Books by Schlichter, Kurt
- Schlichter, Kurt.
Collapse.
El Segundo, CA: Kurt Schlichter, 2019.
ISBN 978-1-7341993-0-7.
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In his 2016 novel People's Republic
(November 2018), the author describes North America in
the early 2030s, a decade after the present Cold Civil War
turned hot and the United States split into the People's
Republic of North America (PRNA) on the coasts and the
upper Midwest, with the rest continuing to call itself the
United States, its capital now in Dallas, purging
itself of the “progressive” corruption which
was now unleashed without limits in the PRNA. In that book
we met Kelly Turnbull, retired from the military and veteran
of the border conflicts at the time of the Split, who made
his living performing perilous missions in the PRNA to rescue
those trapped inside its borders.
In this, the fourth Kelly Turnbull novel (I have not yet
read the second, Indian Country,
nor the third, Wildfire),
the situation in the PRNA has, as inevitably happens in socialist
paradises, continued to deteriorate, and by 2035 its sullen population
is growing increasingly restive and willing to go to extremes
to escape to Mexico, which has built a big, beautiful wall to
keep the starving hordes from El
Norte overrunning their country. Cartels smuggle refugees
from the PRNA into Mexico where they are exploited in factories
where they work for peanuts but where, unlike in the PRNA, you
could at least buy peanuts.
With its back increasingly to the wall, the PRNA ruling class
has come to believe their only hope is what they view as an
alliance with China, and the Chinese see as colonisation,
subjugation, and a foothold on the American continent. The PRNA
and the People's Republic of China have much in common in
overall economic organisation, although the latter is patriotic,
proud, competent, and militarily strong, while the PRNA is
paralysed by progressive self-hate, grievance group conflict,
and compelled obeisance to counterfactual fantasies.
China already has assimilated Hawaii from the PRNA as a formal
colony, and runs military bases on the West Coast as effectively
sovereign territory. As the story opens, the military balance
is about to shift toward great peril to the remaining United
States, as the PRNA prepares to turn over a nuclear-powered
aircraft carrier they inherited in the Split to China, which
will allow it to project power in the Pacific all the way to the
West Coast of North America. At the same time, a Chinese force
appears to be massing to garrison the PRNA West Coast capital of
San Francisco, allowing the PRNA to hang on and escalating any
action by the United States against the PRNA into a direct
conflict with China.
Kelly Turnbull, having earned enough from his previous missions
to retire, is looking forward to a peaceful life when he is
“invited” by the U.S. Army back onto active duty for
one last high-stakes mission within the PRNA. The aircraft
carrier, the former Theodore Roosevelt, now
re-christened Mao is about to become operational,
and Turnbull is to infiltrate a renegade computer criminal,
Quentin Welliver, now locked up in a Supermax prison, to work
his software magic to destroy the carrier's power plant.
Welliver is anything but cooperative, but then Turnbull can be
very persuasive, and the unlikely team undertake the perilous
entry to the PRNA and on-site hacking of the carrier.
As is usually the case when Kelly Turnbull is involved, things
go sideways and highly kinetic, much to the dismay of Welliver,
who is a fearsome warrior behind a keyboard, but less so when
the .45 hollow points start to fly. Just when everything seems
wrapped up, Turnbull and Welliver are “recruited” by
the commando team they thought had been sent to extract them for
an even more desperate but essential mission: preventing the
Chinese fleet from landing in San Francisco.
If you like your thrillers with lots of action and relatively
little reflection about what it all means, this is the book for
you. Turnbull considers all of the People's Republic slavers
and their willing minions as enemies and a waste of biochemicals
better used to fertilise crops, and has no hesitation wasting
them. The description of the PRNA is often very funny, although
when speaking about California, it is already difficult to parody
even the current state of affairs. Some references in the book
will probably become quickly dated, such as Maxine Waters Pavilion
of Social Justice (formerly
SoFi Stadium)
and the Junipero Serra statue on Interstate 280, whose Christian
colonialist head was removed and replaced by an effigy of pre-Split
hero Jerry Nadler. There are some delightful whacks at
well-deserving figures such as “Vichy Bill” Kristol,
founder of the True Conservative Party, which upholds the
tradition of defeat with dignity in the PRNA, winning up to 0.4%
of the vote and already planning to rally the stalwart
aboard its “Ahoy: Cruising to Victory in 2036!”
junket.
The story ends with a suitable bang, leaving the question of
“what next?” While People's Republic
was a remarkably plausible depiction of the situation after the
red-blue divide split the country and “progressive”
madness went to its logical conclusion, this is more cartoon-like,
but great fun nonetheless.
March 2020
- Schlichter, Kurt.
Indian Country.
El Segundo, CA: Kurt Schlichter, 2017.
ISBN 978-0-9884029-6-6.
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In his 2016 novel People's Republic
(November 2018), the author describes North America in
the early 2030s, a decade after the present Cold Civil War
turned hot and the United States split into the People's
Republic of North America (PRNA) on the coasts and the
upper Midwest, with the rest continuing to call itself the
United States. This book, the second to feature Turnbull,
is a “prequel” set shortly after the split, which
was along the borders of the existing states. This left regions
whose natural allegiance would have been to the other side trapped
within states governed by those they detested.
