Posted on 11/08/2011 5:24:29 PM PST by dynachrome
Survivors: A Novel of the Coming Collapse is the second volume in Rawles’ series of novels about the coming collapse of American society — and the global economy. Survivors — like his previous novel, Patriots — is set in the very near future, in a time which Rawles calls “The Crunch.” The Crunch is the time in which the all the “bills” of living in a post-industrial, post-agricultural nation built on fiat money have “come due.” With the vast majority of its citizens addicted to the unsustainable, post-modern “American way of life” — a life defined by an ignorance of actual life skills, unsustainable reliance of easy credit and a government committed to what is essentially "cradle-to-grave" government programs — the inevitable collapse of the Federal Reserve’s essentially worthless script leads to hyperinflation and the steady collapse of the “just in time” infrastructure essential to life in a consumer economy defined by “big box” stores. As American society quickly unravels under the stresses unleashed by currency devaluation, criminal gangs and various contending factions of the former governmental structure contend for legitimacy and power in the midst of the chaos. Rawles’ presentation of the “Provisional Government” of “president pro tempore” Maynard Hutchings demonstrates the author’s awareness of how tyrants behave when seeking to solidify their power: Hutchings causes a “large number of conservative members of Congress” to simply disappear, invites in U.N. peacekeeping forces, and establishes his own fiat currency by force of arms, even as he confiscates all weaponry which might be used to resist his illegitimate rule.
(Excerpt) Read more at thenewamerican.com ...
I figured you were a sailor, from your earlier books.
Have read both. There are good for what they are.
Also Try “Deep Winter”, “Shattered”, and “Remnant” by TC Sherry. $5 each download at lulu.com
Oh yeah, big time. Been through the canal 3 times on sailboats, twice on my own. Longest solo passage 43 days, longest with crew 60 days. That reminds me: Survivors screwed up that sailing chapter so bad it was funny. For example, Rawles confused sheets with sails. I guess to a landlubber, sheets sounds like a nickname for sails. They are actually the ropes that control sails. That was a big eye-roller when I glommed onto the fact that Rawles just didn’t know, and worse, didn’t bother to have a sailor even read the stuff to check it.
Almost bought this on Audible last night but it had a 3.6 rating and I usually stick to the above 4 books. So I got the 4th book of the Dresden Filed by Jim Butcher.
Well, we liked “Patriots” and also your trilogy. “Survivor’s” and “Castigo Cay” are sitting on the living room table. The fiancee’ says “Surviors” was sub par and he liked “Castigo Cay”. I’ve been too busy with our own real life escapades which I’m planning my own book for to get to them. I’ll hold back judgement for later. Rawles makes his own unique contribution and he has his own agenda. In my old industry we used to say you can’t have too many friends or too few enemies. Not a bad philosphy IMHO.
True dat.
I be a landlubber, meself. May be why I enjoy novels such as the Aubrey-Maturin ones by O’Brian.
“Jim Butcher”
I liked a couple of his I read, but the magic stuff just doesn’t work as well for me as well as a straight detective novel.
(I also very much enjoyed Will Thomas’s “Some Danger Involved” and the sequels about victorian London and CJ Sansom’s novels about Matthew Shardlake in Cromwell’s time in England)
“Enemies Foreign and Domestic from Amazon”
You’ll enjoy it. Good stuff. I just read “The Walk”, LA earthquake scenario, by Lee Goldberg, which was fun until the ending,which made me want to throw the book across the room!
Another thing that got me was the fact that the European nations (and Belize) managed to keep everything pretty much under control, but the US and Israel collapsed into anarchy.
True. If we fall who the Hell has any money left or not be in civil stress themsevles?
“Much more glaring to me was the entire 2,000 mile horse ride from Belize across Mexico to northern New Mexico.”
2,000 miles HORSE ride? That would take 90 days IF the horse made it. Throwing a shoe or snapping a tendon is a real possibility. If I can get 20 miles a day on a horse day after day, much less one loaded with food and gear for such a long trip, it would be a motorized vehicle! When did the horse get a chance to eat??
“For example, Rawles confused sheets with sails.”
That’s baaaad! Writers should have SOME connection with reality and not let their flights of fancy use words, techniques, or devices they do not understand.
“control, but the US and Israel collapsed into anarchy.”
I think JR was just writing to the “survivalist/Aryan Nation” type he tends to gather.
The horse foraged in handy woods when they stopped to sleep every night. Crossing Mexico. I wonder if Rawles bothered to drive that trip from Belize to NM, or if he just winged it? The horse and rider even walked right through Tampico, pre-crunch population a million, without any more than some angry stares from criminal types. A ton of meat on the hoof, in a land of rampant starvation, and they were never sniped. It was all just very silly.
A person would be hard pressed to ride that route in a vehicle even now, much less slowly on a horse during even further civil unrest in Mexico.
You might want to take a look at his FR page.
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