Sunday Book Review: Domestic Enemies

Okay, so two weeks ago I promised that this past Sunday I would review Matthew Bracken’s Domestic Enemies: the Reconquista. Obviously, that didn’t happen, for which I apologize — work got in the way. However, to be fair, the previous book review had two books instead of the usual one, so hopefully that was sufficient to tide over anyone miffed by the lack of a review.

In any event, this is a far better book than Bracken’s first. See below for why.

The most immediately obvious reason is that the writing is simply much more polished. No, you won’t be seeing this tome on any lists of great American literature, but to continue the comparison I made in my review of the first book in this trilogy, his prose has now easily moved into the same league as Tom Clancy’s mid-range novels. Think “Sum of All Fears” and you’ll have it about right.

The book actually stands quite well on its own — it’s not necessary to have read the previous book in the series. Domestic Enemies follows the same female protagonist from the first novel on a journey across a dystopic near-future America. Beginning with an escape from a midwest Federal labor camp for political prisoners, she travels across the Southwest and into San Diego on a quest to find her son. In the process, she becomes enmeshed in the upper levels of the civil militia, now thoroughly dominated by Latino immigrants and serving as the basis for a planned secession of the Southwestern States (as indicated on the book’s cover).

The protagonist and main characters are well-drawn, although Bracken’s more memorable minor characters are often closer to caricatures (the lesbian couple comes to mind). The book’s strong suit is its well-crafted plot, and most importantly the opportunities it provides Bracken to describe his view of what a near-future US might look like if current trends continue to certain extremes.

For example, as I mentioned before, Mexico has already seen its upper-echelon citizens adopting air travel — even for short hops across town — in order to avoid congestion and violence in the streets; when on the streets, travel is by armored vehicle and with armed bodyguards. Bracken’s depiction of San Diego incorporates this and other changes to daily life in a thoughtful and realistic manner.

It’s the same with the Southwest generally — Bracken repeatedly indicates that when law and order breaks down over a large area of territory, air travel (by small private plane or helicopter) will be the preferred (if not the only) method of long-distance travel. This was a point that I had not seen made in other near-future “survivalist”-type fiction, which often focuses on bugout journeys or travel in the immediate aftermath of a SHTF scenario. But there’s relatively little fiction about a gradual slide for the worse, and Bracken has given lots of thought to how people’s daily lives will have changed in such circumstances, and he does a very good job of bringing those circumstances to life in a convincing manner.

These serious observations are made in the context of a relatively unserious book. It’s entertaining, and it has its lighthearted spots. For example, there are some sections of very broad humor including caricatures of vaguely familiar political figures, some improbable coincidences, an amusing sexual revenge tale, and some decent jokes. But overall, I was surprised to admit that this is one of the better adventure novels I’ve read in the last few years — which was not something I could have said about Enemies Foreign and Domestic, although I enjoyed it and gave it a positive review here.

This one’s really worth the read. Four stars — check it out!