Cities at war: Oath of Fealty (1981) by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle [Review]

The definitive arcology novel is an urban story with grim politics, skilfully told.

Larry Niven (1938 - ) and Jerry Pournelle (1933 - 2017) made up one of the most fruitful collaborative teams in 1970s and 1980s American SF. Beginning with The Mote in God’s Eye (1974) - which was nominated for the Hugo, Locus, and Nebula Awards -  they delivered a string of successful novels. They were united in their enthusiasm for hard SF approaches and in their staunch right-wing, libertarian political views, and worked together over a period of more than 30 years.

Oath of Fealty is the fourth Niven-Pournelle collaboration, published initially by the small Phantasia Press in 1981. It is one of the last entries in David Pringle’s book Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels (1985) and James Wallace Harris included it in his list of the defining science fiction novels of the 1980s.

A standalone science fiction novel, Oath of Fealty is a key exploration of the concept of an arcology, an example of the wider keep trope in SF. In near-future California, Los Angeles is in the grip of poverty and crime. A private walled city-state, Todos Santos (or “All Saints”), is constructed over the ruins of a burned-out part of LA. Oath of Fealty explores the workings of this new kind of community, in which residents trade privacy for security. 

A break-in is the inciting incident for a new conflict between Todos Santos and the city of Los Angeles. Involving ecology activism, betrayal, private security, chemical weapons, and a kind of propaganda war, this struggle will determine whether the walled community can survive. While somewhat dated and suffused with harsh right-wing views that many will find objectionable, Oath of Fealty is a brisk and cleverly constructed take on the future.

Life behind the walls

Oath of Fealty begins when Todos Santos has been established for some years. It is one of several arcologies that have been built in the United States, and the only one considered to be successful. It is a huge, secure facility which combines residences, businesses, and its own largely self-contained infrastructure. It is run by a staff led by the hyper-competent General Manager Art Bonner, who is one of very few people with a hugely expensive, high-tech neural implant. This allows him direct real-time access to MILLIE, the community’s central supercomputer.

The residents of Todos Santos have entered into a new kind of social contract. The structure is packed with cameras and armed guards, and residents give up virtually all privacy in exchange for security. They have a fierce loyalty to their community, and deep faith in their technocratic leaders. They enjoy the benefits of advanced technology. One of the city’s specialisms is teleoperation; Todos Santos workers remotely operate heavy machinery in Los Angeles, and one even does so in support of operations on the moon.

Trouble in the neighbourhood

While residents are fiercely loyal to Todos Santos, it is much less popular in Los Angeles. The arcology is particularly opposed by ecological groups, who fear that it will inspire many more arcologies and disrupt a normal way of life. In the novel’s opening scene, three young people break into the facility and attempt to plant a fake bomb. When the main narrative catches up with this incident, Deputy General Manager Preston Sanders believes the threat to be real and floods an access tunnel with the nerve weapon VX, killing two of the intruders.

This deadly overreaction drives much of the plot. Sanders’ colleagues regard him as a hero, but he is - for a time - guilt-stricken. The management of Todos Santos begin an effort to avoid legal consequences for the killings, while managing a number of other issues. These include a visit by a Canadian minister contemplating the construction of his own arcology, the investigations of a struggling LA journalist, and the complex personal lives of the arcology staff. All the while, the future of Todos Santos hangs in the balance.

A grim prescription

Oath of Fealty is undoubtedly a politically motivated novel. Todos Santos is essentially a dictatorship under constant surveillance, which parasitises Los Angeles and regards itself as above the law. Much of the story amounts to an extended justification for the deployment of deadly nerve weapons against unarmed teenagers. The novel pioneered what David Pringle called “a nasty slogan”, which is “think of it as evolution in action”. This reflects the callous attitude to human life espoused by the arcology management. 

In many ways Todos Santos is dystopian, but Niven and Pournelle broadly celebrate it as a desirable vision for the future, threatened by the crime-ridden city of Los Angeles. This kind of analysis survives today, in the way conservatives favour overwhelmingly white gated communities over the diverse “hell” of cities like San Francisco. However, the novel is somewhat less bluntly didactic than most libertarian SF. The authors at least recognise that many people would find Todos Santos and its murderous separatism to be repellent.

The work of craftsmen

For all its objectionable politics, Oath of Fealty is an engaging novel. It has been suggested that Niven and Pournelle modelled it on the works of the best-selling Canadian author Arthur Hailey, who was known for books like Hotel (1965) and Airport (1968). This is an SF story in a similar style - panoramic, detailed, and with frequent shifts of perspective. While Niven was perhaps the “ideas man” in the collaboration, Pournelle was arguably the more capable plotter, and keeps things moving.

Oath of Fealty is not an immediately likeable novel. Its authors are unnervingly supportive of repression dressed up as freedom, and go out of their way to demonise the environmental movement - this was a frequent habit of theirs, and one which has dated very badly. However, this is a well constructed novel which does contain some interesting speculations about a gloomy future for urban living, class, and responsibility.

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• The Science Fiction Encyclopedia credits the novel Fury (1950) by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore as the coining of the term “keep” in an SF context.
  
• Niven and Pournelle became enthusiastic supporters of the Strategic Defense Initiative programme, often known disparagingly as “Star Wars”. The scheme was vigorously opposed by other SF authors, including Arthur C. Clarke.