Rating: 
Summary: Bigotry pretending to be satire?
Review: Robert Zubrin's extended sci-fi allegory is the latest in a deluge of pro-Israeli writings in the U.S. since the end of WWII. Other reviewers have outlined the narrative, so I'll cut right to the sly bigotry Zubrin reveals in explaining modern Palestinian history to us. Zubrin, like most Israelis, conveniently represents Arabs as a single nation, rather than a group of nations that share a common racial and cultural heritage. He uses this invented "nation" to blame the Arabs for not assimilating Palestinian refugees, instead of focusing on Israel's illegal refusal to allow civilian Palestinians their UN-mandated right to return to their ancestral villages. If this were Serbia, someone might refer to Israel's policy as "ethnic cleansing." However it's our old buddy, Israel, so international law doesn't seem to apply. Just as it clearly doesn't apply to Israel's documented possession of illegal nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons of mass destruction. Zubrin fails to communicate the emotional outrage the Palestinians must have felt when the US/UN carved a Jewish state out of Arab Palestine. He fails to justify Israel's ongoing annexation of the small, dry, land-locked remnant of Palestine that the UN left to the native Palestinians in 1948. America's one-sided support for Israel since 1948 has triggered global terrorism today, just as its one-sided support for Shah Pahlevi created the conditions for Islamic fundamentalism in Iran in 1979. The bloody results of these ignorant, self-defeating policies have become too horrifying to ignore; just as Mr. Zubrin's book cannot be dismissed as a clumsy allegory. In light of the recent Madrid bombing, this latest serving of Israeli propoganda can have no readers - only victims.
Rating: 
Summary: A new line has been drawn in the sand
Review: Robert Zubrin's new book, "The Holy Land", satirizes the conflict in the Middle East, specifically the troubles between Israel and the Palestinians. How, one would think, can a person make fun of this particularly sensitive subject? Zubrin succeeds by turning it into a darkly humorous science fiction tale of an alien race who settle in the town of Kennewick, Washington, stating that this is their promised land and theirs by right because it is written in their holy scriptures. The US administration is understandably perturbed by these events, and led by a crusading fanatical Christian President, go to extraordinary lengths to have the plight of the displaced Kennewickian residents brought to the attention of the Galactic media, while also plotting their own gains from the situation. Zubrin has created a story which can switch from amusement to disbelief to shock and back again in a single page. He parallels the methods and events which have so defined the Israeli/Palestinian conflict to degrees which even in the satirical world could be considered disturbing, but somehow manages to keep the reader at a safe distance, mirroring the sanitization of such horrors as suicide bombings which today's media have learned to do so well. This distancing of the reader to the events is achieved in Zubrin's style of writing. I am, in this respect, reminded particularly of The Crystal World by J.G. Ballard, a story which was so fantastic, and yet written with a childlike simplicity which made the abnormal seem normal and didn't allow the reader to pause and think enough to stop believing in it. Zubrin gets the same results - his Ballard-like storytelling sets the pace and "The Holy Land" plays out like a well oiled machine. I am also reminded of a satirical television mini-series from the U.K back in the early 80's, called "Whoops! Apocalypse". The storyline was ridiculous, the acting was over the top, but somehow you could imagine that things could really be that way - the insanity of crazed politicians and an over zealous military steaming full ahead with utter righteous conviction towards annihilation. "The Holy Land" takes satire to a new extreme, giving the reader the opportunity to be both amused and horrified, turning the tables on a far away conflict and bringing it close to home, not just physically, but socially and psychologically as well, at times begging the question "is this really how things are?". The story is sufficiently different to be fiction, sufficiently the same to hit home. Congratulations Mr. Zubrin, you stepped over the line in the sand and drew another one for everyone else to try and cross.
Rating:
Summary: A dramatic science-fiction saga
Review: Robert Zubrin's The Holy Land is a dramatic science-fiction saga of a relatively tolerant, galaxy-spanning empire and the brutally resistant segments of fundamentalist Earth who find their "pagan" presence intolerable. Violence rears its ugly head, yet Earth is hopelessly outmatched should it attempt to go to war with the empire - attempting to protect "the holy land" could result utter destruction and devastation for all humanity. The Holy Land is a tense and original story of the collective dark side of human nature.
