It covers radiation poisoning caused by bombs in wartime Notice the problem Don t The Company will know you re thinking against them The main character Tom finds out that The Company isn t as benevolent or honest as he was led or brainwashed to believe Hence Tom s adventure begins Ever feel like you live in a nanny state Like the state wants you completely dependent on it Or that the there s a growing tendency towards a one world government that has no respect for individual freedom and rights Oddly enough this story is far less scary than the world we live in now Frederik Pohl

I was a servant of the human race and a member of the last surviving group of gentlemen adventurers in all of the world I was an insurance claims adjuster for the company I got a kick out of this sci fi book about an all encompassing insurance company that basically rules the world written from the point of view of a Claims Adjustor War is an insurable event Health care costs are addressed by putting sick people in suspended animation until cures are addressed There is this one guy who is taking advantage of the company s indemnity policies by continually injuring himself for the reimbursements. I could have used details about how this world came to be and what the rules are At some points the company was basically a totalitarian government and at other points it seems like it was constrained from acting in its self interest for some unexplained reasons. I listed to the audio and the stereotypical Italian accents from a the Italian characters a like a the Super Mario was distracting Frederik Pohl I don t write reviews This is a little known dystopian set in Italy which is a group of separate countries It s a take on the nanny state where everything is controlled by The Company a giant over arching insurance company It has divided the world into a class system everyone forced to pay for premiums which include everything from food to treatment for radiation from bombs The Company claims to have cured society s ills disease poverty hunger and war Yet like I said Jr was an American science fiction writer editor and fan with a career spanning over seventy years From about 1959 until 1969 Pohl edited Galaxy magazine and its sister magazine IF winning the Hugo for IF three years in a row His writing also won him three Hugos and multiple Nebula Awards He became a Nebula Grand Master in 1993. Thomas Wills is a claims adjuster That doesn t sound like much but the insurance company he works for rules the world with an Iron fist Thomas Wills believes he is working for the greatest company in the history of mankind But when he meets Rena dell Angela he learns that everything is not as it seems His company enforces complete compilation to their rules with a deep freeze vault that anyone who violates their rules is imprisoned in Once he learns the truth he must decide what to do about it Preferred Risk.