Book Review: Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse

Greetings all, I am trying out something I haven’t done since my school days. Yes, I am writing a book report. 😀

I am an voracious reader and have been running through a large backlog of books. I am now reading a book that deals with how a group deals with the economic collapse of the United States. The title is Patriots and is written by James Wesley Rawles.

Although I’m only about half way through the book, I’m afraid I can’t give this one high marks. It had a lot of potential and being a bit of a connoisseur of “End of Civilization” novels I thought this one would be a fun read.

Sadly, it isn’t.

The book reads more like a training manual with a few events thrown in for a plot. It is highly technical with regards to becoming a survivalist and what you might need to ride out the end of the world.

The author sets up his catastrophe quite simply. The United States enters into a period of hyperinflation that results in the complete collapse of the nation. While that premise is a good one, especially with the way the government has been spending and regulating the last 70 years, having the the United States essentially dissolve is highly unlikely.

The author also tried to go the Clancy style technothriller route. Unfortunately, he didn’t pull it off. He want into far to much detail regarding how much certain items cost and why it was better to buy in bulk. It really hit a low point when he described digging a trench that would only interest a WW1 Doughboy.

There are the obligatory sections dealing with bandits, looters and such, but the cannibals were a bit much.

Continuing on, we see how a cabal of liberal/progressive politicians and foreign bankers have taken over the government,and brought in UN forces to to occupy the Untied States.

Umm yeah…no.

As mentioned before, one of the things that happens is the collapse of the military. While there would be some who did go AWOL, most would stay for a very simple reason. Heavy Artillery. 😉

Also, the military would be the ones to actually start the rebuilding process if there was a complete collapse. They also stand guard over 8000 tons of gold in Fort Knox.
(Now that is a major hedge against inflation!)

More on Fort Knox later.

The other reason the military would remain in place are the nukes. There are tens of thousands of nuclear weapons and they won’t let anyone get their hands on them. This would also be a reason why a foreign power or the UN would think twice about trying to take over the US. Any nation that sent troops would find themselves short a few cities in about 45 minutes.

To continue on, the United States has been basically a nonentity for 5 years after the economic collapse. This is when someone declares himself president and begins to impose a full dictatorship on the U.S. with the help of the UN.

There is the obligatory atrocities and guerrilla war against the “Federales” leading to the victory by the people. Again there are holes in this plot you could drive an aircraft carrier through. To begin with, the American Military would not be a part of a dictatorship. They are a volunteer force and more importantly, the best educated military in world history. They take their oath to defend the Constitution very seriously.

The other UN forces seem to be from Europe mostly. Again they are trained not to indulge in war crimes and most are professional forces. The author missed the opportunity to bring in real UN forces, mostly from the third world. They would have no problem committing the atrocities listed in the novel.

Reading detailed descriptions of every item of apparel and equipment the Patriots are using gets a little tiring after a while. That’s why you have appendices. You put all that detail there so people can look it up.

Another glaring plot hole is the whole complete collapse thing. It appears the Author’s original outline was aiming for a mass casualty event, such as a plague or nuclear war. Those scenarios would cause a complete collapse of the society with a lengthy rebuilding process. An economic collapse? Not likely.

Yes, the useless dregs of society would probably starve, but most people will band together and start the rebuilding process. Will refineries and oil wells shut down? Nope. More then likely, they will continue operations only not taking dollars.

What will probably happen is the current US Government, (President and Congress), will do one of several things.

1. Repudiate the national debt and begin the dismantling the huge bureaucracy that has grown up since the Roosevelt administration.
2. Continue being stupid and find that they are being ignored by everyone.

In the latter case, States will refuse to follow all the mandates coming from DC. Since most states have to balance their budgets, they will need to make substantial cuts.

Which brings up another issue with the plot. The author completely ignores the state governments and local governments. If anything, they are the ones that will begin to clean up the mess made in Washington. In fact, a number of states are starting to push back against Washington’s pronouncements right now.

In the end, the heroes of the story prevail, not without losing friends and family of course and help rebuild the nation.

The author comes up with a few amendments and most of them make some sense. However he also comes up with a few beauties that show his complete misunderstanding of the modern world.

First he wants to limit the standing military to no more then 100,000 men except in time of declared war. Nice idea, however there is a small problem. It takes years to train people to use today’s hardware and teach them the skills to survive on a modern battlefield. It also takes years to actually build the weapon and equipment, not to mention R&D.

From what I could see, it appears the Author would like to roll the nation back politically to before the Civil War. This does not mean he wants to re-institute slavery, but move towards a more decentralized system of government.

While I don’t disagree with most of this, I do think we need a strong, but very limited central government. Define what the Federal Government’s role is and provide sufficient funds to pay for it. One big function of the Federal Government is defending this nation. That requires a strong military and all that entails.

Wealth redistribution? Not so much. (Here the author and I agree)

All said and done, I think this book could have done with a good editor. Easily 90 pages could have been cut from it and rededicated to developing a better back story, a better explanation of what happened and also a better look at other points of view.

Because of that, unless you are a hard core survivalist type, I really can’t recommend this novel.

~The Angry Webmaster~

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