A smart and ethical regular guy on one side; Those who would seek to control us on the other.
"Like most other people in the world, who were not famous stand up comedians, Jay always thought of the best response a few hours or days after the golden moment in which to deliver the perfect repartee."
It's this sort of throw-away repartee, popping up unexpectedly, that makes "Neither Here Nor There" a greatly amusing book to read, in addition to the "science fiction/action/persecuted innocent" themes. Think of them as the collections of brown sugar in your morning oatmeal.
Which is not to imply that the rest of the book is oatmeal, unless you especially like oatmeal. If so, then the book is NOT the stuff that you get out of a paper packet; it's REAL oatmeal, with butter, brown sugar, and maybe raisins or a little milk. Umm...I just realized it's past lunchtime. Sorry.
In the not-too-distant future, protagonist Jay is not a super-hero. He's a low-status college professor and part-time hobby researcher. He isn't fabulously wealthy; in fact, he drives a ratty old truck that isn't as reliable as it might be. He's not a former Black Operative, not a secret master of kung-fu, and he doesn't have a hidden stash of firearms. He's just this guy, see?
And then, his private research gets LUCKY! A program (and hardware) he has been toying with for a remote viewing application comes together, and has the unexpected property of allowing him to move matter through a 'window' produced by the system. SHAZAM! A portal into...the same dimension.
Except, it might not be so lucky after all.
In this future, Big Brother is DEFINITELY watching you, although he's not as brutal about it as in '1984.' In fact, there is no ONE big brother; there are different agencies, with different missions, and they compete with each other for status. However, they are all on the look-out for the next killer app, and Jay's little device is just that. With it, an operator can view ANYPLACE they can locate, and move things (including people) through the portal. Privacy, which is already severely compromised, would be ended; there would LITERALLY be no place that you could go where you couldn't be watched, and physical distance would no longer be a limit to the long arm of the law.
What I found to be the most engrossing aspect of the story is the problem-solving that Jay (and some few semi-accomplices) use in the development of the portal device. At each step, the technology isn't the key; it's the THINKING that's the key. How do I fix it so I can reach a hand through? How do I hide it? What are the limits? Yes, I suppose there IS a certain amount off unobtanium employed in the process, but that's entirely acceptable. Chandler does NOT ask us to suspend ALL the laws of physics, nor does he ask us to suspend logic AT ALL. It is a perfectly constructed story; it does not require us to have the time-tables of all the trains in London memorized, or different varieties of cigar ash. Jay and his pals are smart, but not beyond the realm of reality; one of his new friends DOES have a background as a Shadow Warrior, but I have more than one friend like that myself. When a puzzle needs to be solved, Jay doesn't quickly whip up a new sooper-dooper ray gun shamulixer to defranistan the whichawhen; he hires a lawyer, or a security company.
Therefore, we are ONLY required to make two suspensions of reality: first, we must believe that current surveillance technology and government policy will slide toward more invasion of personal privacy over the next few decades, and THAT'S not a hard stretch; second, we have to accept the discovery of a single new property of energy interacting with matter. Happens all the time, by the way.
I suppose we are then left with this question: Do we have any other alternative to escaping a growing intrusion into our private lives, other than having a fantastic new technology developed by a highly ethical hobbyist?
I leave the solution to the reader.