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Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and the Dakotas are threatening to secede. The Constitution has become meaningless. America is guided by the whims of the United Nations. In Berryman’s dystopian fiction, taking place in the not-too-distant future, there are rumors of another civil war. World War III happened in 2013. Guns have been confiscated by an ever-encroaching federal government, led by the socialist left and President Richard Newkirk, who ran on a “platform of internationalism.” Clashes between ethnicities, riots, and violence are on the rise.
Ethan Bradley, Berryman’s main character, is wanted by the state for his views on the second amendment. His wife, a liberal, has left him. Bradley has been commissioned to command a brigade of infantry in the Big Horn Basin, Wyoming. Ultimately, the Republic of Nation of Missouri—comprised of the Rocky Mountain and Plains states—gains independence. Though President Newkirk sought at all costs to avoid the Union splintering, that failed, and he is put on trial and imprisoned for attempted murder and treason.
Berryman has created an impressively massive work, spanning the globe and enormous in its complexity. Like the author’s other recent books, which point to a barely-recognizable America in the near future, here Berryman makes the case that rampant immigration, crime, globalization, rise of the “welfare state,” and loss of individual liberties have coalesced to create a perfect storm wherein the USA, as it was once known, is now barely recognizable. Apparent is the author’s astute command of biological warfare, geopolitics, world history, and abiding love for his country, the Constitution, and the wisdom of the Founding Fathers. This heartfelt patriotism is evident to the reader, even as the story itself is a fictionalized account. For readers who delight in dystopian novels, rich in tales of military combat and political intrigue, there is much here to be savored.