notes:
- You don't have to have read Tropic of Kansas first. In fact, given the world building, I would suggest reading Rule of Capture first.
- If you are looking for a screed specifically against the Republican Party and/or Trump, you will be disappointed. The politicians and parties are unnamed and unidentifiable. And this is as it should be. What's important in the story is the way liberties and freedoms can slide away...and most people would be fine with that as long as they feel a little safer. Until it is too late.
- The novel is filled with many easter eggs. For instance "The Mayor Donald Barthelme Memorial Turnpike." Look it up. It's a hoot.
Pairs well with Naomi Klein's book about disaster capitalism, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism and Robert Towne's movie script Chinatown.
September 9, 2021
This is not a perfect book, but it is very good. Ordinarily, its witty and engaging quality of writing would net it 4 out of 5 stars. However, given its extensive worldbuilding and relevant subject matter, I'm bumping that up to a perfect score. Though the United States depicted here diverged from our own some decades ago, thus making its setting an alternate rather than a future history, this hardly diminishes its contemporary import. In a way, the slight narrative distance from our own era allows it to describe US society with a greater degree of insight, pointing at its greater historical trends rather than the superficial details of the present time. You will find no Trump here, no Biden, no Covid-19 pandemic. Yet in spite of all this, the depicted environment is still chillingly contemporary. It is for this reason that I hesitate to call this book 'dystopian'; it merely extrapolates those dire developments we should all be aware of by now. While this results in a bad and shitty future, it is not bereft of optimism altogether. The latter is something we require as well, though I hope it is no less realistic than the rest of this forecast. Basically, if you have any interest in US society from a legal-political perspective, this book is well worth reading.
February 21, 2022
This near-future science fiction legal thriller is almost distressingly on the nose and has a creepingly prescient feel about it, especially given real ongoing trends in the uses of legal mechanisms to enable and enforce increasingly dystopian ideologies and protect and advance corporate interests while disempowering individuals and communities so that they have no recourse while suffering the disastrous effects.
In a near-future USA filled with climate refugees and predatory capitalists looking for profits, a grubby and downtrodden and slightly tarnished public defender is handed the case of a young woman arrested as a revolutionary. The odds and the rules and the entire game are stacked against him, and her, and everyone like them, but he doggedly pursues some sort of justice for his client, despite everyone he knows pushing back against him, so pretty much your basic legal thriller formula, except with a potent speculative dimension.
The process whereby civil rights are stripped away, ignored and overthrown is so crushingly banal and true-to-life and the vision of an environmentally and morally toxic US is so plausible that it's a good thing the book is fast-paced, readable and has a flawed but endearing protagonist or the book would be unbearable. It engages so effectively with the rigged game of power and money that enables the pursuit of profits while causing global catastrophe that it's mildly nauseating, but does so in a way that shows up how hollow Neal Stephenson's Termination Shock really was, and even arguably presents a grim view of the struggle, and the human costs, involved in overcoming entrenched interests and the overwhelming influence of money, that Kim Stanley Robinson glossed over in Ministry Of The Future.
BUT it is an entertaining read, and I say that as someone who gave up on legal thrillers after two or three John Grisham novels turned me off the genre completely. In a real sense, this is a book about where the rubber meets the road in terms of the obstacles to change and reform, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't want to be hopeless, this version of optimism feels both highly qualified and earned and revolutionary in a way that the optimism in Termination Shock was essentially a function of wealth and privelege.
In a near-future USA filled with climate refugees and predatory capitalists looking for profits, a grubby and downtrodden and slightly tarnished public defender is handed the case of a young woman arrested as a revolutionary. The odds and the rules and the entire game are stacked against him, and her, and everyone like them, but he doggedly pursues some sort of justice for his client, despite everyone he knows pushing back against him, so pretty much your basic legal thriller formula, except with a potent speculative dimension.
The process whereby civil rights are stripped away, ignored and overthrown is so crushingly banal and true-to-life and the vision of an environmentally and morally toxic US is so plausible that it's a good thing the book is fast-paced, readable and has a flawed but endearing protagonist or the book would be unbearable. It engages so effectively with the rigged game of power and money that enables the pursuit of profits while causing global catastrophe that it's mildly nauseating, but does so in a way that shows up how hollow Neal Stephenson's Termination Shock really was, and even arguably presents a grim view of the struggle, and the human costs, involved in overcoming entrenched interests and the overwhelming influence of money, that Kim Stanley Robinson glossed over in Ministry Of The Future.
BUT it is an entertaining read, and I say that as someone who gave up on legal thrillers after two or three John Grisham novels turned me off the genre completely. In a real sense, this is a book about where the rubber meets the road in terms of the obstacles to change and reform, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't want to be hopeless, this version of optimism feels both highly qualified and earned and revolutionary in a way that the optimism in Termination Shock was essentially a function of wealth and privelege.
January 1, 2020
This is the first in a new series (Dystopian Lawyer) set in the same world as Tropic of Kansas (which you do not have to read first-this is fine as a standalone). Donny Kimoe is a lawyer defending political dissidents in secret courts where the rules are rigged in favor of the government-these defendants basically have no chance at all. If found guilty, they can be sent to black interrogation camps, imprisoned for indeterminate time periods or even executed. The American government spies on its citizens constantly and is on its way to becoming completely totalitarian. The land is suffering from climate change and America’s own citizens are immigrants to different areas of the country. This is an utterly fascinating and scary world, fully developed and very complex. The law that Donny argues is pieces of our existing law and he tries to use it to get around the government destruction of the rule of law. The courts and story reminded me of our immigration courts today and also how the government could start treating citizens by simply declaring us terrorists. Great book!! I am thrilled that this is going to be a series and I am eagerly awaiting the second entry in the world of the Dystopian Lawyer! Highly recommend, definite top book of the year!!
