Monday, May 14, 2012

Review of 'Triggers' by Robert J. Sawyer

My review of "Triggers" by Robert J. Sawyer has just been published at sciencefiction.com. The book is an acceptable, if disposal, recreational read marred only by the impeccably-liberal convictions expressed by the author.

I remain immature in reviewing these kinds of books. I am driven to a kind of fury at the smug, self-righteous, morally-superior, doubt-free expression of what in reality are biased, inaccurate, trite and rather stupid, priggish, conventional and overpoweringly-boring bien-pensant received wisdom. There, I said it!

However, such fulminations in a review are pointless so in the end I revisit the text and remove these self-indulgences. Then the piece gets published :-).
---

"President Seth Jerrison, the Republican successor to Obama, is giving a speech from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. The former History Professor from Columbia is presiding over a nation still at war: Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Francisco have been devastated by a new kind of bomb with the destructive power of a nuke. The perpetrators? Al-Sajada, an offshoot from the now-defunct al-Qaeda.

Jerrison is just getting into his stride – ‘… we shall not rest until our planet is free of the scourge of terrorism …’ – when that old nightmare makes its appearance: an assassin opens fire, mortally wounding the President..."

Continue reading at sciencefiction.com.