Customer Reviews

Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse

5 star:		(440)
4 star:		(144)
3 star:		(93)
2 star:		(88)
1 star:		(143)

 

 

Patriots is a TEOWAWKI , militia-style survivalist novel packed with information. While Patriots does mention stockpiling food and the use of non-hybrid seeds this is not a book about self-sufficiency. The premise of the novel is that an economic depression spirals out of control. The economy completely collapses, money becomes worthless, the mail stops, the power grid and phone system shuts down and the government at all levels disappears. In the story this period is understatedly call the Crunch, but no depression in the history of the United States has been nearly so severe. Even church services appear to stop for several years.

With the United States in turmoil and collapse, the United Nations and at least some international banks have survived. Together they become the catalyst behind a provisional federal government that seeks to exert near dictatorial control over America. Frankly, I believe there is much more strength in the institutions of the United States than there ever was in the United Nations and so this plot scenario strained believability for me. However, when asked, James Rawles stated, "I made the scenario in the novel a near `worst case' in order to make it more interesting reading, and as an opportunity to show the need for planning and preparedness in a variety of areas..."

Using the Crunch as a literary device Rawles packs the novel with data about guns, medicine, fuels, equipment and tactics. The book has been described in several online reviews as a "survival manual fairly neatly dressed as fiction." Indeed it is much more entertaining than reading the facts in a reference book or manual. But this is also the greatest weakness. It is hard to pack facts into a novel without the author intruding into the story. Much of this story is told in the form of narration, as opposed to showing within the flow of the events. Characterization is weak. Both author intrusion and narration weaken the literary quality of the story but add to the amount of information Rawles packs into the book

Recommendation: The information is five-star, the literary quality is two star. Buy Patriots for the "survival manual," not the fiction story.

Excellent work by Mr. Rawles. In it he explores the possibilities and what ifs of a total collapse of the civilized world that we have come to know and upon which we depend. Imagine, if you will, that the economy spins out of control and takes civilized society with it. Imagine this event making the Great Depression look like a walk in the park. How would one survive or thrive during such a chaotic experience? Can it be done alone? What are the real problems and issues that might need to be overcome? Mr. Rawles novel explores those possibilites. His information is well presented. Obviously a lot of thought and research went into this novel. It reads more like a contingency plan and less like some escapist fantasy. It beats any sci-fi novel hands down. I strongly recommend "Patriots" to anyone who's ever wondered what would happen should the day come when they dialed 911 and nobody answered.(Remember Hurricane Andrew and the LA Riots?) Read "Patriots" and find out. It is definitely time well spent. However, let me offer a word of warning. Pick up "Patriots" and you won't want to put it down until its finished!

This has to be one of the worst edited books I have ever seen. You can tell it was written in the 1990s and updated recently; they mention the election of Barack Obama. But they did a lousy job of updating the text. The time lines, ages and historic events are screwed up. For example on page 22, it says that Todd and Mary found the ranch on vacation trips to Idaho in 2001 (happily married at the time). On the same page it states the idea for a group retreat was formed in 2006, while Todd and T.K. were in college. Later, it says that Todd started working from home in 2008, using a PC with a 20 gig hard drive and a dial-up modem. Dial-up in 2008? Especially for a corporate sanctioned telecommuter? That may have been the standard in 1988! On page 35, Kevin graduates college in 2007 and starts as a junior programmer. Next paragraph Kevin is starting SECOND career as freelance programmer in 2002. I guess he started his freelance in high school? Also, Doug states his age as 22, but he was born a year after his parent got married, soon after his fathers return from Vietnam. Let's see...The Crunch hits in 2009, so that means Doug was born in 1987, that means his father got home from Vietnam around 1986 or so. Delayed demobilization? POW release? These are just a few of the examples of bad editing and updating.

Come on, the use of a simple whiteboard with a timeline drawn on it and used to update the text would have made this a much more enjoyable read. Any decent editor should have caught these errors and had them corrected before sending it to the printers.

Plus, as another reviewer stated, recent college grads paying cash in the hundred thousand dollar range for ranches in Idaho is a bit ridiculous.

The story was pretty interesting and informative but the bad editing ruined it for me. I could not get past the glaring inconsistencies. F--

Obviously the author of this book knows what he is talking about when it comes to preparedness. This however does not translate into being able to write an effective novel.

There are a lot of other reviews that I am sure go over the plot in detail so I will just touch on those things that made me give this a 1 star.

