America 2014 : An Orwellian Tale [Paperback]

There's lots to like about this book, particularly if you are among the millions of people who are experiencing post-election angst, including lingering doubts about whether or not George W. Bush's re-election was even legitimate. In *America 2014*, the author projects into the future current nefarious trends within the fundamentalist-driven, war-on-terror-preoccupied Bush Administration, and winds up with a nightmarish dystopian vision of America's future. Great concept! However, the book appears to have been hastily written, and after the first few interesting chapters it kind of degenerates into a fairly stale potboiler "thriller."

The author (I gather that Dawn Blair is a pseudonym) does a decent job of hypothesizing, in a kind of worst case scenario, where the current "war on terror" might lead our country. Based on the obvious but still cogent observation that the "war on terror" is a fairly transparent Orwellian strategy for controlling the nation through xenophobia and fear, Blair posits that the "successful" war in Iraq will be followed by similar invasions of Iran, Syria, and Pakistan. As the war expands the government becomes increasingly repressive, becoming overtly Christian in its declared theological orientation and even renaming the country "God's United States." Trends toward totalitarianism already implicit within the current Patriot Act become increasingly extreme with successive versions of the Act. Bush overturns the Constitution and ends up running for a third and fourth term. "Foxy News" controlls all public information. The Orwellian future that so many of us have feared since the beginning of the War on Terror becomes America's reality.

This is the context for the story of the "new" Winston Smith. In many respects the trajectory of this novel parallels that of the original *1984*, and this is obviously by design. As an earnest attempt at an "updated" version of Orwell's classic, the book is worth a read.

However, as fascinating as the book's concept might be politically, the novel falls flat as a work of literature. The story comprises a hurried, cobbled-together romp of a plot line, and by just about any literary yardstick the writing is so-so at best. I also confess to being somewhat skeptical regarding the notion that youthful "punk hackers" would provide the backbone of the future Resistance movement. But hey, anything's possible.

I suspect that the theme of "1984 becoming a reality" will inspire further novels by other writers as time goes on. I suspect that some of these efforts will be superior to *America 2014*. But "Dawn Blair" should at least be given credit for being first in line in turning this concept into reality.

Ever since I read this book I hear its echoes in the daily news headlines. Suspenseful and shocking, it reveals the grotesque logic of the Bush administration policies carried to the extreme. A rare contemporary example of politically engaged pop literature, this is a must-read for fans of the fantasy genre and every concerned citizen of this country.

America 2014, written under the pseudonym of Dawn Blair (in homage to the original 1984), is the story of a rich propagandist exec's life, fall from grace and subsequent rethinking of his views, set to the backdrop of a totalitarian America in the near future. By 2014, George Dubyah Bush has abolished the Constitution, reigns supreme, and Homeland Security has become a Gestapo-like organization that ruthlessly crushes any Subversives in society. I think many of us have flirted with this idea in light of the current world situation, and this novel tackles it, in my opinion, pretty well. The how-we-got-theres are pretty convincingly explained, e.g. the extension of the War on Terror to almost all of the Islamic world, the reinstatement of the draft, the proliferation of Predator drones across the world as ubiquitous spies, the abolition of the Democrats and the herding of minorities and dissidents into gulags and ghettos are all reasonably believable extensions of today's problems (if you can use a little imagination). The sequences from Winston's arrest at JFK through the trial and prison parts actually had me angry and frustrated; if you ask me, any book that elicits emotion from me is worth the read.

The characters are pretty well-developed, I thought. I liked and cared about Winston, I believed Prof. Malcolm, and was interested in Dawn and the Resistance characters. Their development and depth was decent, especially compared to the characters in the similar novel "Jennifer Government."

The whole 1984 tie-in thing, however, I found to be plagued by a major hole: how do we explain that Winston has written a new 1984 that he wants to bring to the public, when he doesn't even see a single problem with his own oppressive culture? I know his 1984 was supposed to be set in Iran, but it still didn't seem plausible that he's passionate enough to write a whole new 1984 novel and doesn't even recognize the same problems in "God's United States" (Bush has renamed the nation itself). The other thing that irked me, mentioned by other reviewers, is the befuddling of all real-life names. Bush is "Blush," Ashcroft is "Bashcrost," Tony Blair is "Tony Fair," etc. Come on. The author was bold enough to write the novel, was he really protecting himself or anybody with the Kindergarten names? There is also the bizarre convention the author adopts of misspelling the f-word with an e instead of an i throughout (was that religious or something?)

In the end though, I found an engrossing story, good characters and a frighteningly believable possible future. Truth be told, why couldn't something that happened to Russia, China, Cuba, East Germany and most of the Middle East happen to us, as well???

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