Stepfather Bank

First-rate satire with a serious core - Library Journal "A highly original cautionary tale . . . on more levels than the reader might first suspect." - Analog"It stands as savvy satire. It also stands as a diverting, thinking person's thriller." - The Virginian-Pilot "A jaunty, corkscrew ride through a skewed future" - Alan Dean FosterThe year is 2110, and the Bank owns everything.It's called simply The Bank because its full name is six hundred and sixty-six words long. Over its first ten years it secretly gained controlling interests in Google, Disney, China National Petroleum, Deutsche Bank, Colombia, Fox, CNN, Egypt, and the Mafia, among many other international corporations, cartels, and governments.After the Last War and the Big Overheat, The Bank finally emerged into the open, to exercise what had long been predicted as the final stage of economic evolution: monopoly. By the year 2110 it has owned Earth (et cetera) for four generations. It's eliminated armies and armaments, governments and war, cash and crime, discrimination and religion. It's transformed the world genetically, scientifically, culturally, and economically. It employs, is owed by, and so rules everyone. Everyone in the world.Except Monaghan Burlew.Burlew's styled himself as a freelance poet since the day he turned fifteen, completed minimum schooling, and became of Working Age. Since that day he's never earned a currency unit. Therefore, by law -- and the Bank is rigidly legalistic -- he pays no percentages and owes no taxes. He owns nothing, and buys nothing, so the Bank can't "assist the client in question to find the most suitable employment" -- i.e., tell him where and at what to work.He's the only man on the planet outside the System. The only one who's free.This, unfortunately, does not make him heroic, or even appetizing.He also has no idea that very shortly, he will be Earth's last hope of surviving an interplanetary catastrophe....STEPFATHER BANK was originally published by St. Martin's Press in hard and soft cover editions.

Author: David Poyer

Publisher: Northampton House Press

Publication Date: Nov 18, 2016

Number of Pages: 261 pages

Language: English

Binding: Paperback

ISBN-10: 1937997774

ISBN-13: 9781937997779