In the second novel of her Circuit series, Melinda Snodgrass uses speculative fiction as a technique for examining ideas and subjecting them to critical analysis. All the while she presents an exciting story spiced with sex (between two adult humans of opposite sexes employing no artificial ingredients or appliances—quite a refreshing change.) I found Ms. Snodgrass’s wit subtle and charming, her style straightforward and logical, her characters rarely at a loss for words but unafflicted with the desire to give unsolicited lectures.

By setting active modern-day conflicts in the future (in this book she addresses the difficulties of environmental law). Ms. Snodgrass has the opportunity to explore the gestative propensity of legal precedent, extrapolating from both existing and speculative “future” cases.

Although only one of the main characters is, without a doubt, libertarian, and a case is clearly being made for a strong judiciary, libertarians should find the ideas dramatized in Circuit Breaker supportive and challenging. "libertarianism" as I understand the term refers to a political ideology based on the principal that the exclusive legitimate function of government is to safeguard individual rights. Libertarians hold that individuals, by themselves or in voluntary cooperative associations, have a right to do what they want, so long as it is peaceful and does not harm others. In this book, and the Circuit series, Ms. Snodgrass promises that the judiciary is better able to secure rights than the executive or legislative branches of government, because an executive is readily susceptible to corruption and a legislature is all too willing to abandon the responsibility for its acts to arbitrary agencies.

My one reservation about the Circuit/Circuit Breaker series so far is the progression of titles, which I find disquieting. Can anyone doubt that Short Circuit is next?