Jonathan mentioned this one a few weeks back. According to the back copy:
THE YEAR IS 2040. New York and Washington are nuclear wastelands. The nation is divided between an Islamic Republic across the north and the Christian Bible Belt in the old South. The shift was precipitated by simultaneous, suitcase-nuke detonations in New York City, Washington, and Mecca, a sneak attack blamed on Israel, and known as the Zionist Betrayal. Now alcohol is outlawed, replaced by Jihad Cola, and mosques dot the skyline. Veiled women hurry through the streets. Freedom is controlled by the state, paranoia rules, and rebels plot to regain free will…
In this tense society beautiful young historian Sarah Dougan uncovers shocking evidence that the Zionist Betrayal was actually a plot carried out by a radical Muslim now poised to overtake the entire nation. Sarah’s research threatens to expose him, and soon she and her lover, Rakkin Epps, an elite Muslim warrior, find themselves hunted by Darwin, a brilliant psychopathic killer. Rakkin must become Darwin’s assassin—a most forbidding challenge. The bloody chase takes them from the outlaw territories of the Pacific Northwest to the anything-goes glitter of Las Vegas—and culminates dramatically as Rakkim and Sarah battle to reveal the truth to the entire world.
Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re probably thinking. But I read my review copy over the weekend, and I concur with Tbogg: anyone who picks this up hoping for anti-Muslim warblogger porn is going to be disappointed. Admittedly, the underlying premise of a mass American conversion to Islam is silly at best, but if you can suspend disbelief on that point, it’s a fine alternate reality thriller in the tradition of Robert Harris’ Fatherland. If the author was trying for agitprop, he failed — even after reading it, I couldn’t have really told you what his personal politics were.
Which is why I’m sorry I clicked through Tbogg’s link to Ferrigno’s own blog, where we find effusive references to Michelle Malkin and Hugh Hewitt, and gratuitious slaps at Ted Rall (Ferrigno channels Ann Coulter and suggests that Rall should enter that Iranian Holocaust cartoon competition, har, har, har!). Whether we have another Roger-Simon-the-Man-Who-Created-Moses-Wine on our hands, or Ferrigno just spent a few weeks studying the blogs and decided that sucking up to the right wingers would be an effective marketing strategy, it’s a shame either way. I think the book would have had a wider reach and a wider appeal if he’d played his cards a little closer to the vest and just let the writing speak for itself.
At any rate, you know the old saying: trust the art, not the artist. The book’s still a fun read.
Two things to keep in mind about those Danish cartoons
1: These riots are not the spontaneous uprisings of an outraged cartoon-reading Muslim population. The cartoons first appeared in Jyllands-Posten back during in September, and there was no such upheaval — until a group of Danish imams spent a few months lobbying Islamic leaders across the Middle East for support, with a dossier that included images that didn’t even run in the Danish paper to begin with. Just look at the news photos of neatly printed protest signs, all clearly produced by the same hand, in English, for the benefit of Western cameras. The cartoons may be — probably are — genuinely offensive to Muslims, but this is manufactured outrage, and if weren’t about these cartoons, it would be about something else. A movie, a novel, the back of a cereal box, whatever.
2: American newspaper editors are in a tough position. If they run the cartoons as an act of defiance against repressive morons (i.e., the imams who stirred all this shit up to begin with), then they play right into the hands of those same repressive morons, giving them even more fuel with which to fire up their fundamentalist base. Actually, let me amend that. The newly-minted free speech absolutists demanding that American newspapers publish these cartoons as some sort of badge of ideological correctness are in many cases the same people who’ve spent the last five years denouncing the domestic publication of cartoons and commentary with which they disagree, often going so far as to declare such commentary to be an outright act of treason. Make no mistake: in this one instance only, they have become champions of unfettered free speech, but that’s only going to last until the next time some American cartoonist annoys them. (And yes, of course I understand that our homegrown wannabe censors are probably not going to be out setting fires in response to cartoons — they’ll just be out trying to get the cartoonist fired.)
At any rate, it’s probably more accurate to say that newspaper editors must decide whether to run the cartoons as an act of defiance against repressive morons abroad in order to appease repressive morons at home, playing right into the hands of repressive morons everywhere.
Update: Mikhaela has more. And I tend to agree with what Joe Sacco has to say, here.
My initial reaction was, “What a bunch of idiots those Danes were for printing those things.” Did they not think that there was going to be some sort of backlash? Cartoons like that are simply meant as a provocation…
… I think maybe the idiot cartoonist should feel a need to be a little more self-censoring, when it comes down to it, but a thinking cartoonist weighs what he or she is doing. Frankly, I don’t give a damn about these Danish cartoons. In the end, yes, there is a principle about the freedom of expression that concerns me, but I’m always sorry to have to rush to the defense of idiots.
…It’s a hot time on this planet, and tempers are going to flare, and people are going to get hurt with these sorts of things. Freedom of the press, or the idea that you can depict anything–we simply don’t subscribe to that when it comes down to it. I mean, child porn is not allowed. There are certain barriers or borders we all sort of agree, or most of us agree, where you are taking things too far. I personally don’t necessarily think that attacking a religion is taking it too far, or even working within the imagery of religion to attack it. But you have to judge each instance, and what it means.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, John McCain is a phony. Of course, getting the public to see through McCain’s carefully-constructed persona is difficult when the media is so complicit in enforcing the view that he’s a no-nonsense, straight-talking tough guy who’s willing to reach across the aisle to do the right thing. Or as the “journalists” at CNN like to put it….
“The story of his life is a profile in courage, both political and personal. Before John McCain was a maverick senator, he was a Vietnam prisoner of war for six years in Hanoi.”
” Senator McCain known as a maverick, known as someone to challenge his party…he is now going back to the United States Senate, where he won the maverick label, the maverick reputation because his own party’s leadership back in the Senate is very much opposed to the very things John McCain stands for.
Kate Snow :
“Senator McCain known as a maverick here on Capitol Hill.”
“Now, a familiar face that you’re also going to see on the trail is senator — this is Senator John McCain. He, of course, the maverick Republican trying to generate a lot of support there.”
“Then there is the X factor, the maverick Republican John McCain determined to change the rules on political money as soon as next Monday in defiance of his own leaders.”
“A well-known getting the most votes within the Kerry campaign is Republican Senator John McCain. The Arizona maverick would generate tremendous excitement and help attract Republican and independent voters”
“In Washington, fellow Senate maverick John McCain angrily warned the Republican Party to, in his words, ‘grow up and learn to disagree without resorting to personal threats.’”
“It’s one of the main reasons why they picked Senator McCain to be a part of it, because you know he’s a critic, he’s a maverick, he’ll say what he wants to say.”
“Senator John McCain is blasting what he calls crony capitalism. Up next: excerpts from McCain’s latest campaign against the system. Is he trying to sound like Teddy Roosevelt? Another political maverick is back in the spotlight…”
“Did the press pump up the story that the Arizona senator might — might — leave the GOP? Were journalists blatantly used by McCain advisers or can they simply not resist writing about their favorite maverick senator?”
Even when they’re questioning McCain, they can’t help but point out how tough he is. Of course, if McCain was an actual “maverick” he wouldn’t have waited until after an election year to talk tough on torture. I guess in media-land, “maverick” is defined as the first Republican to jump on a Democratic bandwagon. Nevermind what liberals say, the media likes to save their praise until McCain’s pollsters tells him to “reach across the aisle”. Blech.
