Homeland: Falling Down by R.A. Mathis

As frightening, depressing and infuriating as it can be, these days I spend more time reading about impending catastrophe than about any other subject.

When somebody I know produces fiction on the subject, there’s a good chance they will get to buck the line and their book will go to the top of my TBR pile. I read R.A. Matthis‘ first novel, Ghosts of Babylon, a couple years ago and it deserves the five-star Amazon reviews it received. When I found out he was kicking off a TEOTWAWKI series… well, his new book went to the front of the queue...


Read the rest of my review at Virtual Pulp.

Read an excerpt from Falling Down.

Here's Part One of my interview with the author.

Here's Part Two.

Read "The Warrior Poets," a guest post by R.A.Mathis.

Hegel Rides Again: Enemies Foreign and Domestic by Matthew Bracken

In the wake of the latest media blitz, capitalizing on the school shooting in Connecticut, I figured it was as good a time as any to review the first book in a trilogy written by Matthew Bracken. Bracken, a former Navy SEAL, is someone who believes in the 2nd Amendment, and his trilogy fictionalizes the federal government's war against individual rights.

It probably won't be long before somebody labels this book prophetic. And in some ways it is. Not that the author is clairvoyant--he just has paid enough attention to history and current events to notice the patterns and extrapolate from there.

Bracken has put some well-drafted characters into the mix. What mix? Some of tomorrow's headlines, and the real stories behind them. Tomorrow, that is, if you refuse to believe that the sort of false-flag operations he depicts are already happening.

As a work of fiction, what's refreshing to see is that the characters make sloppy mistakes and bad decisions that real people do...and usually pay for it. But even when they are smart and extremely careful, Big Brother can still track them down and bring the pain. Yet there are other characters who make mistakes (like the sniper that got cut around the eye by his scope) and don't wind up paying for them. Plausible.

Ranya Bardiwell is easily the smartest "good guy" in the book. The Lebanese-American beauty has had no formal military training as have most of the other citizens forced into conflict with their government, yet she accomplishes some impressive feats and makes very few mistakes along the way.

Brad Fallon is a likeable guy who just wants to live free and mind his own business. He has worked hard and saved to fix up a boat he plans to sail away from the police state our country is becoming. But fate and the evil ambitions of fascist control freaks (who happen to be just incrementally smarter than Eric Holder) will soon drive Brad, Ranya and some other law-abiding citizens together, hunted down as enemies of the State.

My only "problems" with this novel come down to matters of opinion:

First, the Mini-14 is called a "crummy rifle." I wholeheartedly disagree. True, it is not as accurate as the M16A2 and later AR variants. But it is far more dependable over time (and in any environment) than the AR15 family, speaking from personal experience.

More importantly, Bracken portrays our national descent into socialist police-statehood as orchestrated by over-zealous ATF nazis, while the individuals at the highest levels of government are hapless dupes, innocent of the false flag black ops making their own agenda a reality. That strikes me as a naive worldview, made necessary by the presumption that conspiracy is impossible. (After all, conspiracy theory is a hate-filled, farfetched, cockamamie fabrication of the vast right-wing conspiracy, ain't it?)

Compare press coverage of Fast & Furious with press coverage of this school shooting that just took place. The former has been swept under the rug, while the latter will continue to be hyped at least until the next atrocity. Fast & Furious, at last count, was responsible for roughly ten times the murders of those comitted at the school shooting. One reason for the glaring double standard is that Holder's "Justice Department" was caught red-handed committing a false flag operation. The crisis was revealed as a fabrication, and so it went to waste. This conveniently timed atrocity against children in Connecticut has not been revealed as a fabrication. This crisis will not go to waste. Though small potatoes compared to the murders perpetrated by Attorney General Eric Holder, this story will continue to be rammed into the consciousness of the culture relentlessly.

 
If you don't recognize the pattern, or the agenda, there's no use in trying to explain it to you, anyway.

This is a well-written book, but there's too much truth in it for an intelligent reader to be comfortable cuddling up with it. Escapism, it is not.

Oh yeah--what kept me from reading Bracken's books for so long was the exorbitant price. Electronic versions were priced around $10; paperbacks double that, or more. I obtained this E-book as a result of a free giveaway, or I might never have read it. But I'm happy to report that the prices have been reduced to a much more competitive level. This one was $4.99 and Castigo Cay was $6.99 last I checked. Still a bit steep for E-books, but not ridiculous, either.

James Wesley Rawles' Survivalist Manual (in fiction form)

I'll start by applauding Rawles for what he tried to do with this book. The setting is a SHTF/EOTWAWKI scenario instigated by an economic collapse--something we might be seeing unfold right now. Along with all the chaos you'd expect with an overnight disintegration of the American way of life, political opportunists don't let this crisis go to waste, transforming the USA into a 3rd-world police state. Absolutely dead-on so far.

The novel was written around some survivalist information Rawles has obviously researched extensively. I didn't agree with all of it (particularly weapons choices and use), but what most readers won't forgive is the length of some of those digressions.

