Subject: Review: "Protektor" by Charles Platt

From: "Stevens R. Miller" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 07:25:16 GMT

"Protektor" by Charles Platt.
		Review by Stevens R. Miller

This review is in the public domain.

	A backlash has developed, in recent years, against a kind of science
fiction protagonist oft-referred to as "the competent man."  Robert
Heinlein, if not its inventor, was its master craftsman.  His hero (or his
hero's father figure) always knew the answer, always picked the lock, always
hit the target.  And, he *always* kept his powder dry.  So it is refreshing
that Charles Platt's title character, a super-policeman software hacker
named Tom McCray, is a flawed fellow.  Unfortunately, no one but the reader
seems to notice McCray's flaws, until the very end of the book.

	McCray is an Anomalyst (popularly known as a "protektor"), employed
by the pervasive-but-benign "Protektorate" to solve the rare-but-deadly
problems introduced into the central control computers of the future's
automated worlds.  Harking back to the "one riot, one ranger" school, McCray
is the sole force of law and order sent to Agorima when a few "system
malfunctions" (such as mid-air collisions) raise doubts about that planet's
all-important "Mains."

	He is accompanied by an "auton" named Lee.  Lee is a laconic
humanoid robot, able to interface directly with nearly any "lek"
(electronic) system.  (And here I simply must warn those who find gratuitous
substitution of "k" for "ch" and hard "c" to proceed with caution; Mr. Platt
seems to love this construction.)  In a relationship perhaps borrowed from
"The Day the Earth Stood Still," it is Lee who actually holds the highest
office.  Protektor McCray contributes the human intuition Lee lacks.  But it
is the auton, acting as an arm of the government, that sees to it that the
inviolable "Human Instruction Set" (effectively the universal constitution)
is enforced.  Always helpful, politely inflexible, quietly ominous, Lee is
one part Gort, and one part R. Daneel Olivaw.

	The story, however, is about McCray.  McCray, like Lee, is also
wired for full multimedia, a feature that permits him to be, virtually,
anywhere, or anyone, at any time.  For a detective (or "tektive"), this is a
powerful tool and the author has explored its possibilities very well.  The
book's most inventive scene involves the confusion arising from linking
McCray's sensory implants to the signals from another similarly equipped
person who is, at that time, experiencing a virtual reality.  Science
fiction's competent man would sort this out by reflex action.  McCray,
however, is utterly fooled, reacting instead by emotion and impatience.

	Indeed, impatience seems to be McCray's defining quality and it's
what robs him of the competence he might otherwise achieve.  He understands
the technology he's investigating and uses it effectively.  Yet he interacts
with every human he meets by shaking his fist, pounding the table, and
saying things like, "Look, I don't have time to play these games."  Well,
all right, he doesn't.  The computers on Agorima are degrading faster every
day and lives are very much at stake.  The planet could no more function
without its Mains than Manhattan could survive without its traffic lights.

	But does he have to sputter so much?  It's a frustrating feature of
the tale, because so many of those McCray sputters at (Eva Kurimoto,
beautiful journalist made reluctant sidekick; Joe Belman, weak-willed do-
gooder; and a long list of corrupt businessfolk and other bad eggs) keep
telling him (and us) how bigger-than-life he is.  But he's not.  He is, at
times, maddeningly meek.  Repeatedly, when confronting witnesses and
suspects, he tells them not about the flaming bodies dropping into
children's playgrounds, but of "several malfunctions."  Okay, "serious"
ones.

	Now, it turns out that this is an aspect of just who Tom McCray is
deep down, and of how he came to be a Protektor.  But, that is saved for the
last three pages of the book.  By that time, it's too little, too late.  His
odd priorities (a squeak in Lee's hip drives him nearly to distraction, for
example) make no sense in the face of his mission.  Further, the beneficent
Human Instruction Set (which owes much to Asimov's Three Laws) would seem to
make personal liberty the sole purpose of government.  Nonetheless, McCray
tramples over privacy, liberty, and property, as he wanders around in
pursuit of his villain.  When asked to justify his crass behavior, he's
likely to deny having time for someone else's tantrum.  Before the end, his
contradictory ways are admitted, but it's a footnote, at best.

	Mr. Platt's future world is devoid of both want and mortality.  As
McCray roams around in it, we can see a vision of what such coddling
conditions might yield.  And, mostly, it would appear to be masturbation.
Platt's "Free Zone" suggested that the best government would be no
government; that faith in your neighbors was liberty's best bet.  Here, he
speculates about life after a world of plenty makes
government-as-controller-of-scarce-resources a thing of the past.  Endless
bounty rids humanity of the need to work.  Instead of neighborly harmony,
however, Mr. Platt's Utopia is a bacchanalia.  It's a striking alternative
to the intellectually superior Spacers of Asimov's Dawn, particularly given
that author's frequent criticism of humanity as an unsophisticated herd.  I
don't know if Mr.  Platt would want to live in the world he describes, but I
find his rendition the more likely, and therefore the more compelling.

	Overall, "Protektor" was more promise than delivery.  It is
sprinkled with ideas ranging from the neat, to the fascinating, to the
profound.  Yet, most of these are never developed because they must make
room for each other.  The book's most unsatisfying aspect is that it makes
up (or tries to) for this lack of development by scattering boxes of pure
exposition across its pages.  Apparently intended to be excerpts from
authoritative texts, they read more like a writer's notes, prepared in order
to organize the backdrop against which the actual story might be told.
Popping up in mid-sentence, they always contribute helpful information, but
they do so in the most extreme violation of the "show, don't tell" rule you
may ever see.  I would have preferred more story.  In particular, I would
have preferred more story drawn from fewer ideas.

	The Protektor gets the job done and, if you find his way of doing it
as exasperating as I did, his final moments of self-examination will salve
your tortured soul.  But, he needs to calm down, think a bit more, and be as
competent as everyone keeps telling him he is.  If Charles Platt can do that
for McCray's next adventure, it will be worth the reading.

	Two stars out of four.
%A Platt, Charles
%T Protektor
%D February 1996
%G ISBN 0-380-78431-9
%I Avon Books, Avonova
%O Paperback, US$5.99
%P 294 pp.

--
Stevens R. Miller              http://www.interport.net/~lex/