Rating: 
Summary: A worthy first shot at SF satire
Review: Science fiction pioneer Arthur C. Clarke has suggested that religion is a "disease of infancy": a temporary malady that, at best, keeps the human race shackled to geocentric biases and, at worst, dooms us to premature extinction. "The Holy Land," by Mars Society founder Robert Zubrin, is a scathing diagnosis of our collective predicament as seen through the lens of the modern Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Zubrin's most famous work is the nonfiction treatise "The Case for Mars," which convincingly demonstrates how travel to our neighbor planet could catalyze a new era of planetary discovery. The science and philosophy behind "The Case for Mars" were duly incorporated into his subsequent novel "First Landing": a shaky but ultimately enjoyable hard-SF adventure. "The Holy Land" is something entirely different. Any pretext of realism is swept aside to make way for a slapstick geopolitical farce in which alien "Minervans" attempt to reclaim their ancestral homeland in the continental United States. Loathed by militant U.S. Christian Fundamentalists, the Minervans' conflict escalates into a galactic political melee. This novel doesn't pretend to be subtle. References to Mid-East suicide bombings, bungled attempts at negotiation between Israel and Palestine and the September 11 attacks are glaringly obvious. Herein lies "The Holy Land's" central weakness: If the action and dialogue read as convincingly as a shoot-'em-up comic book, how seriously are we to take Zubrin's barbs? From a comedic standpoint, Zubrin demands that we actively participate in his farce. While this is a good technique for drawing readers into the book's plot, it's simultaneously alienating. Not that Zubrin's barbs aren't good ones. Though far from misanthropic, Zubrin views our species as a squabbling, violent and largely ineffectual lot. The central conflict between the crooked U.S. government and the quasi-Zionist Minervans is presented as a microcosm of the human spectacle. Through the eyes of his civilized galactic visitors, Earthlings are little more than oafish, smelly cattle possessed by disgusting habits and backfired ideologies. Ironically, the star-crossed romance that comes into its own in the novel's second half is orders of magnitude more substantial -- and culturally indicting -- than "The Holy Land's" various political intrigues. "The Holy Land" may ultimately lack the staying power of "The Case for Mars." But for those of us who feel as if the world is in the throes of apocalyptic insanity, Zubrin's book provides welcome reassurance that we're not alone.
Rating:
Summary: A worthy first shot at SF satire
Review: Science fiction pioneer Arthur C. Clarke has suggested that religion is a "disease of infancy": a temporary malady that, at best, keeps the human race shackled to geocentric biases and, at worst, dooms us to premature extinction. "The Holy Land," by Mars Society founder Robert Zubrin, is a scathing diagnosis of our collective predicament as seen through the lens of the modern Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Zubrin's most famous work is the nonfiction treatise "The Case for Mars," which convincingly demonstrates how travel to our neighbor planet could catalyze a new era of planetary discovery. The science and philosophy behind "The Case for Mars" were duly incorporated into his subsequent novel "First Landing": a shaky but ultimately enjoyable hard-SF adventure. "The Holy Land" is something entirely different. Any pretext of realism is swept aside to make way for a slapstick geopolitical farce in which alien "Minervans" attempt to reclaim their ancestral homeland in the continental United States. Loathed by militant U.S. Christian Fundamentalists, the Minervans' conflict escalates into a galactic political melee. This novel doesn't pretend to be subtle. References to Mid-East suicide bombings, bungled attempts at negotiation between Israel and Palestine and the September 11 attacks are glaringly obvious. Herein lies "The Holy Land's" central weakness: If the action and dialogue read as convincingly as a shoot-'em-up comic book, how seriously are we to take Zubrin's barbs? From a comedic standpoint, Zubrin demands that we actively participate in his farce. While this is a good technique for drawing readers into the book's plot, it's simultaneously alienating. Not that Zubrin's barbs aren't good ones. Though far from misanthropic, Zubrin views our species as a squabbling, violent and largely ineffectual lot. The central conflict between the crooked U.S. government and the quasi-Zionist Minervans is presented as a microcosm of the human spectacle. Through the eyes of his civilized galactic visitors, Earthlings are little more than oafish, smelly cattle possessed by disgusting habits and backfired ideologies. Ironically, the star-crossed romance that comes into its own in the novel's second half is orders of magnitude more substantial -- and culturally indicting -- than "The Holy Land's" various political intrigues. "The Holy Land" may ultimately lack the staying power of "The Case for Mars." But for those of us who feel as if the world is in the throes of apocalyptic insanity, Zubrin's book provides welcome reassurance that we're not alone.
