Preppers Stand Against Invasion When International
Creditors Demand Repayment
If you know what a “prepper” is, then
you’re a step ahead of me when I started this book. Basically, it’s someone who
believes a catastrophe is looming and makes active preparations for it. The
approaching disaster in this book? The United States has failed to balance trade
for far too long and our international creditors have called our debt due.
America capitulates and China takes over on the West Coast, the Russians on the
East, and the population is left in virtual slavery to work off what the
country owes. Not everyone is OK with this arrangement, of course, not the
least of whom are the protagonists of this tale—Mitch, the enigmatic head of
the Olympus Capital hedge fund, and Melanie, logistical guru, mathematical
genius, and later, his wife. Together, they provide the financial wizardry that
is used to build a prepper community, the Retreat, in the forests of Idaho to
battle the Chinese.
Overall, the writing is good, and in
particular, the characters are well-developed. Each has their own voice, so
even without attribution, you can usually tell who is speaking. You’ll never
mistake Angus’ harrumphing, for example. But for my taste, the author is too
fond of clichés, e.g., “… would you rather ask for
permission or beg for forgiveness? If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance
then baffle them with bull.” And there is a tendency to run-on sentences,
including some that take up half a page. An additional edit would have helped.
But the real limitations to the book
are twofold. First, I found the basic premise difficult to accept. Would no one
be suspicious if all of our creditors demanded repayment at the same moment? Would
Americans stand by and let foreign militaries on US soil? Would a president
just hand over all authority because of debt? Could he? I found it necessary to
“suspend disbelief” to get into the story. But second, even after I did that,
the plot lacked tension. Consistently, the reader is told that Mitch and
Melanie are smarter than any of their adversaries and the prepper community
knows more about survival and battle tactics than the Chinese, more than the US
Army. It never felt like the Retreat was in any danger. True, there were losses
later in the book, but those were the result of massive bombardments where “…
they were bound to get lucky on a few shots.” Basically, hero and villain were
significantly mismatched and plot tension and suspense suffered as a result.
Overall, the story was an interesting portrayal
of the prepper philosophy of survival and freedom. But even if you can accept
the basic premise of the invasion, the tension of conflict between equal
opposing forces was missing.
See on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3BalQb1
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