Title: 2056: Meltdown
Subtitle: The Lost Rule of Law
Author: Philip Altman
Publisher: XlibrisUK
ISBN: 9781543488432
Pages: 304
Genre: Fiction / Thriller / Crime
Reviewed by: Dave Bishop
Pacific Book Review
Philip Altman’s fictional look into the future is dire. It’s 2056 and around the world things are going from bad to worse. Crime and anarchy are rampant. What’s worse, when people do come into contact with the law, they seldom come into contact with justice. The judicial system has gone sour. Bribery is the order of the day. Judges make their rulings not on guilt or innocence but rather on the degree of recompense they personally receive from the plaintiff or the accused.
What has brought about these terrible conditions? In addition to a multitude of problems having a deleterious effect on society, the major misfortune is the lack of judicial independence. The primary culprit in this author’s scenario is the fact that judges’ salaries are controlled by politicians, and therefore subject to the whims of government. This creates a situation where judges are continually being under compensated and therefore easy targets for corruption.
As author Philip Altman points out, in such an environment it is the common man who suffers most. Those unable to financially grease the wheels of justice get separated from many forms of legal aid and even from the greatest aid of all, fairness under the law. This is the premise which anchors this author’s imaginative look some forty years or so into the future.
Fortunately in this fictional world, there are still some good judges and governmental officials left. They get together to try to right society’s wrongs by initiating a system which doesn’t put the judiciary under the command of local government. The British Prime Minister, the U.S. President, and hard-charging blokes from the rank and file of the legal system, set out to put together a more honest and beneficial new world order. Before you know it, the ineffectual United Nations is being replaced by something which more closely resembles the goals and aspirations of the original League of Nations. A federal system of government, somewhat similar to America’s, is being looked into as a potential governing option for the world, as are a singular monetary system, global police force and more.
Rather than laying out all of the above in a scholarly diatribe or boring polemic, Altman has chosen to wrap his thesis in a rousing adventure yarn. The problems of uncontrolled immigration, overpopulation, climate change, the collapse of the court system and more, are all woven into an international thriller that pits a team of idealistic legal-eagles against dictators, spies, and villains of various stripes. The good guys encounter muggings, assassination attempts, coup d’états, plus a potpourri of futuristic gadgets such as invisible cloaks, anti-brainwashing headgear, and other paraphernalia which would make James Bond seem positively old school.
Where plot is concerned, one must definitely be into the willing suspension of disbelief as a cacophony of coincidences pile one upon another. You may be happy to hear though, that sex is still around in 2056. But in this tale, unlike many others today, it’s modestly alluded to rather than graphically portrayed. And whether intended or not, a degree of whimsy seeps in and out of the narrative that occasionally softens its overall activist call to arms. However, unlike other novelists who are merely content to issue dire warnings of calamities to come, you’ll definitely find proposed solutions from the author of 2056: Meltdown.
