Richard Peters

Stealing Other People’s Homework: “The Turner Legacy”

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turner-legacy

Since the heated up rhetoric before the U. S. Presidential election, I’ve been pondering doing a series on future American civil wars.

And the rhetoric has only heated up since then. (California seceding?)

Well, that’s not going to happen anytime soon. The project — not the war. Do you think I’m some kind of prophet?

(Though I would refer you to my reviews of Richard Peters’ Power Games trilogy for both a satirical yet militarily plausible description of how such a war might turn out.)

One of the books I contemplated reading and reviewing was the notorious The Turner Diaries.

I’ve had a copy for years but never got around to reading it.

J. M. Berger takes a look at it, and its political legacies in “The Turner Legacy“.

The same page has articles on its literary ancestors including works by Jack London.

I don’t buy all of Berger’s political assumptions and values, but it looks to be an interesting look at some dark (no pun intended) byways of American science fiction.

Incidentally, I would be happy for title suggestions for any future American civil war titles regardless of the political axes they might grind.

Shock & Awe

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Review: Shock & Awe: Operation Enduring Unity II by Richard Peters

Amateurs think tactics, dilettantes think strategy, and professionals think logistics.

Disrupting enemy supply chains is a one of the main elements of Peters’ novel. Given that both sides use the internet and speak the same language, it’s easier than in a lot of other wars.

ShockThe other big element is that the fortunes of war can change very quickly. Victory, in the propaganda and shooting wars, shifts rapidly here.

The first book used political analogies from history. This book uses battle analogies. The rebel URA mounts a Bay of Pigs style effort in Florida. Denver threatens to become Stalingrad as the USA attempts an invasion of its breakaway western states. Continue reading →

Power Games

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When Richard Peters offered me a review copy of his novel Power Games: Operation Enduring Unity 1, I was not enthusiastic.

Power GamesThe cover (not the one shown) looked kind of cartoonish. A blurb stating “After years of unchecked extremism, the presidential election is now a high-stakes poker game played out on a bloody table.” did not sound promising. I suspected either an attack on “Tea Party extremism” or, in the manner of some of the self-published survivalist novels I’ve read descriptions of, an attack on the current U.S. administration. No matter how congenial the politics, I expected crude satire or propaganda. The title seemed too cute too.

But it was a story about a Second American Civil War, and I suspect, as the years go by, we will hear more about states contemplating secession from the Union for whatever reason. Having reviewed Adam Connell’s Total Secession, a very different novel set against the background of a soon to be extinct Union, I was curious what Peters did with the idea.

I liked it, a lot, enough to buy the sequel Shock & Awe: Operation Enduring Unity 2 which just shows the wisdom of Peter’s advice to self-published authors: research and define your target reader.

Review: Power Games: Operation Enduring Unity 1 by Richard Peters, 2013.

No plan survives first contact with the enemy. Continue reading →