The War Against Chaos by Anita Mason
"The War Against Chaos" explores the themes of corruption, marginalization, and resistance in a dystopian society dominated by a powerful Company that prioritizes control over individuality. The narrative follows Hare, a clerk entangled in a corporate cover-up after an accident leads to the death of a bookseller during the Company’s expansion efforts. As he is scapegoated for the Company’s misdeeds, Hare finds refuge among the Marginals, individuals who resist the Company’s oppressive regime and value open dialogue and creativity.
In this underground world, he encounters the Diggers, a group living beneath the streets, comprising diverse talents like architects and artists, who have been forced into hiding due to their anti-government stance. The story escalates as the Marginals and Diggers unite to challenge the Company and its corrupt enforcers, represented by the police. This collective uprising, particularly fueled by the energy of the Diggers' youth, leads to significant conflict, culminating in their retreat to a hazardous and isolated area known as "the Zone."
Ultimately, the narrative presents a grim perspective on the struggle against systemic oppression, leaving readers with a sense of unresolved tension and a bleak outlook on the future of those embroiled in the fight against chaos.
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Subject Terms
The War Against Chaos
First published: 1988
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Science fiction—dystopia
Time of work: The mid-to late twenty-first century
Locale: Unspecified
The Plot
In the process of razing several buildings to make way for more warehouses for contraband materials, the Company accidentally burns an old bookseller to death. Jacobs, an associate near the top of the Company’s corporate ladder, knows of the accident and is blackmailed by Detective Koberg, a corrupt police officer, who has it in his power to ruin Jacobs. Hare is a lowly clerk who copies the Company’s steady flow of misinformation and is transferred to another department each time he figures out the filing system of his current department. He becomes Jacobs’ scapegoat in the falsifying of documents critical to the accident report. Anita Mason chose Hare’s name carefully. Metaphorically, his long, strong legs enable him to move quickly and far in his fast-accumulating awareness of the extent of corruption within the Company and its Big Brother-like Council.
Eerily contemporary, The War Against Chaos makes much of marginality. Those who predate the Company’s program in their thinking, who still value individuality, open discussion, and imagination, are called Marginals. They live apart from and are shunned by the majority. When Hare is indicted for his alleged theft of the documents Jacobs was rewriting, he is ousted and joins the Marginals. With them he finds warmth, humor, and a growing dread of the Company.
From the world of marginality, it is but a short way to the underground retreat of the Diggers, who live below the streets in tunnels and subsist on stockpiled, very old provisions. Among the Diggers are architects, doctors, musicians, and poets, all viewed as antigovernment and therefore literally pushed underground. Hare enters their world accidentally, but once there, he learns of the profound nature of the Company’s corruption. He reads documents that set forth the perverse thinking common to dystopias.
When Jacobs’ blackmailer, Koberg, stumbles into the Diggers’ world in his greed and desire for revenge, confrontation becomes inevitable. The police are the Company’s accomplices because the Company supplies them with weapons and crowd-control chemicals. The Diggers “come out,” and the Marginals, recognizing their common plight, join forces with them, beginning a revolution.
The Diggers’ teenage subpopulation, collectively called “the Bag” because they all wear green backpacks, add humor and pathos to the story. Often wearing strips of brown paper on the cuts acquired while shaving with the help of distorted stockpiled mirrors, they must learn to harness their youthful anger and energy. Detective Koberg is trapped in the Diggers’ world because of his ignorance of the maze of tunnels. With his help, the Bag become responsible sharpshooters, ignite courage and commitment in their elders, and play a major role in the revolution.
The revolt does not end nicely. Following violent confrontations with the police, the subpopulations are forced to retreat into what is known as “the Zone,” a walled-off area as dreaded as any leper colony. There, it is soon and painfully learned, a contaminated nuclear power station has existed for years. Those banished to the Zone slowly sicken and die. Mason gives no hopeful final sentence and leaves the reader to assume that the Company will continue its corrupt machinations.