Software engineer Smith discovers the reappearance of a colleague, E.R. Richman, who disappeared two years earlier. Richman was found in the Interdict Zone and hospitalized. Smith visits him but Richman is uncommunicative. Shortly afterwards, Richman is removed from the hospital. Curious about his colleague's disappearance but unable to contact him, Smith decides to investigate. Having learned that Richman first visited the Interdict Zone via a VR video game based on a battle that occurred during the Tribal Wars, Smith does the same. As a result of his experience in the game, he visits the Interdict Zone in person. Thus begins an adventure that will change his life.
The novel will appeal to readers interested in technology, video games, artificial intelligence, and the technological society. It will also appeal to critics of technology who are suspicious of technology and all things artificial. The story contains robots and artificial people (genetics) but is otherwise very much down to earth-an earth destroyed by war. The excursion is from the walled-in high-tech society of Aristos to the wild lands of the Interdict Zone. Aristos is in many ways the ideal, a society where the job of citizens is to consume products and be entertained. Work is optional. The society is managed by a humane AI known as MasterTele. The Interdict Zone is a once suburban society destroyed by warfare, spacious, and covered with ruins being taken over by vegetation and occupied by tribals.
