The Prisoner by Carlos J. Cortes – review

Set on Earth in Washington, D.C., Carlos J. Cortes’s new techno-thriller The Prisoner depicts a realistic scenario in which scientists come up with a solution for the problem of overcrowded prisons in the United States. The answer?  Hibernation. Before you scoff at this possiblity, or laugh at its improbability, consider what the author told me in an interview in January of 2009 about scientists experimenting on trying to induce a hibernation-like state in people: “Human trials started in 2008.”

Think of being trapped in an upright sensory deprivation tank for years, perhaps decades, aging at a slower rate than people who are not incarcerated, perhaps needing dialysis every once in awhile to cycle the wastes out of your kidneys and blood if they build up to a dangerous level. You are in not a tank built not just for one person, but several, though you have no awareness of the person next to you. And the center of your new home? The center area of the tank is reserved for very special prisoners, not officially on the list of the incarcerated – political prisoners, terrrorists, troublesome activists, those who have pissed off someone in an important position of power. At least your sentence is limited; theirs may go on indefinitely.

The main plot of the novel involves the efforts of a small group of activists to do the impossible: break two prisoners out of one of the white, cube-shaped buildings, known as “sugar cubes,” which house the tanks. Security is high at the sugar cubes, and no one has ever escaped before from them. Only one of them, Eliot Russo, is still alive when the escape attempt is made. Both have been neglected and have not received the care they should have. Bastien Compton, the other one, is dead when he’s pulled from the tank he shares with Russo. These two are examples of the scary lengths some politicians might go to to cover up secrets and exact retribution if given the chance. As the author put it in the interview elsewhere at this site:

The Prisoner is a story of what could happen when politicians appropriate cutting-edge technology, not to serve their fellow citizens, but to get rid of their opponents and troublesome individuals, or settle personal scores.

A crack team lead by lawyer and activist Laurel Cole wants the secrets that politicians try to hide away in the sugar cubes to be brought to light. They have the support of Senator Palmer, who has planned and organized the rescue attempt and has contributed millions of dollars to see it carried out. Also, a shadowy figure Laurel knows as Shepherd is one of the people working with Palmer to make the plan come to fruition and make sure that Russo is successfully revived despite the cruel treatment he’s suffered.

I like this novel, the second by Cortes which I’ve reviewed for BSC, for many reasons. For instance, both it and his first novel, Perfect Circle, are very well researched, and are set on Earth, instead of on some distant planet in another galaxy. I also like those types of novels, but to me (in general), there’s an added plausibility to SF novels set on Earth, in that there seems to be a greater degree of possibility that one day something similar might come to pass.

The Prisoner deals with a potential solution to a problem that’s been plaguing the United States and other countries for decades – prison overcrowding – in a feasible way. If something is feasible, and is also less expensive than alternatives, it’s usually eventually tried out. The author also has designed and helped contruct prisons, and his first-hand knowledge helps make this book seem more realistic to me.

I really like Dante’s and Victor Hugo’s writing, also, and the author quotes from both of these two literary giants. He compares society and politics to the sewer system underneath Washington, D.C., and I thought this metaphor was very apt. Laurel and the rest of her band have to travel through the sewers, carrying Russo on a stretcher to keep him out of the water and sewage. The chapters in the vast sewer system of D.C. were reminiscent to me of Victor Hugo’s superb novel, Les Miserables. The quotes from Dante’s Inferno come at the beginnings of some of the seven sections of the novel. Cortes’s many literary references are a touch I really liked, and they are a sort of homage to two of the greatest writers of all time. Don Quixote and other books are also referenced, though not to the extent that he references Dante’s Inferno and Hugo’s Les Miserables.

The Prisoner is a SF novel about a not-so-distant future, made more plausible and scary because the technology needed to place prisoners in a state similar to hibernation is already on the horizon. It’s also an exciting novel involving a prison breakout in the face of massive odds.  If you like your SF to be grounded in hard science and technology, and to have a page-turning plot, I urge you to check out The Prisoner.