S. W. Southwick. The Untethered. Roble Arrow, 2017. E-book.

The Untethered, judging from the name of the publisher above, must be a self-published work. If so, it is one of the best self-published efforts I have read. I am surprised that no one picked it up…that is, unless the author wanted to do it on his own. Perhaps we can infer from the story that he tells that that is precisely what Mr. Southwick wanted to do.

The “Untethered” are actually a group of people who through a variety of circumstances come together to build a superior aircraft. They have to overcome quite a bit besides gravity to do it, though, and that makes for a great tale.

Like some stories by Neal Stephenson or Cory Doctorow, there is an element of science fiction, but the setting is contemporary and the science is not that far off. In other words, there are no wormholes, time warps, or gravitational anomalies. The technology described here could appear in the real world in the not-too-distant future.

Roble Santos, a former ward of the state of Nevada, now is an airman in the U. S. Air Force. He is a self-taught aeronautical genius. He knows airplanes and the foster home system but not much else. He not only serves as a jet mechanic, but in his spare time he soups up a Japanese airplane at the air base in Japan where he is stationed.

He gets his modified parts from Libby Industries, a Nevada manufacturing company that specializes in very fast private jets. Its owner and chief developer is Libby Dodge. Ms. Dodge has just turned down a buyout from a large defense contractor, ignores visitors from the state government, and is not interested in supporting the lieutenant governor’s favorite charity which aids orphans.

The charity is overseen by Alexa Patra, a former gymnast and dancer, still attractive and single in her mid-thirties. When the lieutenant governor is nominated to run for governor, he nominates Ms. Patra as his running mate.

We also meet casino owner Stock Brant, a kind of renegade businessman whom Alexa finds attractive. He is wealthy, having made his money not on the casino—which is a tax write-off—but by providing people with illegal drugs and genetically modified foods. His expensive illegal drugs have cured people of cancer, but he meets a brick wall when he tries to get government approval. His genetically modified pine nuts are large and delicious, but they are outlawed, too.

Yes, his lieutenant Jessy has organized distribution of the usual street drugs as well, especially cocaine. Even here, Brant rebukes Jessy when he begins selling lower quality powder to his customers. Good businessmen need happy customers.

The architect Halvern Black is building a kind of modern cliff dwelling for Libby Dodge on desert property she owns. This plus her refusal to be bought out or to donate to the popular charity leads the Federal government to “reclaim” her land, take over her property and new home, and shut down her aerospace manufacturing. Making private planes that are capable of breaking the sound barrier is illegal, she is told. (She actually makes them with a governor, but the governor can be removed or worked around.)

So yes, the governments are unjust. Even individuals who try to make things better or make better things are done in by “the system.” So Roble’s commanding officer, Colonel Sircor, lets him modify some planes and loves what he does with them. But when Roble gets a new c. o., he is court-martialed for not following procedures and is booted out of the service.

Meanwhile, Alexa is having an early midlife crisis and realizes that she has been spending all her time and energy trying to please people rather than doing what is really in her nature to do. She does not campaign but is elected and sworn in as lieutenant governor and then disappears. We learn that she is living nearly off the grid in the single small house Libby Dodge is allowed to keep. She joins a very popular acrobatic act at one of the Las Vegas casinos.

There are a few other characters worth mentioning in this review, plus a host of others. Nicolette is a professional tennis player who plays scientifically. She can do calculations in her head to steer the tennis ball exactly where she wants it to go. She even beats a top male tennis pro. She does not like the way the professional tennis system works and drops out after making a few million dollars on the pro circuit. She holds informal matches on a court in her yard. Many pros play there from time to time, and the games are popular on the Internet, but the Tennis Association complains.

Many of these characters are notably skilled in math or science. Roble recognizes not only aerodynamics but aeronautically sound materials. Libby Dodge designs planes with speed and sturdiness. Col. Sircor and some Japanese counterparts love airplanes and recognize quality in design and propulsion.