First off almost 10-20% of this book is not actual dialogue, plot, or any other form of narrative. It is instead a compilation of lists. For instance there is a scene in the book where two brothers are fleeing from the police in a van with gun show merchandise. The contents of the van are described in excruciating detail. The type and number of specific weapons, the type and number of different load bearing equipment, the specific number of each type of bullet for each type of gun in the van and how they are packed in different types of containers etcetera etcetera. Only for the van to then be left behind and neither it nor its contents ever are mentioned again, so what was the point of all of that itemization? The book is filled with examples of this unnecessary clutter of lists.

Which leads to the second point. The author goes into detail about mundane of pointless activities throughout the book. For instance in the above mentioned chase scene he goes into how many magazines the people load and with what types of ammunition and the capacity of the magazines just in case they get into a fire fight with the police. But they dont, so again there is no point. Or another example; there is a chapter where the book goes into agonizing detail about how people build a fence. It was less than riveting. Most of the detail and "filler" in the book is useless and never plays a part in the book in any way, which leave you wondering why you bothered to read it at all.

The third issue I had with this book is that it is billed as a survivalist novel, but it really isnt. Once you get past all of the various detailed inventories there is very little talk about life after the collapse and the rebuilding that follows. It is just magically accomplished because people pray everyday. And there is hardly anything approaching "survival in the face of the collapse" because the characters in the book are so well stocked with every sort of supply possible that routinely giving away supply's to strangers posses no hardship on them. It should instead be called a novel of "having more than you could want while the world goes down the drain". And that hardly makes for entertaining reading, so the last third of the book is a flawed and oversimplified recounting of how the evil UN tries to take over the US on the behest of some nameless global consortium of bankers who secretly run everything. Of course the militia are able to win in the end because they have the moral high-ground. Though even the manner in which this victory is achieved smacks more of deus ex machina than anything approaching reality. As the "invading" forces simply give up and switch sides to the militia seemingly overnight and without any tangible reasoning behind this dramatic shift.

Fourth down on the list is how badly written this novel is. The characters are wooden, one dimensional and there is absolutely no character development present in the book, apparently because the author believes them to be the paragons on virtue and what it means to be an American. This concept is enough to scare you because these "patriots" have such skewed and warped sensibilities that it is impossible to believe it is real. They wont eat canned food they find abandoned because they consider it stealing. But at the same time the have no problem at all ambushing and accosting strangers who are simply walking down the road, only to examine all of their possessions and grill them on each and every thing they possess.

There is no moral gray area in this book at all. It is written in such a way that you are supposed to side with the obviously righteous and religiously fanatical heroes. The book is filled with moral polarization. The "bad guys" are so over the top on the 'make them contemptuous' scale that its sad. The author wasnt willing to let the bad guys just be looters because you might empathize with them; so they were also cannibals. But it doesnt stop there because that wasnt bad enough and they are eventually found to be cannibal looter Communists who are eating children, the only surprising thing about this is that the author didnt also try to paint them as pedophiles.

After reading this book you are left with the unmistakable feeling that the author isnt so much writing about a tragic but foreseeable occurrence, but is instead writing about something that he secretly HOPES will come about. This is clearly shown in the laundry list of constitutional changes (some of which may be reasonable but others which are just laughable) that are unanimously voted in and miraculously reshape the country (that was only months before engaged in civil war) into a gleaming edifice of prosperity.


This book is not worth your time or your money. If you are interested in collapse of civilization novel you are much better off going somewhere else. Try reading "Dies the Fire" by SM Stirling, or "The Road". Both are much better examples of the genre on every level.

In Patriots, Rawles fully develops the critical themes of the importance of self-reliance, teamwork, preparedness, and dedication to our Constitution and our God. That's what "Patriots" means, to me. But what really uniquely struck me (as someone who benefited from excellent training by VN era SEALs many years ago on Uncle Sam's dime) was Rawles unique emphasis on tactical awareness and readiness. His characters always "stay tactical" appropriate to the situation, and the importance of that cannot be overestimated! This is something glossed over in 99% of books, where the heroes go merrily "smoking and joking" along, and somehow always develop ESP, or get a lucky break, just in time to avoid disaster. It doesn't work that way! In reality, in a SHTF scenario, survivors must always "stay tactical" using 360% security and all of the other drills and SOPs Rawles lays out so well. If there is one thing I hope readers take from Patriots, it's that lesson! If they do nothing else, I hope that after reading Patriots, survivalists will be encouraged to include some very good military field manuals in their libraries, and learn the small unit tactics and SOPs laid out so convincingly in Patriots. The best "stuff" in the world is of no use if you can't keep it, because you left holes in your security, or you were careless. The tactical SOPs written about in Patriots are designed to make the survivor cover all of these bases at all times. Rawles entire book is a great reminder of the critical importance of incorporating brass-tacks tactical SOPs in any realistic survivalist preparations. I very highly recommend that it occupy a center space on every serious survivalist's bookshelf.

