I recently read Tom Kratman’s speculative fiction novel A State of Disobedience and I think it’s worth recommending. The book was published in 2003 and is set in the near future.
John Ringo describes A State of Disobedience as “Probably the most realistic depiction of the second American revolution ever written” and I find it difficult to disagree with his assessment. In a way the book reminds me of Robert Heinlein’s masterpiece political novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Both of these tomes are almost as much manuals for revolution as they are entertainment, but neither fails to entertain.
Kratman’s work starts off slow but picks up nicely due to extremely well-made characters. Tom pours heart and soul into building a large number of realistic three dimensional characters to move the plot of the novel forward.
The author borrows heavily from the dark events that led to the murders of the children of Waco, Texas during the Clinton administration. The main antagonist is an obvious caricature of Hillary Clinton, no one having been able to foresee that George Soros would be able to push Hillary out of the Democratic nomination in 2008.
Part of my difficulty engaging in the book in the early chapters is that the conflict starts over the issue of abortion. This is a real non-starter of an issue with me personally, although I understand why and how it is the most important possible issue to many voters.
In the novel, the FBI raids a Catholic mission in Texas and brutally murder everyone inside. In real life it was a Branch Davidian mission. The Branch Davidian’s are an offshoot of the Seventh Day Adventists, themselves a very small splinter group of protestant Christianity. Clearly, if Janet Reno had been foolish enough to assault the members of a major religious sect, the events after the Waco massacre would have been very different.
In the novel, the Washington politicians are that foolish, as all hell breaks loose in Texas over the murders. I won’t ruin the story for you, but the events are quite believable and the narrative is extremely engaging.
I don’t think this is the way that the next American revolution will happen, but I do think that many of the elements of the story will be similar. The next American revolution is inevitable. No government lasts forever, and our government has abandoned the Constitutional principles which give it legitimacy. It is unknown when the revolution will happen and how it will happen, but it will happen some day. A State of Disobedience is an interesting guide to how it could happen.
