Good News

Rating:
Summary: A rare anarcho-classic!
Review: Abbey's best work will always be his essays, but this novel is one of those "forgotten" dystopian classics that deserves much more attention. Forget Orwell's "1984." It's too European. Forget Levin's "This Perfect Day." It's too fantastic. Abbey has written the best post-apocalypse American novel to date. And his politics, as always, ring true. Up the rebels! An anarcho-classic

Rating:
Summary: A rare anarcho-classic!
Review: Abbey's best work will always be his essays, but this novel is one of those "forgotten" dystopian classics that deserves much more attention. Forget Orwell's "1984." It's too European. Forget Levin's "This Perfect Day." It's too fantastic. Abbey has written the best post-apocalypse American novel to date. And his politics, as always, ring true. Up the rebels! An anarcho-classic

Rating:
Summary: Abbey does Sci-Fi
Review: This is Abbey's most unabashedly anarchist novel (yes, even more so than The Monkey Wrench Gang) with anti-militarist undertones as well as his usual love for the rural Southwest.

This is Abbey's one attempt at writing sci-fi, with the novel set in a future time when the governments and big corporations in the cities have collapsed under the weight of their own unsustainability, and the people have largely returned to the small-scale agrarian economy of the Old West, albeit with no government. The ideal, in Abbey's worldview. Only problem is, there is a would-be military dictator trying to establish a power base in Phoenix and re-establish the state and the primacy of the city.

Not as good a novel as The Monkey Wrench Gang, but still rates 5 stars.

For some intellectual fun, compare and contrast this book to Ayn Rand's Anthem. It is interesting how both Abbey and Rand portray the cities as hives of statism and authoritarianism, and rural areas as the places where freedom and escape from authoritarian government can be found. And yet, Abbey and Rand held such diametrically opposed views on the environment and wilderness preservation. Which one is right? Or more to the point, is preserving wilderness and rural areas from development our last best hope as an escape hatch from authoritarian government? On this point, I'll put my bet on Abbey any day!

Rating:
Summary: Abbey does Sci-Fi
Review: This is not only one of Abbey's best novels but a great novel in its own right. As both a city and a country dweller I can not only relate but confirm much of his notion that cities are not nearly as healthy for a man's soul as the country is. In addition this is a great story about social decay and what it takes to over come the challanges that arise from such a situation. We have grown soft and forgetful of what our forefathers went through to create a country like ours and this book gives a realistic and easy to swallow insight into their frames of mind and their state of heart. This is the wild west and the futurama all mixed together with an iron fisted military group to boot. I still can't believe this was never made into a movie.

Rating:
Summary: Forget '1984'
Review: This is not only one of Abbey's best novels but a great novel in its own right. As both a city and a country dweller I can not only relate but confirm much of his notion that cities are not nearly as healthy for a man's soul as the country is. In addition this is a great story about social decay and what it takes to over come the challanges that arise from such a situation. We have grown soft and forgetful of what our forefathers went through to create a country like ours and this book gives a realistic and easy to swallow insight into their frames of mind and their state of heart. This is the wild west and the futurama all mixed together with an iron fisted military group to boot. I still can't believe this was never made into a movie.

Rating:
Summary: Too bad I like the City
Review: What is amazing about Abbey is how much I buy into his worldview of nasty cities sucking the life out of people and the few free men going out into the country and living off the land. Abbey writes modern Westerns and this one takes place after the infrastructure of the world collapses. An amazingly fun read, I find myself at odds with...I love living in the city, I love traffic, pollution, car horns blaring and noisy upstairs neighbors. Yet I also for a brief time can completely get into Abbey's point of view and that alone makes this a great book