This is the book which answers the question: what if Hillary Clinton were elected president and every terrible thing ever said about her were literally true?
A State of Disobedience is a first novel from Tom Kratman, published by military science fiction powerhouse Baen Books. Like most of Baen's authors, Kratman is a military veteran and extremely conservative. He enlisted in the infantry, left to attend Boston College and then returned to serve as an officer in the first Gulf War. He then went to law school and now practices law in Virginia. Since writing this novel in 2003 he has collaborated with John Ringo on two other novels and has two more solo novels coming out later this year.
Despite the alarming premise, this book is not a bunch of idiotic reactionary twaddle about a second American revolution like The Turner Diaries. It's better thought-out and more believable, once you've swallowed the basic idea that Hillary Clinton wins the 2008 election and then proceeds to do everything her worst detractors suspect she wants to do, by turning the US into a politically correct, socialist, police state. Kratman is clearly an astute political observer and keenly intelligent. His extrapolations from the body of anti-Hillary rhetoric are logical and fully explored. After you've read a few pages and begun to suspend your initial disbelief his distopian scenario becomes dismayingly convincing.
It's a tribute to Kratman's intelligence that even though the book was published in 2003 and ran the risk of becoming dated very fast, nothing which has happened since then has really failed to follow his version of history, except perhaps the rise of Barack Obama as a serious Democratic presidential contender. His story is made more convincing by his transparent use of historical figures with only small name changes, and with their well-known personalities clearly described on the page. Hillary Clinton becomes Wilhelmina Rottermeyer (after having divorced her philandering husband and taken back her maiden name). James Carville is James Carroll, and so on. Many of the central characters are fictional, although clearly drawn from life, and there are enough little tidbits of factual scandal and historical abuse of power to lay a believable foundation for the more extreme parts of the story. He even gets in a nice dig at ACORN and the largely ignored Democratic vote-buying scandal.
Article comments
1 - T.C.
I was greatly impressed with this review, as it gives great insight into the book and its viewpoint. I am much more of a fantasy/fictional reader, but I am heading over to Amazon right now to pick this one up.
2 - Dave Nalle
So long as it doesn't offend your political sensibilities too much I think you'll find it a good read. I should have said this in the review, but this book really ought to appeal to those who like 'alternative history' genre novels.
Dave
3 - T.C.
My political standpoint is mainly independent, so I have little trouble seeing both viewpoints. If I find this to be a book that meets my satisfaction, I may look further into similarly presented 'alternative history' reads. Thank you for the eloquently-written, detailed and insightful review!
4 - Clavos
Just ordered it from the library.
Sounds like a fun read!
5 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net , which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States, and to Boston.com. Nice work!