Nicolette probably represents the professional tennis of the future. We have already seen how “quants”—quantitative sports analysts—have affected baseball and basketball. Just this past week we learned that the Tampa Bay Rays are playing one of their statistical analysts as a bench coach in their dugout for the manager to consult while the game is being played. The last organized baseball he played was Canadian T-ball at the age of five, but he knows how to interpret the statistics on hitting, pitching, ball trajectory, weather, etc.

All the protagonists one way or another contribute to the new super aircraft designed by Libby and Roble, the Roble Arrow. They are all independent thinkers and emphasize their individuality in spite of pressures from society, family, government, or organized crime. To do otherwise would go against their nature. One of them asks:

“Aren’t humans natural beings? And isn’t it their nature to create things such as this?” (68)

When challenged by some environmental extremists, she says:

“Mankind is most certainly changing the environment. Do you happen to know of another way to survive other than to control the elements?” (69)

Good questions.

When Libby is dispossessed of nearly all her property and livelihood, her lawyer tells her that she does not have much of a chance for fair trial or even for a defense.

“You’ve been villainized in the national media, even if some sympathetic local bureaucrats or a judge had wanted to help you, they didn’t dare.” (97)

When another person complains to the governor that the state and federal governments stole Libby’s house, he replies:

“Stole? Don’t use silly words, my dear…As you know, society is the rightful owner of all property. And when it is not used for the greater good, it is our duty to reallocate its possession.” (109)

Hmm. This is not exactly how I read the Declaration of Independence or the Bill of Rights.

So it goes.

Roble does find a place somewhat beyond the purview of the governments, and there is plot twist towards the end that is reminiscent of Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother. It is actually a little more believable in The Untethered because is not set in California.

If the plot of this story suggests something else, the author drops hints:

“…he pulled out an English and Japanese version of his favorite novel—about an aspiring architect…” (121)

If the reader missed that allusion, there are a couple more. Nicolette has a tattoo of a fountain. She explains to some soldiers what it means:

“A fountainhead is a source of water—a source of life.” She pointed to her own temple. “I am the source of my own purpose—my source for living.” (473)

Yes, The Untethered is a retelling of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. Traditional ideas and a repressive government versus the dedicated creative individual! If antyhing, the ending is even more triumphant than in the Rand novel. If Howard Roark standing victoriously over his edifice moves you, you will love the final chapters of The Untethered.

There is one thing that is perhaps a little different about The Untethered. While the characters all have a streak of individual creativity, they also recognize this quality in others. About a dozen of these “individuals” have to work together to develop the supersonic aircraft. It is a group effort, but they all have a similar vision, one not shared by the military-industrial-government complex. Individualism only goes so far. We do need others to really achieve our creative potential.

In her philosophy, Rand questioned sexual mores to the point that even some feminists who espoused so-called free love were appalled by a scene or two in The Fountainhead. While not all the characters in The Untethered could be called chaste, the sexual content is mostly implied. It would probably be rated PG-13 if it were a film. Indeed, to remind us of consequences of such things, one woman in the story actually becomes pregnant as a result of some premarital intercourse.

One character reminded me of a female protagonist in The Betsy—a novel about car design and racing by popular author Harold Robbins. In the Robbins book, a woman gets aroused by riding in or driving a fast car. Here fast airplanes turn the woman on.

Like Rand, Southwick appears to dismiss any kind of belief in God. This is perhaps where he misses it. God is creative. He is The Creator. Mankind was made in His image. That means people are creative, too. Heaven will not be boring. The Untethered is a paean to human creativity—which, admittedly, too often is stifled. God appreciates the creativity in us. He made us that way.

I am reminded of the Eric Liddell character in the film Chariots of Fire. He knows God has called him to missionary work, but he also knows that he is capable of running in the Olympics. “God has made me fast,” he says in the film. “When I run, I feel his pleasure.” So it would seem that God would express pleasure when he sees people create a safe and speedy and exhilarating means of transportation. We are his poem,¹ but he has made some of us poets, too.

The Unethered is a Fountainhead for the twenty-first century.

Note
¹ Ephesians 2:10 in the Bible says, “We are his workmanship.” The word that is usually translated “workmanship” or “work of art” or something similar in the original Greek is poema, that is, “poem.” In the ancient Greek culture to which Paul is writing, poetry was considered the most elevated of all the art forms.