Customer Reviews

Dominion

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

A brilliantly crafted addition to the genre pioneered by Zamyatin and perfected by Orwell, Dominion takes the reader into a world in the not-so-distant future wherein the government is a totalitarian monstrosity and its culture serves only to feed it.
What differentiates Dominion from the vast majority of its predecessors, however, is that this book does not take place in a fictional country and is not a searing commentary of the Soviet Union. It takes place in the United States of America.

A regime borne and accepted on the ideals of "bringing America back to its roots," the culture of the people of America fully supports the regime on the grounds of keeping America safe and free from foreign threats. The people are satisfied with their country because they are frightened and strung along by politicians to think everything the government does is right, that any news-sources from outside the country are merely "foreign propaganda."

Rather than having an official religion or guidelines for the way people are supposed to act, the social structure of the country is formed in such a way as to keep out any dissenters. The church that people are "supposed" to follow is not, by law, the official religion of the country, but all that do not follow it are put on watch by the Department of Terror, a governmental body made to watch "suspected terrorists" - and frequently arrested.



Dominion offers a burning critique of American society and draws on various themes and issues that face the country today, including but not limited to: the sacrifice of liberties in times of war, domestic propaganda, state-sponsored terrorism by the alleged "good guys," racism in the 21st century, and the world-knowledge of average citizens.


Regardless of one's political views - whether right or left, pro-war or anti-war - and one's national origin - the book is not only for citizens of the US - I give Dominion the utmost recommendation.
Once I began reading, I found it very difficult to stop after only the first few pages. More than just a well-crafted story and compelling characters, Dominion is also very well-written; its narrative is very easy to get into and can easily absorb readers the instant they begin reading.I usually read books very slowly, but I was able to finish Dominion in only two days.

You sir owe me for pain and suffering. I downloaded your book and sat at my computer all night long reading it on the screen. Today my eyes and back are twitchy and sore. It was worth it though. I couldn't walk away from Dominion. The book is fast paced and dark but punctuated with humor when it is needed. The writing makes you feel as if you're not really reading it absorbs you so much. Stephen King and J.K. Rowling are the only other authors that transport me so wholly.

Dominion is a scarily realistic dystopian tale that takes place in the near future. There are nods to the Bush administration, Pat Robertson, George Orwell and others. I don't want to give too much away but I will will recommend this book to SF fans, people who distrust organized religion and readers who want a book that moves quickly and is addictive.

Dominion is a thoroughly enjoyable and fun book for those of us who don't need a wake up call. The setting is the future New America, and while the circumstances surrounding the ruling regime are pretty extreme it is not too difficult to imagine modern day Americans in a similar evolving situation.

The totalitarian-surveillance-warfare state depicted in Dominion ends up being a major character in the story as Daniel Ruppert goes from realizing some inconsistencies in his news reporting to spotting outright lies and conspiracy.

It is a fun book, made even more fun by being self published and marketed, and I eventually began to play "spot the typo" but understand that many errors have been fixed for the latest printings (so too bad!). You can read it online for free, but who likes reading a book on a screen? (No, you can't afford a Kindle, Mr. Gates). Buy the paper version and read through the book, it is a relatively quick read and surely the starting point of what will be an interesting and impressive career from JL Bryan.

I'm looking forward to what else Bryan puts out there, especially Myself^2, and I hope he continues to evolve and experiment as a writer.

Set in a 2036 America in which "War on Terror" mindsets and policies have grown to frightening dimensions, J.L. Bryan's DOMINION tells the story of news reporter Daniel Ruppert's journey to dig into some of the real truth of what's going on and how things got that way. The book is reminiscent of such classic dystopias as 1984 and FAHRENHEIT 451, but is of course more contemporary.

Overall, this is a fairly well-written and thought-provoking story, with some good dark humor.

For anyone with libertarian or anarchist leanings who is also a fan of scifi dystopias, this is a worthwhile read.

[By the way -- given the current goings-on in Washington, somebody ought to write a good Blue-State Fascist Dystopia, since that's where we appear headed now that Obama has replaced Bush, and the welfare-warfare state has replaced the warfare-welfare state. (Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, anyone?)]

Both the Russian author, Zamyetin who penned _We_ and George Orwell's 1984 have covered this material so well that I am a bit amazed that this book found a publisher. It isn't even a second rate attempt to do what those two towering books did way before L.L. Bryan's very insipid imitation. Orwell probably is the stronger of the two for anyone seeking to visit Dystopia. it is a worthwhile jaunt but not in the hands of a lesser writer.

About a year ago Amazon's "people who also bought this book" recommended Dominion by J.L. Bryan to me as a book commonly bought by people who also bought my novel Republic.

I finally picked up the Kindle edition of Dominion this week, and I was blown away.

The premise of the book is simple: it's 2036, and the United States is ruled by a totalitarian regime that came to power following a nuclear explosion in Columbus, Ohio. Daniel Ruppert, the main character, is a newscaster for a popular nightly news program, where he recites manufactured news before his audience every night. But we learn that Daniel longs for the days of journalism he was originally trained to do, and he has been secretly logging on to non-monitored networks to pick up information that hasn't been pre-processed by the federal government. As the story progresses, he stumbles onto more and more dangerous information that brings him very unfortunate attention from the Department of Terror, the Dominionist Church, and others.

The first third of the novel, which sets the stage for what will come, is very reminiscent of George Orwell's 1984, but about a third of the way through takes off in a different direction.

The book was well written, with believable and likeable characters and suspense that kept me stuck to the page when I should have been asleep or writing something of my own. If you liked Republic, you'll almost certainly enjoy Dominion.

Overall I found this to be a strong, well written story and very believable. I was completely drawn into the story and could see how this could happen without anyone noticing. No synopsis, that has been done very well by other reviews. I will continue to follow this author and purchase his books that appeal to me and know that I will will get a solid offering.

My biggest complaint, the ending was weak. I would like to see a sequel that changes the weak ending into something stronger.

The author does a good job of showing the caricature of Christianity which is helping the War party (Dems or Reps) these days. Since this was written during the Bush II years, the leaning is hard on his supporters. It is the bookend to 1984 which was hard on the left-socialists.

It's not just government that can combine two valuable commodities, paper and ink, and produce something worthless.
I regret parting with the purchase price of this book. It reads like a poor variation on George Orwell's 1984. Weak plot, hollow characters and a silly finish.