America 2014: An Orwellian Tale (Orwellian Tale)

Rating:
Summary: Rampant Paranoia
Review: 1984 was a great book, but at least it was somewhat believable given the times it was written in. Communism and fascism were a real threat to our freedoms and way of life. But the author of this book just lost his mind. To assume we abandon our constitution to fight terrorists is just plain silly. We made through the civil war, the 2nd world war and the cold war, all without giving up our form of government. Why would it now be different? Because of the Patriot Act? President Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus. President Roosevelt imprisoned Japanese-, German- and Italian-Americans. We do nothing of the sort in our fight against terrorism.
So take a deep breath, relax and in about four years (2008) you have your chance to vote for a new president.


Rating:
Summary: Bush-world - Awesome book! - funny and scary
Review: After reading this visionary tale I can see why Buzzflash.com wrote America 2014 is "destined to become an underground classic." I read through the book without putting it down in five hours: laughing my butt off and shaking my head at the picture of the horrifying Bush-world Blair presents. America 2014 is a breath of fresh air in this world of increasingly vacuous media silence and conformity.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing America 2014!
Review: America 2014 is one of the best books I have ever read. It's 1984 repackaged with relevance to today. Dawn Blair (a pseudonym) cleverly creates a world in which the supreme power is George O. Blush, and in which Homeland Security has become similar to the Gestapo. America 2014 poses the scary question: "What If?" What if George W. Bush continues to pass more Patriot Acts (a staple of the book, and instrumental in taking away freedoms of Americans), and what if he runs for a third term? I read this book on a recent vacation to Mexico and finished it in about four hours. It's a smooth, great quick read. And the fabulous thing about it is how relevant it is. Everything's not just drawn up as in a science-fiction tale, but it draws off things from the present day (i.e. the Patriot Act, Homeland Security, etc.). Coming back from my trip, I saw that several of the things mentioned in America 2014 had been implemented in America. Fingerprint readers and Cameras were now present at each U.S. Customs booth. Is the world becoming like America 2014? Let's hope not.

Rating:
Summary: Engrossing topic, decent characterizations, silly devices
Review: 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???

Rating:
Summary: Cross-dresser impersonates Great Author
Review: As a devout fan of Orwell (Eric Blair), I think it bizarre, presumptuous, pompous, pretentious and simply ridiculous to hide behind a female pseudonym, such as Dawn Blair. This chutzpah could only be created by someone intent on milking a few bucks out of Orwell's British surname to promote a rather silly agenda. Perhaps you should consult Blair's estate before cashing in on the family name.

Rating:
Summary: Doubleplussungood: Big Sisters don't cry!
Review: As a liberal, progressive Democrat, I find America 2014: An Orwellian Tale symptomatic of the darkness that now envelopes our country. Once, we had writers such as Orwell (Eric Blair) and Aldus Huxley to provide near visionary tales of the future to come. Such great authors have been replaced by hackneyed interlopers such as Jonathan Greenberg, who trades on the surnames (i.e. Dawn Blair) and protagonists (Winston Smith), of literary greats such as Orwell.

Just so I am not accused of neither reading nor buying this schlock, from this scheister, I will describe a few of the more forgettable dalliances of Greenberg as he plays ducks and drakes with the English language. Greenberg's Winston Smith is simply a pot smoking, dope head who fears guns. No more victory gin... now once the marijuana cigarette is smoked the Revolution will be complete and Big Brother is a gun toting Texan. Winston also fears guns as well (notice that constant modern liberal drumbeat of gun control again in the background). Funny, how George Orwell himself recommended that every British citizen own a gun and learn how to fight in order to defend their country. He actually organized a militia on his own block in Great Britain. Likewise, he served in the British military and Foreign Service just like his father.

This book also includes the obligatory attack upon God which is so crucial to today's liberal elite. The evil judge in Dawn Blair's book has a bible and a Gun carefully balanced on top of his desk as he interrogates Winston. Life is too short to read bad books. Wait a few years and you'll find this one alongside other noteworthy Orwell rip-offs in the literary dust bin such as, "1984 Revisited", The Harlequin Romance of "Winston and Julia: Big Brother's Big Affair", etc. etc.

I wish the Democrats would eventually return to the essential task of protecting the middle-class and abandon irrelevant issues such as: Attacking Christianity and western civilization as well as promoting gun control, homosexuality and abortion, etc. etc... Nevertheless, this book has no other purpose but to rake in a few dollars for the author by trading on the greatness of 1984 and Orwell. If it was a sublime work of propaganda, I would tell you... but it isn't. It's just a waste of paper... that's all. So do what you can to save the environment: save a tree...don't buy this book. So the author can stop criticizing other reviewers with ad homonym attacks, trivializing the Holocaust by calling them Bush-Steppers or Bush-Nazis. It's true; today's Republicans are just as despicable as today's Democrats. Only a child would believe that a two-party system actually exists, when it's actually two-card Monte game where America always loses. Both parties are simply interested in power and that is an Orwellian fact. Dawn Greenberg: Stop Your Sobbing! That's a doubleplussgoodgirl!


Rating:
Summary: Don't miss it!
Review: 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.


Rating:
Summary: So much potential, so little delivered...
Review: The other criticisms are all valid and I won't add any. My title says it all.

BTW, there were 19 reviews for this book at the time I wrote this one. It seemed to me that the overall rating (4+ stars) was not reflected in the reviews and the number of stars assigned. I decided to calculate the rating for myself. Here is what I calculated (stars * count):

(5 * 11) + (4 * 1) + (3 * 2) + (1 * 5) = 70/19 = 3.684.

This is almost a full star _below_ the overall rating as reported by Amazon. I have noticed before that Amazon's overall rating for materials seemed too high for the reviews, but this is the first time I ran the numbers myself. Seems one must take these things with a pinch of salt...

Rating:
Summary: A Great idea, but mediocre execution
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Reality check for the Bush-steppers
Review: While reading America 2014 I was struck by how near to our frightening reality Blair's (Greenberg's) narrative is. Despite what the two non-reader (both obviously didn't read the book) reviewers wrote below, America 2014 is truly a fascinating read. Though some may call the book's agenda "silly" or "paranoid" I have to wonder what life world these Bush-steppers are living in, just read the book and see for your self: America 2014 is sadly right on.

As for the author using the Blair's name for profit, as alleged by the "reviewer" below, I haven't seen this book on the top bestseller lists, and the media ignores government-critical books like these, espeically when they come from small presses. If the person who wrote that really believes authors make money on things like this, George Bush has some Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction that he'd like to sell her. Besides, if that "reviewer" below bothered to read the book, she would have known why the author chose to use the pen name he did: Dawn Blair is a main character in the book, and she writes it, in the fictional world woven here, for a reason.