Svaha, Charles de Lint; ACE, 1989; Orb (reprint), 2000.

Review: http://www.greenmanreview.com/svaha.html

Start of the review...

Svaha is a little different from what we are accustomed to seeing from Canadian fantasist Charles de Lint, being much more science fiction than fantasy. However, there are elements of that urban and/or mythic fantasy which glimmer through now and again.

The year is 2094, and the Native tribes have built Enclaves to live in. The Enclaves are the only places left on the face of the earth where nature is thriving. They are havens where pollution doesn't exist, nor acid rain, nor crimes against the earth and its people. Outside the Enclaves there is naught but desolation and despair, and people are concentrated in small complexes where power and money rule. These complexes are ruled and policed by different factions, mostly the Chinese and Japanese.

The tribes can do nothing to prevent the killing of nations and the land. They can only wait until it is safe to use their technology to cleanse the world and rebuild it as it should be. It is this technology that the complexes want at any cost, including murder. They have placed the blame for the devastation at the feet of the tribes, in order to further the hatred and drive for revenge.

Wow. That's kind of a stunning scenario. The Rez becomes an island of connectivity in the midst of a larger society crippled by bribe-bought "regulation". As the US becomes more and more an info-based economy, the more the Rez starts to look like the Castle with the goods that the surrounding peasants can only dream of.

Why didn't I think of that?