o I’m currently reading One Second After by William R. Forstchen. I was talking good books and nuclear war (of all things) with a couple of guys in the train club and my conservative counterpart loaned me this one.

I don’t want to get too much into the novel since I still have a review to write (and, more importantly, I haven’t finished yet). But there are things that bother me. First off, a forward by Newt Gingrich – not one of my favorite servants of the American King. So I skipped that and got into the story. Interesting premise but, granted, conservative. The good-old-boys chat about liberal failings. Liberals are shown as either hippies (is that even a thing anymore?) or drug-addicts. Of course, the hero prays from time to time. But the thing is, he’s constantly harping on what it means to be an American (sure, and with the elimination of due process, with pardons for domestic terrorists, with citizens shot in the streets, with the Epstein coverup, with the war crimes, 2026 is a long way from our preachy hero back in 2008). Yes, more straw men in this book than a cornfield before the harvest.

This was burning inside of me, this whole conservative heroic patriotism vibe, as I sat tonight to write a review of the last book I’ve read, The Cruel Stars. In this far future scifi book, the primary villains were pure-blood bigots, ready to pull the head off any human not perfectly human. They Pearl Harbor our society, they invade, they set up tribunals and purity patrols – yes, these guys are basically your Illinois Nazis. And living in the year that we do, I had to admit that I enjoyed watching space fascists get their comeuppance. Just good clean fun.

Until I realized that my book was every bit as one-sided as my friend’s book. But…

Is that bad? Regardless of the provocations and lie-fueled hatred on both sides, reading is escapism. Sure, I can stand up at No Kings and yell my heart out. Does that do anything? Well, it bumps the gate from 8,000,000 to 8,000,001, I suppose. But really, to keep my sanity in these dark times, sure, let’s mentally picture rolling a grenade down a hall to blow up a bunch of interstellar fascists. I mean, why not?

Is this new? No. Before the Civil War, when tensions were at breaking and beyond, we had Swallow Barn and Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Literature always strives to attract, and what better a horse to hitch to than feelings of injustice, an disrespected enemy, and a sense of rage. Is it good? Hey, if it sells, it sells.

Perhaps it might even make you see another point of view. I did read a book on Intelligent Design once (as a favor). and while I hated pretty much every page of it, one small fact stuck with me, an introduced doubt. So maybe that’s all we can hope for.

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