fathershawn's review against another edition
3.0
jmartindf's review against another edition
2.0
This book was torn between being a polemic and an action/adventure story. Kratman wasn’t quite able to pull off the combination. I’d really like to give it 3 stars but the failed marriage prevents me from doing so.
The Polemic
Kratman takes Mark Steyn’s book America Alone and runs with it. What would Europe look like if theocratic Muslims out breed everyone else and subjugate everyone else? It’s not a crazy question, especially given what happened to Theo van Gogh and what’s been threatened against Ayaan Hirsi Ali. (Or given the fire bombing of the French weekly that printed cartoons of Mohammed.)
As a polemic, this is very well done. The book portrays a European caliphate where Christians live as second-class citizens forced to pay heavy taxes in order to gain “protection” against the jihad. Their sons are taken as slaves for the Janissaries and their daughters are taken as slaves for the whore houses. Women are treated as third class citizens and have very few rights and very little protection from abuse. It’s a horrifying portrayal of a very patriarchal society.
America has been transformed into the American Empire, after nuclear bombs destroyed 3 American cities. The result was an enraged nation that proceeded to methodically wipe out all traces of Islam within its borders and then to embark on an attempt to wipe out all traces of Islam, everywhere.
The characters in the book are very ambivalent about what America has become. Most of them believe that it’s impossible to live with a dominant Islam but simultaneously believe that America has become an ugly and bad place. It’s welcome uncertainty: the idea that it may be necessary to do bad things to prevent worse things but that it’s still a bad thing.
I’m not at all convinced that Europe will go down the path that Kratman portrays. On the other hand, I think it’s far more likely than most progressive liberals do and I am worried about the growth of theocratic Islam. Too many of our institutions want to placate Muslims, in response to Muslim violence, instead of cracking down on the violence directly. I find that kind of response both weak and disturbing.
The Adventure Story
The story revolves around an American intelligence operative, a Christian slave, her Janissary brother, and a potentially lethal bioweapon. Somehow, the weapon must be destroyed, the slaves must be freed, and everyone must escape from the Caliphate.
It could have been a very good story but I felt that it kept getting bogged down in the expository background information and that too much of the plot existed only to explain the world that Kratman wanted the reader to fear.
It was good but it could have been much, much better.