Matt Bracken, author of "Enemies Foreign and Domestic" and "Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista."

I purchased this book thinking that it might be an entertaining story in the "fall of civilization" vein, or a realistic look at what happens to "normal" people when order breaks down. Boy was I incorrect...

First off the characters in the book are wooden almost one dimensional people, after the first chapter most would realize that these are not people that a normal person could identify with, they are a group of wanna-be soldiers that masquerade as regular people, with their own military structure and code of ethics that really don't seem to be based on the ideals of freedom and justice that the USA was founded on.

I could accept that the author had his agenda to push, fine. Myself being a Conservative and a proud gun owner I figured it might be a little ways to the right of what I believe but, whoa. Examples: Linking the Oklahoma City bombing to a government plan to simply scare the American people. The people in the retreat receive via circumventing the law before the "chaos", parts to modify their weapons to fully automatic and it's presented as a good and reasonable thing for someone to do.... right now. Two characters that are introduced via a shootout with state troopers that want to kill (yes kill) them because they didn't have a drivers license when they pull them over. Worst of all the two brothers are held up like champions of the good and just, and of course they are church going Christians.

I lost all semblance of connection for any of the characters in the book before I even started to build it. I have to care about what happens to the people in a novel, and when I stopped a ways through the book and asked myself "What would I do if I met these so called "patriots" in a situation like this?", the answer was; Run away, terribly fast.

Eventually the only thing you end up caring about is when the real "heroes" show up and kick these people in the teeth, but don't hold your breath because apparently they are what the author considers the ideal template for a good, caring, freedom-loving, citizens. As a safety section worker I'm all for people being able to take care of themselves in a natural disaster or any type of crisis situation, and I would agree that if you turned off the power most people wouldn't know the first thing to do, granted that's pretty sad, but the model that this author presents in this book for people that are prepared and self sufficient is more like small groups of tyrants that would live on little kingdoms accosting anyone who was unfortunate enough to encounter them. The only redeeming thing for these "patriots" is that the people that they are set against in the book are rapists, cannibals, and murders. Honestly I found it insulting as a Christian, a Gun owner and worse as a law abiding citizen.

Save your [...] an buy something you could actually use like When All Hell Breaks Loose: Stuff You Need To Survive When Disaster Strikes I wish I had.

As an enthusiastic post-apocalypse fetishist, I was excited to get started reading this book. I'll read any kind of societal breakdown novel I can get my hands on, whether it's the superflu, nuclear holocaust, asteroid impact, zombies, or alien invasion. It's just my thing. So when this book popped up on my radar, with it's currently relevant what-if theme, I was thrilled to have something fun to read again.

Boy, was I wrong.

Now, don't get me wrong here, I think survivalist gear, methods, and guns are the coolest ever and if this book was a little heavy on technical details ONLY, I wouldn't be giving it only 2 stars. As it is, it is VERY heavy on technical details at the expense of setting, character, and plot. It's also a political and religious screed, which I personally believe has no place in a work advertised as a piece of fiction. At least be subtle with it if we must go there. The problem with this book is that it feels like the author took his first draft and all of his character research and bio information and just stacked it up in a pile and mailed it away to his editor. The editor of course, rearranged the pages so that there was something of a story there, then published it.

The cardinal sin of fiction writing is for an author to get between the action and reader. Rawles does this repeatedly in several ways that I've noticed:

1. Rawles summarizes action and conversations constantly (what action there is). Instead of putting me, the reader, in the protag's shoes and letting me experience his or her action as it happens, I get summary after summary. Then he goes on page after page explaining in minute detail exactly how to make plate steel shutters for the retreat. Page after agonizing page (my eyes are still bleeding from that one). He summarizes the action where Rose gets shot. He summarizes Doug Carlton's ENTIRE LIFE when all we really wanted was a small window into what was happening outside the compound - in fairness, we get some of that, but it's buried in page after page of character bio "I was born.. I loved Erector Sets so I guess that makes me a natural engineer and survivalist.. And Pop Tarts with sprinkles and special butter made from our organic survival cow's milk.. Etc..". Sweet Mother of God this is a hard book to read. Rawles cut and pasted Doug Carlton's character bio right into the book. In fact, he did that with all of them. The whole thing is written in the third person, which is okay, but it's so sterile and so disconnected that I honestly don't care if the characters succeed or fail.

