What summer political fiction can be more unusual than the real events today?”
Man-eating sharks, James Bond-style villains with snow-white lap cats, superheroes in capes and tights saving the world. Mmmm, yes. Summer reading. The potent fantasy of sitting on the beach or by the pool — or at home with a hand-made paper umbrella in your rum-and-coke if you’re enduring a self-enforced “stay-cation” — and just losing yourself in a good book… So you could be forgiven for not thinking about political fiction until the fall, especially given the recent release of the Ralph Reed fundamentalist snoozer, Dark Horse. But the fact is, this summer has seen the release of some engrossing novels (and one magazine) in which politics and social commentary take center stage. These texts reflect a post 9-11 sensibility that assimilates and responds to the last seven years of absurdity, horror, heartbreak, stupidity, and dueling cynicism-idealism. That many of these recommended reads use the near-future as a way to comment on the present shouldn’t surprise you. What writer real
Man-eating sharks, James Bond-style villains with snow-white lap cats, superheroes in capes and tights saving the world. Mmmm, yes. Summer reading. The potent fantasy of sitting on the beach or by the pool — or at home with a hand-made paper umbrella in your rum-and-coke if you’re enduring a self-enforced “stay-cation” — and just losing yourself in a good book… So you could be forgiven for not thinking about political fiction until the fall, especially given the recent release of the Ralph Reed fundamentalist snoozer, Dark Horse. But the fact is, this summer has seen the release of some engrossing novels (and one magazine) in which politics and social commentary take center stage. These texts reflect a post 9-11 sensibility that assimilates and responds to the last seven years of absurdity, horror, heartbreak, stupidity, and dueling cynicism-idealism. That many of these recommended reads use the near-future as a way to comment on the present shouldn’t surprise you. What writer real
