(CCLaP publishes mini-reviews of both books and movies on a regular basis, none lasting more than a few hundred words. Click here for the full list.)

Oath of Fealty (novel; 1982)
By Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

For those too young to remember, Niven and Pournelle (both accomplished hard-science-fiction writers themselves) teamed up throughout the 1970s and '80s to produce a series of novels that crossed over into mainstream Michael-Crichton-style success. Although Hammer of the Gods is their most popular (concerning an asteroid hitting the earth, and what these two scientist-authors imagine would really happen in such a case), my favorite is Oath of Fealty, which imagines a private corporation building an entire enclosed utopian city next-door to Los Angeles, like Disney's actual Celebration, Florida but expanded to an insane degree, and with a roof and walls covering the entire thing. What would such a society be like? What problems would arise from such a situation? And how would the LA municipal government take to such a thing? Niven and Pournelle contemplate some fascinating answers here, as well as painting a vivid "world of tomorrow" where people are connected to the web via biological implants, among other modern wonders. Out of all their books, this is the one I recommend the most.

Out of 10: 9.0