PLOT SUMMARY (Eclipse)

Punk rock. Tactical nukes. Ultra right-wing Christian Nazi corporate conspiracies to take over the world. This trilogy has it all, and it's all way over the top. Which is not to say that this is not a worthwhile read, it's just extreme --it lacks any semblance of subtlety. Still, the issues are important ones, very much so for the time period in which Eclipse was written (yup, Cold War). The overall plot goes like this: Russia made for a takeover of Europe, and NATO fought back. The result: Europe more or less got knocked off the map --conventional warfare was still the tried and true method, but a few low yield nuclear devices were set off to stem the Russian tide, as it were. Europe is mostly rubble, some parts toxic, others not so bad. Living in these areas is not exactly great for the life expectancy statistics, and food is in incredibly short supply. But hey, the war is going well for the good guys (yeah, that's us) and it's mostly a matter of cleanup. This is where the conspiracy comes into play. Since the war is still going on forces have been stretched thin. To aid in the recovery of war-torn nations and to act as a police force a private army has been brought in. Except it goes further then that: whole governments are being replaced, concentration camps are being set up for the undesireables, and the Nazis are moving back in! Well, not Nazis precisely, but fascists in every sense. And a few key figures know what is really going on, and are trying to stop it. The result is an underground war on the battleground of post-nuke Europe, Mossad agents and automated jumpjets, giant city-crushing machines, and a very high mortality rate (protagonists included). And while all of this is going on on Earth, the world's first orbital space-station is having a social revolution of its own, a class struggle (technikis vs. admins). It's all a little overwhelming, so much is going on, so many sub-plots are being enacted, so many characters come and go and are shot to pieces. Bloody and grim come to mind. But there is also a great amount of emotion, empathy, triumph of the human soul and all that. Hard-hitting stuff, if you can get past the mediocre prose and slightly silly concept. But I recommend it. It's sort of a raw taste of humanity. It makes you glad that you're not at war.

==JPC==