Anti-Grav Unlimited - Duncan Long

Phil Hunter's research team gets laid off when the company they work for is bought out by a global energy conglomerate, just as the team had perfected an anti-gravity rod. Phil sees the potential not only for transportation, but also as a means of producing energy. Before he can pursue that, his entire team goes missing and someone blows up his house.

So he's on the run, but he figured out to make his van fly, and he's got the assistance of Nikki, a genetically modified clone created (and later dumped) by an old friend of Phil's. So, you know, no sweat.

One good thing Long does is not assume "scientist" is some generic thing that grants you mastery over all realms of inquiry. No one in this book is a Reed Richards. Nikki had worked as a navigator on rocket transports, so she's better able to program the computer Phil installed to help with the van's flight mode, and she's the one who program's their course to get to the moon and makes certain they get there. But Phil knows more about robots, because they had some as lab assistants. It keeps any of the few main characters from feeling superfluous. Nobody was there strictly to provide the special key to get through the door, everyone has useful skills.

Long also likes to set up situations where you suspect a character will turn out to be a traitor, or that our heroes are about to walk into serious trouble, only to then reveal that there is a much more mundane answer behind the problem. Which was an interesting approach. Given what Phil and the others are trying to do, there are plenty of things that could go wrong, but I did keep expecting another shoe to drop.

The story is set in the mid-21st Century, after some "limited" nuclear war, environmental catastrophe (New Miami is built on the flooded remains of Old Miami), and the collapse of most major governments, which were replaced by a World Government run by corporations. The World Government is only concerned with keeping the majority of people in a state of poverty and need, because it makes them less demanding and prone to revolt. At least according to one of the major players they confront. I would question that reading of history, but the guy seemed like kind of a fucked-up doofus, so what does he know?

People at the top always assume they can just do whatever they please to everyone else, right up to the moment their throats are slit.

'I hit the Auto button on the dash and leaned back, hoping that the computer would follow the radar blip of the rocket rather than a flock of gulls. One malfunction was all we needed to have a major catastrophe. After vowing never to ride a machine-controlled rocket, I was now hurtling through the atmosphere chasing a rocket controlled by a machine in a van controlled by a computer.'