Rating: 
Summary: A Parable of Israel
Review: The Holy Land, actually, it's Kennewick, a land of Christian zealots. A madcap world turned upside down, where Minervan exiles discover their spiritual home (dropped off inconveniently by spaceships from an, er, Galactic Empire), only to set off a chain of events of interstellar proportions - from planetary genocide, and suicide bombers, to flawed peace treaties which result in the fading of an entire people. This is Robert Zubrin's latest fictional effort - The Holy Land. A bitter-sweet tragedy to reflect our times. A parable of the Middle East, with its center the story of the continuing struggle for the survival of Israel, and the battle for a young womans heart. One of the unique attributes of the sci-fi genre is its ability to cast both the mundane and the bizarre events of our lives in a theatre where the very absurdity of the props serve to sharpen our understanding of ourselves. Social satire comes naturally to sci-fi writing, and Zubrin deals it out in spades. Actually, reading the Holy Land it's more like getting hit between the eyes with the spade itself. Zubrin's parable is forceful, his metaphors deliberately unsubtle, and his cast of characters are frighteningly real. Much of the story is reflective of modern history of the Middle East, from the creation of Israel after WW-II, to the present struggle for the souls of both Israelis and Palestinians. So little of what follows contain spoilers of any kind. But first, the beginning... The Holy Land is Kennewick, Washington. A little strip of land that the Minervans (the Jews in this parable) have re-discovered as their ancient home. After a bruising inter-stellar war between an opportunistic alliance of the Western Empire (the Anglosphere ) and the Eastern Empire(the old Soviets), who finally crushed the imperialistic ambitions and dark genocidal impulses of the Central Empire (shades of Germany and Europe), the winners allow the Minervans a last refuge. An opportunity to reclaim their spiritual home. In what much of the galaxy considers a hell-hole and nobody really wants, the wandering Minervans gladly settle. On Earth, always the pimple on the armpit of galactic civilization, in case you didn't know that already. Of course, they turn Kennewick into a land of milk and honey, even offer to share the bounty with their American (read Arab) hosts. Naturally, the Americans, with their outrageous worship of the male God-son Jesus, plot their final annihilation. From frontal warfare, to guerrilla actions that ultimately drags American culture into a cesspool of nihilism and glorification of death, The Holy Land ends up giving the reader an intense view into the fury and hell that is the fate of Israel and its citizens today. Much of the story is seen through the eyes of a young Minervan priestess Aurora, and her Earthling captive Sgt. Hamilton (who we meet when he's leading a suicide sniper-squad of Marines to kill a bunch of heathen Minervan picnickers). Theirs is a love story, perhaps doomed from the start. Will they make it in the end? Will the Minervans survive the pathological hatred of the Americans, or the thinly disguised contempt of the Central Empire, the weak-spined friendship with the Western Empire? Will Kennewick be turned into a smoking ruin from the WMDs sold to the Americans by the opportunistic arms-dealers from the Eastern Bloc? Who will lead the Americans from their well of hate? Who will help their brainwashed children with their sixguns and bombs? Well, you have to read the book to find out. A warning to any who are of the thin-skinned sort. Zubrin's prose can be offensive, and since it is impossible to read him, without making clear historical connections between events in The Holy Land and our own just-as-fanciful world, this book is likely to offend those who are faint of heart, or are partisans in our own conflict to the exclusion of everything else. The Holy Land is an entertaining, compelling, yet disturbing, and sometimes a difficult read. It is also a damning indictment of one of the foremost tragedies of our time. For that reason alone, it represents an important and effort in this genre.
Rating:
Summary: Not great fiction. Not great satire. Great concept.
