Customer Reviews

The Cattle

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Cattle is a fast-moving, tightly-packed science fiction nightmare grown from the seeds of modern-day events. Greg M. Sarwa takes the idea of a national identification card one step further - to a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) microchip crammed full of personal information and injected under the skin of the hand. Everyone in America - including foreign visitors - will be required by law to receive such an implant, and - surprisingly - there's almost unanimous approval for the new law in both Congress and among the American people. It is, after all, only to be used for means of identity verification. Or is it? In the murky depths of the federal government, a much bolder agenda is put into play around these harmless little microchips, and no one outside the inner cabal is the wiser. No one, that is, until a computer programmer, in the wrong place at the wrong time, sees more than he should during the final tests and indirectly leads an intrepid reporter on the pathway to the hidden truth behind the implants (if, that is, he can survive long enough to discover that well-hidden truth).

The mysterious death of a young computer programmer at O'Hare Airport on the eve of the implementation of the new National Identify System exposes a weakness in the government conspiracy, and the local office of Homeland Security is unable to respond immediately to the events surrounding it. By the time their guys arrive, a videotape of the dead man's final moments has left the building in the hands of a cop, and a very damaging computer disk has seemingly disappeared into thin air. The video tape finds its way into the hands of Jacob Reed, a prominent reporter for a national news network - who, ironically, had just completed a big story about the many benefits of the new national identification law. Unsure what to make of the tape initially, he knows he has something big in his lap, as the tape has left a bloody trail on its way to him. With the help of a hacker friend and a young immigrant woman from Poland who finds herself mixed up in the whole nefarious business for no reason other than incredibly bad luck, Reed begins to put together the pieces as he comes ever closer to getting his hands on the tell-all computer disk that Homeland Security agents are desperately trying to find reclaim.

Amazingly enough, The Cattle never devolves into a political diatribe or take on religious overtones - and that's pretty darn refreshing for a book with "Mark of the Beast" overtones and an insidious government conspiracy at the heart of things. It also hides its kernel of truth until close to the very end, keeping the level of suspense up and growing with each passing chapter. As for the ending, it doesn't follow the standard formula of what you would expect, and that makes it all the more effective.

You won't be bored, as the story moves much too fast to ever stall. Personally, I would have liked to see some pauses along the way to better appraise the main characters (on both sides of the conflict) and reflect on the implications of events. The plot is built on fast-moving twists and turns that take place over the course of one long night, though, and that does much to prescribe the pace at which events are revealed. The science fiction genre has a long tradition of "it can't happen here" novels, and The Cattle is firmly in that tradition - although I do consider the premise of the book rather far-fetched. Still, it's an electrifying read you'll have a hard time putting down.

When computer-ace Brian Warburton goes in to work unexpectedly, he finds the government computers he works with are up to something very strange, and this discovery costs him his life. But, before he dies, Brian succeeds in smuggling proof of what the government is up to out of the building. When the computer information falls into the hands of journalist Jacob Reed, it's up to Jacob to unravel just what is happening and why. But, will he live long to warn the people?

I must admit that this little book caught me quite by surprise. Although it is connected to the End Times/Mark of the Beast genre, it is not straitjacketed by it. That is to say that though there is a passing "666" reference, you do not have to believe in such things to enjoy the book. Instead, the book is an enthralling tale of a government project that can make its citizens safer, and also a good deal less free.

Overall, I found this to be a suspenseful story, watching the main characters unravel the mystery and try to escape the embrace of the government. I really enjoyed the story, and think that it is a great cautionary tale. As American patriot Benjamin Franklin once said, "Those who are willing to trade freedom for security deserve neither freedom nor security."

I deeply enjoyed this book, and highly recommend it to everyone!

Programmer Brian Warbutton is doing his job, helping with last-minute tests for the next major element in the war on terror--an ID chip to be implanted in everyone in America when an electrical glitch sends him into unauthorized territory. He quickly makes a copy of what's happening on-screen, but his body self-destructs and he barely is able to plant his CD in a passing travel bag when he dies.

Reporter Jacob Reed has just finished the story of his life--an indepth analysis of the new RFID (radio frequency ID) system explaining all of the safeguards built into it when he gets a frantic call from a cop-friend. The friend has seen something unexpected and needs to get it off his chest. Since Jacob's date stood him up, he doesn't mind too much--but when his friend hands over a video and then dies, Jacob knows he's onto something dangerous--something that might make his career, if it doesn't get him killed first. Running faster and faster to stay ahead of the federal agents pursuing him, Jacob brings in another friend to help analyze the video, then tracks down the young woman whose travel bag holds the CD.

