I wanted to read Mack Reynolds’ 1975 novel Satellite City because I enjoyed his Commune 2000 and anyway, look at that amazing retro cover art.

Just like in Commune 2000,  Mack Reynolds introduces a wildly creative world, and then sets his conspiracy plot in motion.  Satellite City is an off-shore tax haven, crossed with Las Vegas, in space. Fascinating and fun, and absolutely matches the cover art.

I also shouldn’t be surprised that basically all the female characters are interchangeable, pretty 60s stewardesses, offering coffee, tea or me? service to the protag… ugh. I love retro scifi but I roll my eyes SO MUCH at the type of author who thoughtfully imagines a future world where technology has eliminated the need for most jobs, or medical science has given hundreds of years of healthy life, or humans have traveled to distant planets, or other wild specfic scenarios but in that wild future society, women characters just smile and pour coffee for the men.

Satellite City is especially fun reading about an imagined future now, in 2026, because of the imagined future technology. The adventure hinges on secrets, and it’s set in a future world with visual ID screens and recorded calls that can be scrambled on request, but no general video surveillance, not even in casinos.