Customer Reviews

Republic: A Novel of America's Future

5 star:		(54)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Reviewing this novel on July 4th, a day in which Americans celebrate independence and freedom, is supreme irony indeed!

Imagine a future when car-bomb terrorism has hit the Pentagon, when the economy is "tanking" due to the exportation of industry to other countries, and civil rights are nonexistent because of the Federal government's investigations into possible terrorist cells and plots. Ten years ago, maybe this would be pure fiction; today in 2007 it's not!

So it is that this author has captured and depicted in fictional form a scenario that continues to unfold. An entire community in West Virginia, Harpers Ferry, is devastated after a microsystems plant closes and lays off all personnel except those who will agree to work in the plant's new Indonesian location. Protest runs amuck when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) violently enters the scene, and deaths on both sides follow. The latter begins to arrest many people of Iraqi descent and any who protest this illegal, unconstitutional path.

In the midst of all this havoc, Ken Murphy, an Iraq War veteran who has lost his wife in a senseless killing, now faces unemployment and loss of medical benefits desperately needed for his terminally ill son. Events spiral out of control as DHS raids continue and citizens are moving toward declaring West Virginia's secession from the U.S.A. government.

Officers and soldiers are caught up in a growing reactionary spate of shootings and arrests approaching civil war, with fatal consequences that inflame rather than quell discontent. Anyone in the way of federal action is now the "enemy" or a "traitor."

Charles Sheehan-Miles has penned a novel in which the line between fiction and reality is so very, very thin! Republic is a taught, page-turning read that will leave any half-thoughtful person asking many questions about law, terrorism, dissent, and constitutional rights for everyone involved in such a plausible scenario. And if it's not that real to you, the unexpected, devastating, breath-catching, haunting end will leave you reeling and wondering for sure!

Unreal but oh so very real and therefore potent and credible fiction to be read by all!

Incredible job, Charles Sheehan-Miles

Reviewed by Viviane Crystal on July 4, 2007

Imagine a police state where you can be held strictly for being the wrong race; where your civil liberties are thoroughly disregarded, and now, visualize that place is America and you'll have a minute appreciation of what Sheehan-Miles' novel REPUBLIC is about.

A plant closing in a small town in West Virginia desolates its population with lay-offs, causing orderly protesting that sets off a shocking and all too (could-be) realistic chain of events for one Ken Murphy and his family, the state of West Virginia and the Federal Government.

Sheehan-Miles' writing and character development is stunning, riveting and thoroughly suspenseful and a work of fiction that feels all too factual. This is a book of the very best kind: one that is both entertaining whilst making its reader question the very situations surrounding us daily.

Un-put-downable.

In Republic, Sheehan-Miles tells a thoughtful and provocative story in way that makes you turn the page and stay up late reading. Based on interesting and well developed characters and a fast paced plot, this book sends a wake up call to the American people about the costs of war not understood by incompetent political leaders who use fear to consolidate power. The result is a scary but all too realistic look into America in 2020.

But instead of beating up his readers with polemics about complex issues like the erosion of civil liberties and the outsourcing of American jobs this book tells its story in a way that is accessible and relevant to people who don't have the time or patience to be involved in politics. Told from the perspective of real Americans dealing with real issues you can't help but be entertained and informed.

Based on his own military experience, the author writes in a realistic and simple prose and pace that is reminiscent of Tom Clancy and Harold Coyle with a harder punch and more important message. Think "The Hunt for Red October" meets "Catch 22" with the populist political message of SiCKO, Ross Perot and John Edwards all wrapped up in one great read.

Charles Sheehan-Miles, Republic (Cincinnatus Press, 2007)

What happens to America if things continue on the way they have been over the past six years? Charles Sheehan-Miles offers one possible scenario in Republic, and it's both plausible and horrifying. A few years from now, the Department of Homeland Security has grown into a monolithic beast that is, for all intents and purposes, all-powerful, and the President of the United States is in their pocket. Various small-scale terrorist attacks occur, then a big one on the Pentagon, and the DHS identifies a terrorist cell in rural West Virginia-- or are they really terrorists? On top of this, a financier moves a chip manufacturing plant overseas, devastating another small West Virginia town. One of West Virginia's Congressmen is trying to stop his state bleeding red ink, but the corrupt Governor, goaded on by a radical activist, decides that it's time to take matters into his own hands.

