Fountain at the Center [sic] of the World by Robert Newman is essentially an anti-globalization treatise disguised as a novel. The problem is that the people who are going to read this novel are already anti-globalization, or at least not pro-globalization, so it's unlikely to change any opinions. It starts out slow - I had no enthusiasm for reading more than my allotted chapter per day - but picks up as to goes on. The approach to the "villain" is very interesting, because he is introduced as the protagonist and is never explicitly made out to be "evil" - he is treated with the same neutrality as the "good guys". If it weren't for the anti-globalization rhetoric (and I use this word without its connotations) smattered throughout the novel, the treatment of the protagonist/villain could even result in it being read as a pro-globalization novel by those who are already pro-globalization.

I do have an issue with the editors, however. I, with my two half-hearted years of Spanish, could find two errors in the incidental Spanish in this book: they wrote the Italian "Signor" instead of the Spanish "Senor", and they spelled "maquiladora" with two L's, which would change the pronunciation. There were also a few uncaught typoes: "some placeelse" instead of "someplace else", for example. I caught about half a dozen editing problems in total, and when the editing is not as thorough as it should be I'm inclined to think that perhaps the fact-checking wasn't as thorough as it should be, which is an unfortunate impression for such a political book to give.