Review: The Holy Land Do you think you have a clear understanding of the situation in the Middle East? Do you think you have the Arab/Palestinian/Israeli conflict finally understood? Perhaps you need to test your assumptions b y reading Robert Zubrins new book, "The Holy Land." Writing a social satire within the Science Fiction genre seems a tall order, but Robert Zubrin pulls it off. Zubrin uses Science Fiction with satire to make his points about the insanity that is our current Middle East reality. Space aliens have been resettled to Earth by a powerful Galactic empire and are the centerpiece of this novel. The Minervans are the relocated alien, and their home is Kennewick, Washington, USA their ancestral home and "holy land." Opposed to this resettlement is a U.S. government that is presented as a Christian theocracy. Fundamentalist but totalitarian, this twist in the novel is jarring, but makes Zubrin's satire work. The U.S. President is presented effectively, and often comically, as a man who has hijacked a faith for personal power and control. The Western Galactic Empire is backing the Minervans, and it is through the WGE that Zubrin takes on our Western societies attitudes toward the Middle East. The WGE is motivated primarily by the desire to keep the Helicity (read Oil) flowing, and that desire fuels the reaction to the Minervan-Kennewickian conflict. All of this sounds familiar? There is much in "The Holy Land" that will seem familiar, yet don't think for one second that you will find your familiar good guy in this. Zubrin is exceedingly even-handed in skewering all sides for their failings. In the end "The Holy Land" provides at least one answer that may serve us all well in looking beyond the satire to the reality of the Middle East. Basically we need to reevaluate our assumptions about that region. And there is nothing better then a hard hitting and amusing satire to bring a far away and little understood conflict close to home. This is a novel well worth the read.
Rating:
Summary: Re-examine your assumptions through the Holy Land
Review: The Holy Land Do you think you have a clear understanding of the situation in the Middle East? Do you think you have the Arab/Palestinian/Israeli conflict finally understood? Perhaps you need to test your assumptions b y reading Robert Zubrins new book, "The Holy Land." Writing a social satire within the Science Fiction genre seems a tall order, but Robert Zubrin pulls it off. Zubrin uses Science Fiction with satire to make his points about the insanity that is our current Middle East reality. Space aliens have been resettled to Earth by a powerful Galactic empire and are the centerpiece of this novel. The Minervans are the relocated alien, and their home is Kennewick, Washington, USA their ancestral home and "holy land." Opposed to this resettlement is a U.S. government that is presented as a Christian theocracy. Fundamentalist but totalitarian, this twist in the novel is jarring, but makes Zubrin's satire work. The U.S. President is presented effectively, and often comically, as a man who has hijacked a faith for personal power and control. The Western Galactic Empire is backing the Minervans, and it is through the WGE that Zubrin takes on our Western societies attitudes toward the Middle East. The WGE is motivated primarily by the desire to keep the Helicity (read Oil) flowing, and that desire fuels the reaction to the Minervan-Kennewickian conflict. All of this sounds familiar? There is much in "The Holy Land" that will seem familiar, yet don't think for one second that you will find your familiar good guy in this. Zubrin is exceedingly even-handed in skewering all sides for their failings. In the end "The Holy Land" provides at least one answer that may serve us all well in looking beyond the satire to the reality of the Middle East. Basically we need to reevaluate our assumptions about that region. And there is nothing better then a hard hitting and amusing satire to bring a far away and little understood conflict close to home. This is a novel well worth the read.
Rating:
Summary: feels like A Modest Proposal placed in a future context
Review: The space wandering Miniervans claim that Kennewick, Washington is their ancestral holy land that they still own. They hope to finally live in peace after a galactic empire tried to exterminate them. Instead of finding a land of milk and honey, the American government begins a campaign to kick the Miniervans off the continent partly because the "outsiders" behave with an attitude of superiority and racism towards others. The ensuing war fails to evict the Miniervans from their new home. Frustrated the Fundamentalists running the American government force the dislocated Kennewickians into squalid camps where the young are trained in guerilla tactics and hatred towards the usurpers. The other galactic races are appalled by the constant deaths of the Kennewickians at the hands of the technological superior Minervans though the latter merely defend themselves from suicide assaults encouraged by the US government. The superpower the Western Galactic Empire demands human rights for the displaced. That changes when helicity is discovered on earth as that valuable resource is more important than an individual's dignity. THE HOLY LAND is a powerful science fiction political satire that relocates the players in the Arab-Israeli dispute inside a galaxy filled with plenty of nations and one superpower. The story line cleverly rips all sides in the real world maelstrom though the Miniervans come off a bit less shredded. Fans who appreciate a strong lampoon of the inanity of the United States, Israel, Palestine, and the other Arab nations for what they have done to people in the invoking of an ism (ideologically stupid morons) will enjoy this tale that feels like Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal placed in a future context. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: A Swift SF Take on the Israeli - Palestinian Conflict