It is the fiction storycraft which is most lacking. Rawles didn't commit some of the most heinous acts of storytelling incompetence that make you toss the book away in disgust, but most of the characters were so unremarkable that I struggled to differentiate between them. Some get married and have kids, but it's all told from such an emotional distance that I had little feel for the personalities involved. Aside from a couple cannibal banditos, there was no individual villain on the reader's horizon until over halfway through the novel (though some of that character's dialog was spot-on perfect). There was a sub-plot about two brothers on the run which I kept expecting to merge with the main plot, but never did. Rawles devoted a chapter or two to their escape from the authorities, then apparently forgot he had written them. Worst of all, the ending was from the cookie-cutter I've seen used in this genre far too often. I'll just call it a "delusional optimistic assumption of victory and restoration." And they lived happily ever after.

I recognize and appreciate what Rawles was trying to do, and don't regret buying the book, but it falls short of its potential and is, unfortunately, lackluster.

Out of the Ashes by William W. Johnstone

I like the post-apocalyptic genre. Like reading, watching, and writing in it. Unfortunately, a lot of it is pap. After hearing much word-of-mouth about Johnstone and his "tri-states philosophy," I hoped this would be one of the better flagships for the genre.

The nuclear war is triggered by a coup-gone-wrong involving rogue military hawks (think Jack T. Ripper with scads of accomplices). Ben Raines survives the dirty bomb holocaust, as do many others...inexplicably. He begins touring the ravaged southeastern region, intending to document the nuclear devastation for a memoir, but is unwittingly crowned the leader of a new resistance movement. Idaho, Montana and Wyoming become his empire. But he and his followers are headed for a showdown with the other 47 states.

The opening act was rather tedious to wade through. I suppose the convoluted, improbable conspiracy plot was supposed to rivet me to the pages with suspenseful intrigue as it unfolded, but I really wanted to just skim. Once the missiles struck home, and we got into Ben Raines' point-of-view, it was smoother going.

If Johnstone ever explained why some people survived the radiation and some didn't, I missed it. I thought it rather unrealistic that electricity was still on for so long after a nuclear strike, and that Raines never had trouble finding gas for his vehicles. There is some mention of looting, I think, but our hero never had any trouble finding weapons, ammo, gear, food or clean water. Also, just like Captain Kirk, women threw themselves at him pretty much everywhere he went. Nubile, supermodel-looking women, of course who "didn't like sleeping alone." All but twice, though, Raines and his current squeeze intuitively sensed that their affair would only be casual and temporary...and that was just okie-dokie with both parties. Such is to be expected from the genre, I suppose.

I can go on nit-picking for a while, but I'll try to limit my exclamations of disbelief to just two more elements:

1) His dialog is just outright painful in many places. I have come to expect this problem with inexperienced/immature (yet passionate) writers, but am REALLY annoyed when I see a successful, traditionally published author...of a popular series, no less...getting away with it. How did this ever get published as is?

2) Raines is a Vietnam veteran from a super-secret elite unit which, I guess, would supposedly surpass Delta Force. But at the story's inception he is an alcoholic novelist. Almost everyone he encounters has heard of him, and read his books. And everyone is convinced he is destined to be the savior who unites freedom-loving folks and builds a utopia out of the ashes. Evidently his greatness is plain for everyone to see--everyone but his humble self. He ignores the pleas for his elevation to leadership, but is finally drug to his destiny, kicking and screaming (OK, perhaps I exagerate a wee bit). His greatness is so powerful as to inspire slavish, blind devotion in all the good guys he encounters. Apparently his alcohol-heavy diet and lethargic lifestyle have kept him in supreme fighting condition, too. I don't have a PHD in Group Dynamics or anything like that, but I've studied history, observed the surrounding culture, and worked in/with conglomerations of human beings both in military and civilian contexts. Unless God himself elevated someone like Ben Raines to power (as He did with King Saul and David), that person would never reach the peak of any leadership ladder. People who rise to power...even in regulated structures...are shameless self-promoters; supremely confident in their own abilities (no matter how undeserved that confidence is); "type A" personalities; charismatic; ambitious; control freaks; opportunistic; remorseless; proactive and outgoing. They usually aren't the best choice for leadership, and many times are the worst. But they will beat somebody like Ben Raines in an election, mob takeover or popularity contest (which is what such things turn out to be, beneath the surface, anyway) every single time. It doesn't matter how many dead military officers have endorsed you, or even if the majority of the mob thinks you're the smartest guy with the perfect plan. The guy with the magic mouth and the zealous conviction that he is the best possible man for the job will climb higher and faster. I've taken pains so far not to be harsh or personally insulting to Mr. Johnstone, but this reluctant savior routine reeks of a misfit writer's closet egomania.

Up to now, I've also avoided commenting on the author's political ideas, which he unabashedly rams down the reader's throat throughout the novel. I won't discuss them in detail, because they're at least as convoluted as his expository chapters. But even while preaching racial equality, Johnstone strikes me as a bigot. He also takes periodic jabs at his Religious Right Boogeymen, denouncing the cult of personality embraced by their respective sycophants (kinda like what I touched on above). Meanwhile, his own cult of personality is the driving force behind the Tri-States kingdom. Hypocritical IMO. And while pontificating on his love of freedom, Johnstone/Raines build a utopia which is, in most respects, a totalitarian regime. So while I see all the problems in the USA that Johnstone saw, our viewpoint on feasible solutions are often radically different.

Plot, character(s), dialog, realism and (IMO) political savvy in Out of the Ashes is seriously flawed.