'O-Zone' first was published in hardback in 1986. This Ballantine Books paperback (536 pp) was published in October 1987.
'O-Zone' is set in the early 21st century, after severe ecological and economic collapses have converted most of the U.S. into thinly populated rural settlements where technology has stayed at a 20th century level. The exception is New York City, where the wealthy elite - referred to as Owners - live within luxury skyscrapers clustered on Manhattan Island. Outside Manhattan, what used to be the greater New York metropolitan district is a polluted wasteland occupied by impoverished Skells, Roaches, and Trolls.
As the novel opens, a group of Owners, including the brothers Hooper and Hardy Allbright; the latter's autistic, genius son Fisher; and assorted wives and friends, embrace a once-in-a-lifetime adventure: a foray into the wasteland known as O-Zone.
O-Zone used to be the state of Missouri, before a vaguely defined catastrophe involving underground nuclear waste led to the mass evacuation of the state, and its conversion to a prohibited zone that can only be entered by those holding special permits.
For Owners like the Allbrights and their acquaintances, O-Zone is a mythic place where cannibalistic mutants (referred to as 'aliens') and rabid wildlife skulk in the dense forests and roam the ruined towns and cities. Even though the Allbrights travel in a heavily armed VTOL plane, bringing with them laser perimeters, environmental hazard suits, and the latest in modern small arms, the camping trip brings with it the allure of danger.
But events transpiring in O-Zone soon leave the Allbrights with a changed sense of the world and their place in it. Hooper Allbright finds himself obsessed with the alien girl he glimpsed sprinting through the forests of O-Zone. Hardy Allbright sees O-Zone as the ideal location for a terraforming scheme that will be the capstone of his career. And Fisher Allbright will discover what it's like to be uprooted from a life of privilege.......
'O-Zone' has an interesting premise, but that can't save it from being one of the most boring reads I've had in the past several years. I routinely had to struggle to finish this book.
At 536 pages, it's badly overwritten, a failing I've noticed in those few other fiction works by author Paul Theroux I've attempted to read. Practically every paragraph is overloaded with empty sentences; hardly any expository sentence goes unaccompanied by several additional sentences that laboriously disclose to the reader what a particular character is thinking or feeling (for Theroux, it's always 'Tell', and never 'Show').
Things are salvaged a bit in the final 150 pages, as some of the characters embark on a modern-day Homeric Journey across the hazardous landscapes of the Central and Eastern U.S. But in my opinion, it's too little a reward for having to plow through the preceding 386 pages.
[An argument could be made that 'O-Zone' is in fact not a sci-fi novel, but rather, a ponderous satire of the state of American society in the mid-80s. As wealthy, Jewish, New York City dwellers, the Allbrights and their friends have the same parochial mindset as did their 20th century counterparts, whose perception of the world outside the boundaries of Manhattan was mocked in a classic 1976 New Yorker cover, 'View of the World from 9th Avenue', by Saul Steinberg.]
The verdict ? For all its cover blurbs and approbations from 'serious' writers and critics intrigued to see a 'literary' author like Theroux dabble in the ghetto of sci-fi, 'O-Zone' is a dud. There are plenty of 80s sci-fi novels that are more rewarding reads.
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