Review: The word satura (the root of our "satire") is a Latin adjective which originally meant "mixed" or "of various composition" and was used to refer to Roman sausages. What of that? Nearly 2000 years later, Otto von Bismarck provided us with a rational, rather than simply linguistic, connection between sausages and satire: "To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making." Robert Zubrin has been peeking, and sausage-makers all over the world have reason to be nervous. The satirical target of this fast-paced science fiction adventure is "The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict," a subject some would deem too serious for satire. Yet, because of the contradictions and colliding world-views embraced by the major players, it sometimes seems that the only responses possible for an intelligent, compassionate and informed observer are either deep sorrow or biting satire. In some ways, Zubrin expresses both of these in his work, but his overall optimism wins out to make this a tale of high adventure and deep humanistic insight. Arrogant, beautiful, cultured aliens (Minervans, who worship the Goddess of Reason) are relocated to their ancestral home (20,000 years ago) of Kennewick, Washington. The US government is not amused. They are even less amused when they find they can do nothing about it militarily, but must try to manipulate galactic public opinion by creating a Kennewickian Refugee Problem so that one of the galactic superpowers (whose political differences are, for simplicity's sake, largely defined by their religious differences) will either remove the Minervans or somehow make it possible for the Earthlings to do so. Our hero is a US Army Ranger named Andrew Hamilton, captured on an early sortie against the Minervans. This story has all of the space opera ingredients: lots of impressive fighting scenes, local and galactic political machinations of many flavors, Mom and turkey dinners, and handsome, heroic American boy meets gorgeous but slightly ultra-rational and arrogant alien girl - do they save the world? Do they lose one another? There is suspense, nobility, and charm. Not bad for only 298 pages! The pacing is excellent, the plot consistent and convincing. And, except in the epilogue, which ties up the plot as a good epilogue should, the satire has quite a bite. And who knew this topic could POSSIBLY be funny?! Zubrin spares no one from the searchlight of his satirical situations and analyses, although his own position on the (actual) conflict will also be fairly clear by about page 20. It is telling, nonetheless, that the "solution" his characters reach is not sweeping and global, but begins more along the lines of Voltaire's (Candide) conclusion with regard to the miseries of the world.* Madness is out there; healing and joy are in here, but Zubrin carries the cultivation of the garden a bit farther, mindful of its potential to influence the greater world: even a few small seeds, planted and tended in hope, can yield a lush Eden in the fullness of time. Tikkun Olam, but from a realist. The author's basic belief in the future (dare I say "optimism?" He is, after all, founder and president of The Mars Society, which is by definition optimistic) arises not from naiveté but from a long and varied experience, and this sense of hope is one of the weapons making his satire effective. Turning this particular horrifying and seemingly hopeless real-life conflict into a satirical space-opera is almost an exorcism. His advocacy of hope is not plaintive, but carries conviction. The reader may consider the writing as shading into propaganda, yet it dances nicely along this edge - the writing achieves at least one aim of propaganda through the subtle persuasion of lampooning all sides, causing even the most skeptical reader to ask new questions. And it is even more effective because it is funny. Often, in the midst of the most horrible (because if they are even partially a mirror of reality, "horrible" is the only appropriate word) political machinations, or the greatest crisis of communication between one key character and another, the reader will find himself bursting into laughter. That is the second, and quite formidable, weapon of Dr. Zubrin - his playful and acute intelligence. Founder of his own aerospace research and development firm, holder of three US patents and designer of Mars Direct (the most realistic existing template for achieving a successful manned mission to Mars in the next twenty years), in a battle of wits Robert Zubrin would be well beyond "armed to the teeth." Consider The Holy Land a good read and a well-crafted SF adventure, in the guise of satire, from a man who could just as easily (and almost as entertainingly) have chosen to explain a new type of fusion reactor design or why it's a good idea for humans to hie themselves to Mars, not in fifty years, but ten. Given the craziness that so often seems to skew the course of global politics, Zubrin's perspective, humor and well-honed intellect, plus, of course, a talent for storytelling, are qualities many intelligent readers will appreciate. - HLP (also printed (c)2003 in "PlainsPeaking") *"We must cultivate our garden"
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