The Cold Cash War
The Cold Cash War is a 1977 science fiction novel by American writer Robert Asprin, an expanded version of a short story of the same title published in the August 1977 issue of Analog.
Cover design by Irene Friedman
The story takes places in a dystopian near-future in which enormous corporate cartels have begun competing in the military as well as economic sphere. The protagonist is major Steve Tidwell, a veteran mercenary who is hired by a new entrant to the conflict, a conglomerate of major Japanese businesses known as the Zaibatsu, to train their own strike force to Western standards.
The setting has been noted as an early example of proto-cyberpunk: nation-states are no longer as relevant in world affairs as corporations, communications technology is of prime importance, and Japan is a rising economic power. Intercorporate conflicts are normally fought under nonlethal rules of engagement, using "killsuits" - a reverse version of powered armor, which immobilize the wearer if an on-board computer decides that a disabling hit has been sustained.
Asprin revisited the setting in 1989 with Cold Cash Warrior, a hybrid of the choose-your-adventure novel and tabletop RPG rulebook, coauthored with Bill Fawcett and using the Combat Command TRPG system. In addition to the RPG content, it included roughly a novelette's worth of prose, providing the background for a campaign in the inter-corporate wars of the setting.