The Cold Cash War
Cover design by Irene Friedman
The Cold Cash War is a 1977 science fiction novel by American writer Robert Asprin. It is an expansion of a short story of the same title published in the August 1977 issue of Analog magazine.
Plot[edit]
The story takes places in a dystopian near-future in which enormous corporate cartels compete in the military as well as economic spheres. The protagonist is major Steve Tidwell, a veteran mercenary who is hired by a new entrant to the conflict, a conglomerate of major Japanese businesses known as the Zaibatsu, who wish to train their own strike force to Western standards.
The setting has been noted as an early example of cyberpunk: nation-states are no longer as relevant in world affairs as corporations, communications technology is of prime importance, and Japan is a rising economic power. Intercorporate conflicts are usually fought under nonlethal rules of engagement, using "killsuits" - a reverse version of powered armor, which immobilize the wearer if an on-board computer decides that a disabling hit has been sustained.
Sequel[edit]
Asprin revisited the setting in 1989 with Cold Cash Warrior, an interactive fiction coauthored with Bill Fawcett and using the Combat Command TRPG system. Mainly a tabletop RPG rulebook and scenario, it also included roughly a novelette's worth of prose, describing a tactical encounter in the inter-corporate wars of the setting.
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