In a time when the American government is violating privacy laws in the name of the anti-terrorism war, author Greg M. Sarwa's look at a reasonable next step in that war is welcome. Government protestations that what they do is harmless and intended for the greater good are welcome, but when they can't be tested and proved, they may not be enough. Unfortunately, Sarwa's writing is not quite up to the story he attempts. Clunky sentences and dialogue, and overly detailed descriptions and talking-out weaken the impact of a fast-paced and exciting story.

THE CATTLE has a faint fundamentalist take--readers may get a kick out of how Sarwa works the '666' mark of the beast into his story--but the story is really about governments and their willingness to take away rights when they can rather than about any particular religious faith. Overall, Sarwa delivers a satisfying story.

The War on Terror, launched immediately after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, has certainly had one unintended consequence: it has forced writers of contemporary thrillers to stay on their toes. You can't, for example, remain relevant if you're still writing a story about a smallpox plague unleashed on America's cities by Al-Qaeda sympathizers. That time came and went with the anthrax scare back in 2001 (if you still want to read a great fiction novel about terrorism and smallpox, however, check out Thomas Hopp's "The Jihad Virus".) Now the latest sensation revolves around invasion of privacy concerns, thanks in no small part to the NSA telephone records debacle. Our government is spying on you, American citizen! Well, not really--they're targeting terrorists despite all the blather to the contrary pumped out by the media. But that time may well come if the elites feel that their privileged position in our society is in danger. Then you'll likely see the most draconian measures enacted against both terrorists and "internal subversives," with the full backing of the national security organs, Congress, and the Supreme Court. Perhaps then what we see in Greg M. Sarwa's "The Cattle" will become a frightening reality.

"The Cattle" takes the reader to a disturbing place, a place in which the American government has passed "The Real ID Act of 2005" in an effort to provide greater security for the populace. What's it mean? Simple: everyone in the country must receive a Radio Frequency Identification microchip in order to move around in society. The chip will store personal information and act as a fraud proof identity card. Neat. One hopes they have ironed out all the kinks or else a lot of those annoying beepers will go off at department stores and libraries around the country. Seriously, the idea sounds good on the surface, and the technology and agencies exist to implant and monitor the chips. What a minute--IMPLANT? Yep, that's the catch. The RFID chips are implanted in the user's skin. Hmmm. There is sure going to be a lot of talk about the mark of the devil and all that nonsense. Also on the menu for discussion should be concerns about invasion of privacy. Too late. In Sarwa's book, the act has already passed and the process is just hours away from full implementation. The fat lady has, sadly, already sung. It's all over except for the totalitarianism.

The warning bells go off when a worker at O'Hare airport in Chicago accidentally stumbles over several highly classified government documents detailing some sinister goings on over at the Department of Homeland Security. He copies the files onto a CD and, before he perishes from a very convenient stroke, manages to stick the disc in the luggage of one Anna Tabor, a Polish immigrant just arriving in the United States. Also involved in the mix is Jacob Reed, a big shot reporter who learns about the odd event at the airport from a local cop. Soon, the cop dies in a similar way. Reed's investigation eventually leads him to Anna and the race is on to figure out exactly why government agents are dropping out of trees all over Chicago. Trevor Clifton, a high level bureaucrat working out of Homeland Security, understands the full implications of what's on that CD, and he'll stop at nothing to plug all the leaks before the truth shows up on the front page of the evening newspaper. You see, the RFID chip is more than an identification marker. It's more than a storage site for personal information. It's far, FAR more sinister than we can ever imagine.

I loved this book, but I always love stories full of conspiracy, action, and evil government bureaucracies run amok. Sarwa's book delivers on every cylinder in this respect, and he gives us the goods in a short read full of lean prose that gets to the point in a hurry. The best part of the novel is its overall plausibility. It's not difficult at all to believe this could happen. The technology exists, as any visit to a department store that uses RFID chips to track and protect merchandise will attest. You don't think the American public would ever endorse the implantation of a chip for "security" reasons? Think again, especially if the terrorists hit us hard with chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons in the near future. Two towers fell in New York and they were already trotting out plans for a national identification card. Heck, I've heard stories about some employers wanting to implant chips in workers for various reasons. Believe me, when you see people around you dropping like flies from dirty bomb fallout or smallpox, most of your fellow citizens will willingly go along with the chip implants if they think doing so might prevent further carnage.