This situation was acute in southern Indiana, where the
population had little in common with the cities of the
north who increasingly oppressed them. Turnbull, whose
military experience included extensive operations in
counter-insurgency, is recruited to go to the area and
assist the population in mounting an insurgency, with the
goal of making the region such a thorn in the side of the
state government that it will be willing to cede the area to
the U.S. as part of a general territorial settlement along
the borders. Turnbull is told to foment a nonviolent
insurgency, but then he is not really the guy you send when
that's your goal. Turnbull himself has no illusions about
the human cost of resisting tyranny and tells those seeking
his aid what they are getting into.
This is a worthy addition to the People's Republic
saga, and along with the action Schlichter has his usual fun
mocking the pretentions and insanity of the dysfunctional
progressive ideology of the PRNA.
May 2020
- Schlichter, Kurt.
People's Republic.
Seattle: CreateSpace, 2016.
ISBN 978-1-5390-1895-7.
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As the third decade of the twenty-first century progressed,
the Cold Civil War which had been escalating in the United
States since before the turn of the century turned hot when
a Democrat administration decided to impose their full
agenda—gun confiscation, amnesty for all illegal
aliens, restrictions on fossil fuels—all at
once by executive order. The heartland defied the power
grab and militias of the left and right began to clash
openly. Although the senior officer corps were largely
converged to the leftist agenda, the military rank and file
which hailed largely from the heartland defied them, and
could not be trusted to act against their fellow
citizens. Much the same was the case with police in the
big cities: they began to ignore the orders of their
political bosses and migrate to jobs in more congenial
jurisdictions.
With a low-level shooting war breaking out, the opposing sides
decided that the only way to avert general conflict was,
if not the
“amicable
divorce” advocated by Jesse Kelly, then a more bitter
and contentious end to a union which was not working. The
Treaty of Saint Louis split the country in two, with the east
and west coasts and upper midwest calling itself the
“People's Republic of North America” (PRNA) and the
remaining territory (including portions of some states like
Washington, Oregon, and Indiana with a strong regional
divide) continuing to call itself the United States, but with
some changes: the capital was now Dallas, and the constitution
had been amended to require any person not resident on its
territory at the time of the Split (including children born
thereafter) who wished full citizenship and voting rights to
serve two years in the military with no “alternative
service” for the privileged or connected.
The PRNA quickly implemented the complete progressive agenda
wherever its rainbow flag (frequently revised as different
victim groups clawed their way to the top of the grievance
pyramid) flew. As police forces collapsed with good cops
quitting and moving out, they were replaced by a national
police force initially called the “People's Internal
Security Squads” (later the “People's
Security Force” when the acronym for the original
name was deemed infelicitous), staffed with thugs and
diversity hires attracted by the shakedown potential of
carrying weapons among a disarmed population.
Life in the PRNA was pretty good for the coastal élites
in their walled communities, but as with collectivism whenever
and wherever it is tried, for most of the population life was a
grey existence of collapsing services, food shortages, ration
cards, abuse by the powerful, and constant fear of being
denounced for violating the latest intellectual fad or using an
incorrect pronoun. And, inevitably, it wasn't long before the
PRNA slammed the door shut to keep the remaining competent
people from fleeing to where they were free to use their skills
and keep what they'd earned. Mexico built a “big,
beautiful wall” to keep hordes of PRNA subjects from
fleeing to freedom
and opportunity south of the border.
Several years after the Split, Kelly Turnbull, retired military
and veteran of the border conflicts around the Split paid the
upkeep of his 500 acre non-working ranch by spiriting people out
of the PRNA to liberty in the middle of the continent. After
completing a harrowing mission which almost ended in disaster,
he is approached by a wealthy and politically-connected Dallas
businessman who offers him enough money to retire if he'll
rescue his daughter who, indoctrinated by the leftist
infestation still remaining at the university in Austin,
defected to the PRNA and is being used in propaganda campaigns
there at the behest of the regional boss of the secret police.
In addition, a spymaster tasks him with bringing out evidence
which will allow rolling up the PRNAs informer and spy
networks. Against his self-preservation instinct which counsels
laying low until the dust settles from the last mission, he opts
for the money and prospect of early retirement and undertakes
the mission.
As Turnbull covertly enters the People's Republic,
makes his way to Los Angeles, and seeks his target,
there is a superbly-sketched view of an America in
which the progressive agenda has come to fruition,
and one which people there may well be living
at the end of the next two Democrat-dominated
administrations. It is often funny, as the
author skewers the hypocrisy of the slavers mouthing
platitudes they don't believe for a femtosecond. (If
you think it improper to make fun of human misery,
recall the mordant humour in the Soviet Union as
workers mocked the reality of the “workers'
paradise”.) There's plenty of tension and
action, and sometimes following Turnbull on his
mission seems like looking over the shoulder of a
first-person-shooter. He's big on countdowns
and tends to view “blues” obstructing him as
NPCs
to be dealt with quickly and permanently: “I don't
much like blues. You kill them or they kill you.”
This is a satisfying thriller which is probably a more realistic
view of the situation in a former United States than an
amicable divorce with both sides going their separate ways. The
blue model is doomed to collapse, as it already has begun to in
the big cites and states where it is in power, and with that
inevitable collapse will come chaos and desperation which
spreads beyond its borders. With Democrat politicians
such as Occasional-Cortex who, a few years ago, hid behind such
soothing labels as “liberal” or “progressive”
now openly calling themselves “democratic socialists”,
this is not just a page-turning adventure but a cautionary tale
of the future should they win (or steal) power.
A prequel, Indian Country,
which chronicles insurgency on the border immediately after
the Split as guerrilla bands of the sane rise to resist the
slavers, is now available.
November 2018