Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16898 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-27
• Released on: 2007-11-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 368 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780765355225
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Right-wing rhetoric trumps the logic of story and character in this near-future political thriller about a red-state vs. blue-state American civil war, an implausibly plotted departure from Card's bestselling science fiction (Ender's Game, etc.). When the president and vice-president are killed by domestic terrorists (of unknown political identity), a radical leftist army calling itself the Progressive Restoration takes over New York City and declares itself the rightful government of the United States. Other blue states officially recognize the legitimacy of the group, thus starting a second civil war. Card's heroic red-state protagonists, Maj. Reuben "Rube" Malek and Capt. Bartholomew "Cole" Coleman, draw on their Special Ops training to take down the extremist leftists and restore peace to the nation. The action is overshadowed by the novel's polemical message, which Card tops off with an afterword decrying his own politically-motivated exclusion from various conventions and campuses, the "national media elite" and the divisive excesses of both the right and the left.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Some video-game developers asked Card to write a scenario for "an entertainment franchise . . . about a near-future American civil war." They came to the right man and held off on releasing the game until he completed this relentless thriller, which couldn't be timelier and is, for all its hyperactivity and flip, Hollywoodish one-liners, heartfelt and sobering. Its heroes are two special-ops army officers who keep their oaths to defend the U.S. against all enemies when far too many of their ostensible colleagues have decided to abandon theirs. A rocket hits the west wing of the White House, killing the president, vice-president, and secretary of defense. While those directly responsible are Arabs, the next day, 14-foot-tall, bulletproof, armed globes on mechanical legs, backed by shooters on individual hovercraft, seize New York City by killing anyone in uniform. None of the new attackers looks anything other than American. A "Progressive Restoration" administration is established in the city, and it encourages other cities and states to join it to restore government as it should have been but for the stolen elections of 2000 and 2004. Intriguing plot wrinkles come fore and aft of those basic developments, there are many deftly shaped supporting players, and major shocks explode in a split second (no Stephen King slo-mo for Card!). Moreover, all the action doesn't obscure the author's message about the dangers of extreme political polarization and the need to reassert moderation and mutual citizenship; indeed, it drives it home. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

Customer Reviews

Some Good Ideas but Disappointing...
I looked forward to Orson Scott Card's novel EMPIRE,since I'm a huge fan of his ENDER'S GAME and ENDER'S SHADOW series as well as THE FOLK ON THE FRINGE.Unfortunately this book was written almost as a big budget action movie,any holes in the plot or characters will be carried along by breathless chases and loud explosions and a James Bond villain with his own secret hideout. There were glimpses of brilliance here,and I was expecting a little more than a Twilight's Last Gleaming or Seven Days In May Right Wing Military coup. ***SPOILER ALERT*** The technology that the villains trot out when they take over Manhattan (I refuse to even comment on that,)was completely ludicrous and unnecessary to the story.
The idea of circles within circles and an Augustus like character were good ideas,but the whole red state/blue state conflict was simple minded and not fleshed out at all.I wish Mr.Card would rethink the idea of a Yugoslavia-like US Civil War because I think he had the makings of a great story there,but I don't think this was it.I wish he had read Robert Kaplan's THE COMING ANARCHY as preparation.

Barely recognizable as OSC.
I don't mean to scathe an author I have for so long respected, but given my reaction to this book I don't see how I can do otherwise. On one hand, plot mechanics and the language of the book are blatantly recycled from his Ender series. The obsession with the word "jeesh" and certain actions with .22 pistols are laughable distractions for anyone who's read any other OSC.

The other hand, the more important hand to me, is that Card's language throughout is blatantly offensive to my value system. Card and I have opposite sociopolitical views, which I have known for a long time. That said, I have respected him for years because he always argued his value system in a way that I respect. From reading Card's work in the past, I was able to understand and sympathize with Conservative viewpoints. That said, he abandoned his intellectual approach in this book in favor of cheap shots barely worthy of best seller of the week pulp novels. I had to check the cover every few minutes to make sure it was still an Orson Scott Card book.

The only entertaining parts of the book, which ends in a total fizzle, are the action sequences... which are practically written to go straight to a movie. It's strange, the moment the book goes to an action sequence bizarre sci-fi machines come out of the woodwork. Nothing believable ever happens in the entire book, and the action sequences only serve to drop the credibility of the story.

I don't recognize this author as the man who wrote Ender's Game or Xenocide, two of my favorite books. He spends too much time taking cheap shots at modern pop culture, giving responsibility for a bloody and amoral civil war on absurdly single-minded "progressives" (the word "Progressive" is used in a derogatory fashion the whole book) who are bitter about Gore's loss in 2000, and championing the military much in the style of the Transformers movie to make this anything but a cartoonish joke of a novel. The occasional efforts to lighten this radical right wing blitzkrieg with assertions of right wing wrongdoing are pitiful and forced, quite patronizing.

I have nothing against people of different political persuasions, nothing that would cause me to wish extreme violence upon them, and I know no one who does... on either side of the aisle. This is not about my views as a left leaning American, this is about my views as a human. I'm ashamed of Card right now.

Really, I could go on and on, but I'd rather not. Mr. Card, I expected so much better from you. I'm actually a good bit sad right now.

Card ventures outside his comfort zone -- and fails
It's almost as though there are two guys with the same name. One guy writes terrific science fiction; carefully thought out, nice characterization, good plot, nifty moral/ethical nuances. Then there's this other guy with the same name that's taking his first shot at an airport-rack adventure thriller.

This book wouldn't have sold many copies were it not for that first guy, who has built up a great reputation across a variety of science-fiction/fantasy genres. Take the word of those of us who bought this book thinking it was by that first guy -- it's not up to that standard. At. All..

Wooden characters posture through ludicrous plotting. The cardboard-cutout politics (flattening out the positions of the left and the right to arm waving caricatures) don't support the plot and will just annoy you, no matter where you stand. And the tech... Bah. Reminded me of War of the Worlds magic-tech. I don't know if this guy is related to the Orson Scott Card I know, or is just hijacking his name. Or maybe it's the same guy, but he had a stroke or something.

Don't buy this one. Don't even bother to go check it out from the library. This one's a dog's breakfast.