"The Cattle" will have you thinking long and hard about what the future may hold for us if further attacks occur. The novel will also make you question just how much we ought to rely on our friendly big brother, the government, to save us from the world's ills. Lastly--and I just have to throw something in about this--Sarwa's little gem of a story will leave you gasping for breath thanks to its nihilistic conclusion. Have you ever seen the films "My Little Eye" or "Fallen"? If you have, you know that both pictures end on a downbeat note where no hope for salvation exists from an all-encompassing and powerful evil. The reader will find something very similar at the conclusion of "The Cattle." Sarwa obviously believes the country has already gone too far down the path to ultimate servitude. Perhaps he's right. In my darker moments, I agree with him. I hope and pray we're both wrong.

Rebeccasreads highly recommends THE CATTLE as a disturbing tech thriller for anyone who has pondered the issue of a national identity sytem.

Even though this book is badly in need of an editor whose first language is English, the premise of THE CATTLE overcomes any & all its shortcomings.

As with all good science fiction, it may only be fiction, but the truths within it cannot be denied.

As part of the Real ID Act of 2005, the National Identification System is created for American citizens as an anti-terrorism measure. The government goes into overdrive, collecting personal information to be stored in a highly secured database. Another part of the law mandates the injection of a RFID (radio frequency identification) chip in all American citizens, and all visitors to America, where that information will be stored. There are all sorts of safeguards in place to prevent misuse of the system, headquartered in a secure portion of O'Hare Airport in Chicago.

The system also has a much more evil, and extremely Classified, purpose, one which is accidentally discovered by mid-level systems analyst Brian Warburton. He copies the information on to a CD-ROM, and manages to get rid of it, just before he dies of a "stroke." This happens on the day before the law, and the mandatory RFID injection, is supposed to take effect. It falls into the hands of Jacob Reed, local TV reporter. Along with Anna Tabor, a young woman who flew in that day from Poland, and into whose luggage Warburton put the CD-ROM, he keeps one step ahead of police and federal agents looking for them. Can Jacob and Anna get this information on TV to warn the American people in time?

This book certainly gives new meaning to the phrase "ripped from today's headlines." It's a very spooky, and very well-done, story that will give the reader plenty to think about. It is recommended for everyone, but especially for those who think that implanting people with RFIDs, as an anti-terrorism measure, or as the next step in personal information storage, is a good thing.

The strength of "The Cattle," by Greg Sarwa, lies in its "ripped-from-the-headlines" theme. Every week, the news media proclaim that watchdog groups are uneasy about wireless eavesdropping and other infringements upon civil liberties in America. We live in an age when your emails and even your keyboard strokes can be monitored, your identity may be stolen, and the government has the ability to track every important fact about each individual who is a documented citizen in this country. So is the Orwellian scenario in this novel all that far-fetched?

The plot is standard stuff. Brian Warburton, a computer programmer at O'Hare Airport in Chicago, accidentally stumbles upon a top-secret government project, and he copies the potentially explosive information to a disk before he is terminated. The disk falls into the hands of Jacob Reed, a reporter, who is terrified about the fate that awaits him when the authorities locate him. Jacob's pursuer is Trevor Clifton, a man who has contempt for those who "shout about the right of privacy, guaranteed in the Constitution." He believes that the government's invasive program is necessary in order to fight terrorism, and he is willing to kill anyone who reveals that the new four-hundred-billion dollar "National Identification System," or NIDs, is more than just an innocuous way to keep terrorists out of the country.

Unsurprisingly, Jacob finds himself on the run, along with Anna Tabor, a beautiful young Polish woman who is dragged into this dangerous situation against her will. Sarwa wisely keeps the book moving with plenty of fast-paced action sequences. Detracting from the book's effectiveness is the wooden dialogue (example: "Please, Miss Tabor, Anna, pull yourself together!") and the overuse of italics and exclamation points. Examples: "He's shooting at us!" "We have to lose them somehow!" This is amateurish. Writers who are comfortable with their ability to generate suspense do not need to telegraph that something significant is going on by constantly inserting exclamation points for emphasis.