Sheehan-Miles' first book, Prayer at Rumayla, still stands as one of the best vanity-published novels I've ever had the pleasure to come across. Now that he's backed up by an indie joint (who have also re-released Prayer at Rumayla, for those who don't want to have an Xlibris title on their shelves), one can only expect him to get better, and that seems to have happened here. Sheehan-Miles has mastered the dark art of telling your story and letting the message bleed out through the cracks, which many more established authors haven't yet figured out how to do. That alone would make this a readable book, but on top of it, he's got a cracking story as well. I did knock off points for one godawful sentence that occurs in the midst of the book's climax (you'll know it when you get to it), but either way, I unhesitatingly recommend this one. It's got just about everything you could want in a book like this-- constant tension punctuated with moments of action, frustrating (and frustrated) interpersonal relationships, a desperately bleak outlook on what it means to be American in the post-9/11 age, and above all, solid writing skills to get everything across in the most effective way possible. Charles Sheehan-Miles is one of America's criminally neglected authors; get to know his stuff. You won't regret it. *** ½

While by no means being a literary classic. Republic stands as a contemporary novel outlining policy that is set forth today, and how it may run it's course, along with the brave individuals who put up a failed defense to end it. The Republic should be at the top of your must read list based on this alone. While A Stranger in a Strange Land and Catch-22 will keep for a few more years, this can serve to open your eyes on issues that normally you wouldn't have bothered with, and are important now!

I'm sorry, but I have to take issue with the reviewers who say that this book is not realistic. The fact of the matter is that your Federal Government is already committing the abuses that are dramatized in this book as sparking a rebellion in West Virginia. They are listening to your cell phone conversations and following your activities on the internet. They are arresting and detaining people without cause, warrant or trial. Any rational dissent will earn you the label of "nut case," or "tea bagger." From my standpoint, the only unrealistic aspect of this book was that the people depicted in it recognized that their freedoms were being trampled and decided to do something about it. Most Americans simply remove their shoes, walk through the full-body scanner and chew their cuds like so many cattle walking to the slaughter house. The concepts of State's Rights and Individual Rights are not the products of some Neo-Con Conspiracy. They were absolutely critical to Thomas Jefferson and other Founding Fathers and represent the only path that will lead our country from its impending moral and economic bankruptcy. This book offers an entertaining and thought-provoking perspective on events that are unfolding today.

When Sheehan-Miles' book first hit my mailbox, I sat down to read "just a couple of chapters." Silly me - I ended up finishing the book at one sitting. "Republic" is a great book, and an exciting, gripping read. But it's not just literary popcorn. Sheehan-Miles raises important issues, and you will be thinking of them long after the book is finished.

Chris Gerrib

Author, The Mars Run

Yes this was a good story and yes I could not put it down. The ending of this story has no comparison to the rest of the book. It is as if the author decided that he was bored/tired of writing and decided to just kill everyone off or make them disappear.

I am sorry but because of the ending I gave it a two star. This author is a lot better than that. Yes it was gripping but come on there is no way the end would have happened that way. My last words are after a Gripping story by the author is was a disgraceful ending. It did not go with the flow of the book.

Bob

I liked the book although it moved slowly toward the end and appeared no one edited the last half of the book (for instance..."Then laser..." instead of "then the laser..." Many, many of these type of mistakes which bought me out of the story. Although the story does resonate as a terrifying possible future history.

I began to read the Kindle version of this book expecting a right-wing, Tea-Party diatribe; I was reading it mostly out of curiosity. However, I found the book to present a reasonable and plausible scenario in which a state could be pushed to the brink of secession. It wasn't necessarily political - I think liberals and conservatives could find anti-federal government arguments they could agree with - I usually imagine that the left and right have more in common with their distrust of Homeland Security than they do differences.

I agree with many other commentators that I'd like to have heard a bit more about other states' reactions - I can hardly believe that outrage would stop at West Virginia's borders, for example - surely neighboring states like Kentucky and nearby states like South Carolina would be sympathetic, as well as large sections of eastern Tennessee and southern/western Virginia. But be that as it may, it was a gripping read and I am looking forward to the sequel. I agree that editing was a bit distracting (on the Kindle version, at least). But overall, I'm happy to have stumbled across this book and really enjoyed it (in the sense that anyone can enjoy a novel of a dystopian America while living in America)!