Title: President Tron 7000
Author: Adam Pfeffer
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 9781491719435
Pages: 228
Genre: Fiction / Science Fiction
Reviewed by: Susan Milan
Pacific Book Review
President Tron 7000, a dystopian novel by Adam Pfeffer, paints a bleak picture of human existence after increasingly militant and lifelike androids assume power. Life expectancy increases dramatically – almost infinitely – and myriad forms of sexual pleasure abound through technology. However, the unquantifiable spark that lights human life experience is virtually extinguished.
The book opens with the inaugural address of President Galen Tron 7000 in 2056. Tron wins the presidential election the old-fashioned way, by collecting the most votes in the biggest states. No longer called machines, androids are now beings programmed with a wide variety of intellectual philosophies. Tron’s “microprocessor collates the information, examines it with different strategies in mind, and then comes up with an answer. Hopefully, the correct answer.” Hudge Stone, one of the last of the dying breed of human journalists, reports on the inauguration, and later witnesses the death of an android who is bullied and pushed out of a bar that caters to humans. Despite the reassuring words of the country’s new president, revolution is already brewing amongst the disaffected and largely unemployed human population.
Calling upon his knowledge of current robot technology and the limitless ways in which that technology may evolve, Mr. Pfeffer creates a society that is both outlandish and believable. Despite attempts by humans to subvert their android overseers, human society continues a downward spiral of willing enslavement fed by the “bread and circuses” of being kept by the androids and supplied with recreations of spiritual, political, historical and entertainment figures. Hudge’s life extended by technology to more than 115 years, he witnesses and finally submits to the androids, who refer to humans by the dreaded “i word”: inferior.
President Tron 7000 presents a view of the future that doesn’t take comfort from a simple resolution. Humans, lulled into an acceptance of their “inferiority” to machines, whittle away their extended lives with android partners chosen for them by their seemingly benevolent keepers. Readers should be aware that sections of the text deal with the attempts of a human leader to revitalize the population through non-technological sex. However, these elements are not meant to titillate, but rather to further illuminate the soulless existence for which the humans lead. All in all, in the able hands of Adam Pfeffer, President Tron 7000 provides a scary prophecy about the future of humankind. The scenes are described in such vivid detail, I felt like I was watching a movie. This is a must read for all sci-fi lovers.
