Posted on 09/05/2003 9:14:35 AM PDT by marktwain
Enemies Foreign and Domestic by Matthew Bracken, Steelcutter Publishing, San Diego CA.
www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com
I recieved my copy of Enemies Foreign And Domestic on Tuesday evening this week. By Thursday morning, I had devoured the 568 pages. This book was eagerly awaited, as it belongs to that small but growing genre, the distopic future brought about by civil war over the Constitution of the United States, triggered by ruthless suppression of the 2nd amendment.
Only three books of this genre have recieved prominence. They are: The Turner Diaries, a racist, hate filled account where the "heros" are willing to kill off 75% of the people on earth in order to gain political power; Unintended Consequences, a well written, racy, techno-thriller in the Tom Clancy style that I heartily recommend; and Enemies Foreign and Domestic, or EFAD, as I will refer to it in the rest of this review.
EFAD refers to part of the oath that all U.S. government officials and military personel take upon the assumption of their duties to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. A basic premise of the book is that there still are men and women who actually have honor and integrity, who beleive these words when they speak them, and who actively work to follow their oath. Members of freerepublic will recognize themselves in this work.
EFAD is very well written, well plotted, and has good character development. I felt as if I could name friends and enemies who could have been the characters in the book. This book grabs you. The major premises are easily believable. Matthew Bracken knows his subject, and he uses credible human faults and errors to keep the plot plausible. A major strength is that there are no supermen or superwomen in this book. Matthew teaches us subtly by the things that are not mentioned. An astute reader will realize early on that we are at a crucial cross roads. We can move backward, keep the Assault Weapons ban, enlarge it, outlaw private sales of weapons via the "gun show loophole" and continue the march toward the chilling distopia that the author so clearly sees. Or we can move forward, sunset the Assault Weapon ban in September of 2004, and continue to move forward to a renewed era of Constitutional freedom in America.
Read this book. Pass it on to friends. Distribute it at gun shows. Buy lots of copies. I will.
Actually, I should thank you for the great book. I just bumped the thread because I finally finished it. That may be a shocker, since I was one of the reviewers early on, but last summer I started working nights and days and that went on for about 5 months. Any free time was sleepy time. Fortunately, that is all over now, and I am back to the normal hours.
As you know, I ordered the finished book last September or so. Over the holidays I picked it up and started from the beginning (having read to around chapter 25 previously.)
The characters and the unfolding of events had lived in my head for those months, and there was almost a comfort that came from knowing that I didn't know the whole story. The characters lived in limbo in my head for those months. As I reread the book, and started seeing the pages dwindle, I found myself dreading that it would be over soon.
I am not the sort that gets very emotional, generally speaking, but I gotta say, this book had me completely enthralled. I didn't want it to end. I still don't.
The story is, unfortunately, all too believable. The direction that the country is heading makes it likely that this work of fiction will not stay fiction forever. We have 200+ years of history and heroes to look back on. You have created characters that live up to their ideals based on that history, and I am very grateful for having had the opportunity for them to live in my head for all this time.
The books are starting to appear at gun shows, which for me is an exciting development. I even plan to be at the SHOT Show in Vegs in February. And John Ross, author of UC, just bought a pair of them after finding and reading the website chapters. So things are looking up! But the best of all is reading your words posted above.
Thanks!
*bookmark*
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