February 16, 2020
A horrifying look into where the US is going if it keeps doing what its doing. Takes the horrors of the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations - the endless wars, the torture, the surveillance, the extrajudicial murders, the naked corruption and lawlessness - dials it up to 11, and spins it into a plausible future horror story framed as a legal drama. Well worth reading.
December 28, 2019
I loved Brown's previous Tropic of Kansas and I loved this novel. A deeply researched dystopian legal thriller that thinks hard about how the law could function an increasingly authoritarian American state in an increasingly insecure world. The most realistic-feeling dystopian novel I've ever read.
June 29, 2023
The dystopian legal and governmental systems developed in the book are both concerning and interesting. However, the characters don’t quite give enough to fully flush out the world, losing some of the believability and diminishing some of the book’s messages.
September 11, 2019
A legal thriller set in a near-future dystopia. This is an engaging read that leaves you with lots of real-world philosophy to consider.
November 8, 2019
This was really hard to put down. Think of it like better call saul meets william gibson.
Well plotted, occasionally drifts into clich or jargon. A weird book I'm glad exists.
Well plotted, occasionally drifts into clich or jargon. A weird book I'm glad exists.
May 18, 2020
A better title for this book might be, Rule of Cliches. Unfortunately, this book is a mess, a sometimes entertaining mess, but still an mess all the same that I didn't feel like finishing.
February 15, 2021
It is not easy to read near-future dystopian SF set in an America waiting for the outcome of a contested election after the fascist incumbent loses but the Texas Gov. invalidates the electoral votes and it goes to SCOTUS. Complicating matters is ecological, economic, and sociological collapse brought on by losing a war with China, but if you swapped that backstory out and replaced it with a global pandemic....
While that’s background world building, and only tangentially ties to the main plot of a lawyer working to release his client, a young woman branded a terrorist for journalism work among protesters (also hitting pretty damn close to home), much of the book is remarkably uncomfortably prescient.
We came far too close to the state of the country as presented here, and could still tip over into it if the next wannabe fascist dictator is more savvy and less volatile than the last. Definitely an uncomfortable read, and if the sequel wasn’t one of this year’s P.K. Dick Award nominees, I may not have made it past the first few chapters.
That said - it was well written, and there’s an element of fighting for something better against all odds that gives it a faint hope punk feel. It was enough to get me through, and hope that the sequel continues along those lines.
While that’s background world building, and only tangentially ties to the main plot of a lawyer working to release his client, a young woman branded a terrorist for journalism work among protesters (also hitting pretty damn close to home), much of the book is remarkably uncomfortably prescient.
We came far too close to the state of the country as presented here, and could still tip over into it if the next wannabe fascist dictator is more savvy and less volatile than the last. Definitely an uncomfortable read, and if the sequel wasn’t one of this year’s P.K. Dick Award nominees, I may not have made it past the first few chapters.
That said - it was well written, and there’s an element of fighting for something better against all odds that gives it a faint hope punk feel. It was enough to get me through, and hope that the sequel continues along those lines.
April 12, 2021
I just loved this book!! It was so interesting and kept me on the edge of my seat, face glued to the pages, the whole book. Loved it!! It’s a fascinating story with some characters I hated and some that I was cheering on. I highly recommend this - especially if you like those government/legal puzzles. Great balance of mc character personal life and murder and suspense and excitement.
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August 20, 2019Reviewed by Michelle Newby Lancaster for Lone Star Literary Life.
August 11, 2019
This was terrifying because we don't seem too far from this situation.
February 27, 2020
Notes:
Interesting ideas but it failed to pass suspension of belief. A drug addict lawyer that wants to protect framed victims in a crooked system. Cool. Except the only cause and effect seem to happen within the desires of the corrupt and there's not much of C&E for various choices made by Donny. You can't even say that Donny is all that noble when he makes choices to feed his drug addiction over anything else.
The story was not written for the average person to read and understand. There's no draw to fall into the story. There aren't enough explanations to make the characters, world and "differences" stand out.
Interesting ideas but it failed to pass suspension of belief. A drug addict lawyer that wants to protect framed victims in a crooked system. Cool. Except the only cause and effect seem to happen within the desires of the corrupt and there's not much of C&E for various choices made by Donny. You can't even say that Donny is all that noble when he makes choices to feed his drug addiction over anything else.
The story was not written for the average person to read and understand. There's no draw to fall into the story. There aren't enough explanations to make the characters, world and "differences" stand out.
June 9, 2019
Very well written, but possibly too legally oriented dystopic future thriller. I was unable to fully get the nuances of documents filed with the courts, precedents, and the subtleties of what was going on in the [arguably kangaroo] court storyline. The non-court elements were very good, however, though I'll also say that the ending was perhaps a bit unsatisfying, though it's clear the author is setting up for a subsequent book in this world.
Note: I read an unedited early reviewer copy sent by the publisher.
Note: I read an unedited early reviewer copy sent by the publisher.
September 28, 2019
brown knows his law and knows how to make it both compelling and clear to the reader... he makes the law matter, in a way other legal thrillers do not... because the world that his lawyers have inherited matter. world building through procedure might seem like a grinding task, but brown makes the law sing... this is a spoonful of sugar with your precedent. enjoy!
August 15, 2023
This feels oddly early-draft - the plot ideas are there but are spliced together haphazardly, the prose is often unnecessarily clumsy. But that's forgivable, because it's the world building that counts, and it's the most believable vision of a dystopian America I've ever read.
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