DeFrees is a published writer and an editor with a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Virginia and a law degree from the University of Texas. In the following essay, DeFrees examines the universality of a story rooted in the genre of science fiction.

Soul Catcher is a meditation on anger, on what happens when anger has no outlet. It is, in this way, an unwitting metaphor for the root of all terrorist acts: voiceless rage. Katsuk, the self-given Native-American name Charles Hobuhet adopts after denouncing the evils of modern society, is an emblem of a man driven mad—in both senses of the word—by long-standing injustices, by the ridicule he has endured all of his life for being of Native-American descent, and by the history of violence perpetrated against his people, and more specifically, against Katsuk's sister, by white men. Soul...