Still, I read this novel in a few hours and found the story involving and extremely frightening. "The Cattle" made me wonder: How far is our government willing to go to keep track of its citizens?

My fundamental inclination is to discount books where the theme is a massive and secret conspiracy on the part of the United States government. As the recent disaster with hurricane Katrina demonstrated, the expertise to carry out a major operation and to keep it secret should not appear on their resume.

The major premise in this book is that the U. S. government has a plan to place a microchip in every citizen. This is a reaction to the threat of terrorism and the program was created by the Department of Homeland Security. Supposedly, the chip is to be used to identify the carrier and the signal can only be read by government scanners that are within a few feet of the chip. However, the reality is much more sinister. The signals from the chip can be read by satellite and it is even possible to send a remote signal that will cause the chip to kill the carrier. The chip also is used for much more than identification, it carries a good deal more personal information than the government has stated.

Brian Warburton is a computer programmer that works for the government. Due to a computer glitch, he is exposed to the truth and was able to capture it on a computer disk. He manages to place the disk in a travel bag at an airport terminal before he is killed. The search for that disk involves a Polish immigrant, two police officers, a journalist and a computer hacker. The government workers show no hesitation in killing in an attempt to maintain their secrets and the "good people" are always only one step ahead of them. There is no happy ending, as the conspiracy is not exposed, if at all, until the chips are planted. In fact, the story concludes before we learn what actually happens.

Despite my fundamental inclinations, I enjoyed the book. The action is fast-paced and well written. It kept my attention even though I knew that the plot line was very far-fetched. The best writing causes you to suspend your most fundamental principles of disbelief and that is what happened to me when I read this book.

"The Cattle" by Greg M. Sarwa, is a fast-paced story of a horrible government conspiracy and the people who discover and try to expose it before they are killed. Being a Chicago area native, I appreciated reading a book that takes place there. This story takes George Orwell's 1984 to a frightening level and behooves us all to keep an even closer eye on the governments of the world than we already do! It kept me intrigued throughout, is well written and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves a good political thriller!

Michelle True
(...)

Greg Sarwa's The Cattle is a chilling and incisive glimpse at one possible future facing America. Following a wave of fear and uncertainty brought about by continued terrorist attacks on US interests both at home and abroad, the American government reacts in a decisive, far-reaching effort to curtail acts of violence and end terrorist anonymity. However, in its haste to protect its citizens, the federal government unknowingly squanders the hard-won freedoms purchased with the blood of our forefathers. With international terrorism growing at an alarming rate, ample justification exists for the creation of a National Identification System (NIDS), an electronic guardian of unprecedented scope. The legislation enacted to protect Americans now threatens to irrevocably alter the American way of life, and only a select few are even aware of the dark agenda that takes shape under the guise of protecting our citizenry.

Does this sound like fiction? Perhaps, but it isn't as improbable as one might think. Disturbingly enough, the technologies needed to make this system a reality are either available or under development today.

But questions remain.

Exactly where are the boundaries of such a system? By accident, Brian Warburton discovers the answer to this question and copies startling evidence of the system's capabilities on a computer disk. When his dead body is searched, the disk is nowhere to be found.

What secrets have been uncovered? Clues to the disk's disappearance are contained on a security camera videotape that has also vanished. A trail of death follows both the tape and the disk in a fast-paced and deadly game of cat and mouse.

Can America be warned in time? Chicago TV news reporter, Jacob Reed, through an unusual sequence of events, finds himself thrust into the role of would-be-savior. He must unravel the mystery quickly, all the while staying one step ahead of his coldly efficient pursuers. As Jacob tries to ferret out the truth, others become caught up in a lethal race against time: Jacob's friend, Eric Lester, whose computer expertise proves indispensable; a Polish immigrant named Anna Tabor who finds herself entangled in a sinister intrigue; Jacob's "boss", Richard Leyland, also unwittingly drawn into the fray as the fate of America hangs in the balance.

All in all, The Cattle is a cold splash in the face-a stark, sobering view of what might yet come to pass. It is a tale many will find as entertaining as it is thought-provoking. Chicagoans will delight in the familiar settings, Americans will be enthralled by Jacob's common man heroics, and readers everywhere will pause to wonder, "Is this fiction or is this a prophecy?"