2. Rawles constantly puts quotation marks around phrases and words. It's almost like watching that one guy you know who uses finger quotes all the time when he talks. I don't need finger quotes and I don't need sentences like this one:

When Mike bemoaned the fact that there was an "ocean of paperwork to wade through" in getting set up with an explosives permit in Illinois, Spence offered to add Mike to his blaster's permit, listing him as an "employee." (p. 50).

That line is straight from the text and all I did was open the book to a random page and scan for .01 seconds for quotation marks.

3. Rawles somehow got it in his head that not only adding a dialog tag to every line of dialog was necessary, but making every dialog tag different was what a writer was supposed to do. How his editor missed this is beyond me. Here's what I mean (my own example):

"I brought the package," declared Jerry.
"That's great. Put it over there," commanded Lou.
"Right here?" queried Jerry.
"Yes, by the car," Lou directed.

As boring and uncreative as it may seem, just putting in "said, asked, or answered" in there would have kept the author out of the interchange and maintained the suspension of disbelief, which is what good fiction is all about any way. Even better would have been to limit the tags altogether and just use ACTION:

"I brough the package."
"That's great, Jerry. Put it over there," said Lou.
Jerry walked to the garage where the others were loading the bodies. "Right here?"
"Yes, by the car."

Rawles' characters muse, snap, opine, gripe, whine, retort, snort, and on and on. Endlessly.

4. Rawles ignores the rule that says that anything that doesn't contribute to the plot must be cut. Must be. Now, I know that part of the marketing of this book is that it provides technical detail for how to set up and survive in a compound, but doesn't he also have a non-fiction title out that explains all that already? He should have included only as much information as was necessary to move the story along. He could have summarized the details of the house and the compound in three paragraphs and simply added an Appendix with links to his blog that already details how each and every little thing is done.

5. Finally, a person is a "who" not a "that." In the text, Rawles says something like, "it was Jerry that put the package by the car." Ouch, dude! C'mon, you may be an expert survivalist, why not become an expert writer and learn the craft before doing this to your poor readers.

As a result of all of this, even though I have these detailed histories of the main characters and their relationships with each other, I really couldn't care less about them. The author has not brought me into their world. He could do this by putting me in the shoes of ONE of the characters, say Mary. During one of their "hasty front, large group on foot" spider hole ambushes, where they interrogate people passing through, let it all go horribly wrong and show us how truly resourceful these people are in the heat of the action. Mary gets injured, Mary gets captured, but Mary somehow ends up saving the day, with us Readers faithfully by her side the whole time. Not in this book. I admit that I'm only halfway through it so I don't know what has happened to the Laytons (I think that's their name), nor do I care, sadly. If they are out there, we can't be halfway through the book without getting at least a little peek at what they are up to.

There's also no antagonist or opposition character(s), at least not yet anyway. The Crunch can't be the opposition. Just can't.

Again, much as I admire the labor required to produce such a book and as much as I enjoy this subject matter, I'm convinced that Rawles had no editor and that his book was published solely based on his expert survivalist credentials. (See, did you need me to write "expert survivalist credentials?" No.)

I could go on. I'm halfway through this thing and there is so far no plot and very little action. So you spent a ton of money and built the perfect retreat. That's nice. Isn't it the people that are important and not the gear? What do these resourceful people do when some of their numbers are killed or captured and the leader is mortally wounded? Heck, maybe all that happens starting in the next chapter. Isn't adventure what happens when everything goes wrong? I've learned that the best way to create compelling conflict is to stack the odds against the protagonist so high, that it's impossible to imagine that he or she could be successful. Have Mary get captured and make Todd have to leave his safe little compound, get shot in the leg so he can't move fast, fall down a ravine, lose ALL of his fancy gear except for a Hello Kitty pencil and a stick of gum, and rely on his wits instead. Heck, that might be a good way for Rawles to demonstrate some wilderness survival and field craft.

Don't advertise it as a thrilling narrative when it's nothing of the sort.

I'm going to finish it to be fair to it. But so far, it's a hard slog.

This book is a real gem. It is both a gripping piece of fiction, as well as a useful resource on survivalism. I would not have thought it possible for a survival book to be so interesting, but this one really is. The storyline itself is very interesting and holds your attention, but in addition to that the book is full of little pearls of wisdom about how and where to acquire things that make one better prepared. When I was in the early stages of the book I was impressed by all of the references. Later when I was most of the way through the book and still kept finding more and more nuggets of wisdom I was truly amazed. The breadth of knowledge displayed by the author on a wide variety of subjects is truly amazing. This book is very well researched, and best of all, it is also very interesting to read. Several years ago this book might have been simply an interesting work of fiction, but now in the post-9/11 world it is something to think seriously about. Also, the opening chapter which focused on the start of the economic crunch reminded me of the summer of 1997 when Asia and Russia's economic crises coupled with the near bankruptcy of a large US firm called Long Term Capital Management and almost sent the world into economic collapse. Add to that some other recent events such as the bursting of the dot com bubble in 2000, the stagnation of the economy shortly after 9/11, and the high gas prices of 2004. It just goes to show, the circumstances in this book are quite possible, more so than any of us would like to admit.

I bought the audiobook of this to listen to on a road trip with some friends. We only made it about about halfway through but I can say it was easily the worst book I've encountered. The story is thin, most of the book is laundry lists of equipment in truly painful detail. Every single character is introduced with a full inventory of their gear, down to how many socks they have in their packs. The characters are hollow and what characterization they have is fairly negative. The survivalists in this book are completely unlikable and hostile to everyone they encounter who isn't a devout Christian who agrees with everything they believe. They go to great pains to disguise their compound so that passers by don't notice it. This seems logical because it will help them avoid any unwanted guests; but this logic is completely undermined when they procede to ambush every single person who comes by, searching their possessions and passing moral judgement on them. In essence, the group is characterized as highly hyprocritical, self righteous bandits. At one point they have ambushed a family travelling by on bikes and are searching them for... I'm not sure why they felt it necessary to search them, but they are. The family's teenage daughter is clearly afraid because 7 psychopaths are aiming military rifles at them. Seeing this the woman frisking her says, "Don't worry, we're the good guys." At this point my friends and I all burst out laughing and yelling "No you aren't!" The protagonists are all so crazy that the villains have to be truly unbelievable to be worse. From gun crazy state troopers bent on "Ventilating" the "Uppity militia types" to baby eating cannibal communists the villains are so ridiculously over the top that they can only be described as hilarious. And there in lies the main problem with this book. What story exists is an absolute blast simply because of how utterly horrible it is. Think a surivalist Sci-fi Channel original movie that takes its self completely seriously. Sadly about 60% of the book is just descriptions of equipment and instructions on what solar and wind power generators you should get in order to power your well. Another 20% or so is poltical ramblings that are so far off the lunatic fringe of the right that I think there's a good chance that the author is a liberal trying to discredit right wingers by making them appear to be insane.

In conclusion, this book has changed the post apocolypse plans my friends and I have made. We are going to travel across the land hunting down holier than thou, delusional highwaymen who believe themselves to be the last guardians of the constitution. In the long run, I think it will make the wasteland safer for everyone.

I bought this book after looking at the high overall score it got, and after reading a few of the good reviews. How I wish I would have read some of the 1 star reviews before buying it!

This book is without a doubt the worst novel I have ever read in my life. Where to begin? First off, there is no real story involved here. There are probably 20 pages of blather in between every plot progression in the book. The plot will progress a little bit, then Rawles will spend the next 4 or 5 pages describing in painful detail weapon specifications, inventories, etc.

There is also no character development whatsoever, besides the fact that they are all a bunch of religious zealots. When they aren't ambushing and killing communist cannibals (seriously), they are either praying, discussing religion, or engaging in other drivel that makes each page more boring than the next.

Their moral compass is completely out of whack as well. These are people who won't eat canned food they find on the side of the road because they consider it "stealing", but think nothing of accosting private citizens walking down a public street at gunpoint while they meticulously go through all of their private belongings, questioning them on each item.

And what is up with the author's name? I guess it should have been a warning sign when the author puts his name on the book like "James Wesley, Rawles" What the hell is the comma for? Later on in the book they have a child at the retreat and they name the kid "Jacob Edward Samuel, Gray". WTF???

In order for a end of the world survival novel to be successful, you have to be able to relate to the characters. after nearly 200 pages, I still could not remember which one is which. I found myself thinking that if I was in that situation, I would rather be out on my own fending off looters than living with these nutcases at their retreat.

To conclude, any body who gave this book more than 2 stars hasn't read nearly enough books. It is total garbage. The only good thing about it is that there is some decent survivalist information in the book. However, there are much much better books you can read to get the same information without have to read 20 pages of some nutjobs blathering just to get a few useful tips.

I wish I had my money back on this book, it is truly pathetic and a waste of money. Buyer beware!