The Executive Order (David Fisher)

If you’re a trumpette or a far right conservative,you’ll hate this book and give up when the failures of trump’s administration are sorted out in the chapters following the initial terrorist attacks that open the book. You probably should not bother.

If that sort of factual relation doesn’t mess with your worldview, this is a middling superguy/journalist story that’s a fair read.

The book opens with attacks on the Lincoln Tunnel in NY, a dam in Louisiana, and the explosion of the USS Arizona in Hawaii. Deaths? Too many to count. The response of the 2024 President Ian Wrightman: in a nod to fighting terrorism, a rollback of some civil liberties. The slow erosion of rights continues to creep into the country until finally it’s simply a fascist government, with the Constitution basically suspended and neighbors encouraged to spy and report on one another, a la 1984.

Rollie Stone, paraplegic former SpecOps and now journalist, is following all this, wondering what is happening to his country. He writes stories about the attacks and then about the targeting of a house in Detroit that is blasted to pieces and everyone inside killed. As it turns out, the people inside that house were innocent, and the government has just murdered a bunch of people on US soil.

The book proceeds to follow Rollie as he watches the tightening of the country, to the point where the electronic newspaper he works for is shut down, as all media now belongs to the government and reports only good news. Rollie then becomes a rebel, fighting to bring information about a cyber hijacking of an airliner to someone who will listen. The remainder of the book is about that quest and the dangers of a fascist state.

But for complete incompetence and greed, we could have been in the process of becoming that fascist country under the former guy’s term. The term creeping fascism exists for a reason, and anyone who has studied WWII, or Germany’s descent into fascism will recognize the steps outlined in this book. This may hit close to home for some people, so be advised that there is also a televised hanging of “traitors” described in this book.

As I read, I wondered if the author was putting in easter eggs on purpose, or just coincidentally. The current President is Ian Wrightman – I, Wrightman – I, right man, as in the right man for the job. I also wondered if the author is a Dick Francis fan, since Rollie calls the two Feds sent to round him up as Dick and Francis. There are other things along these same lines.

I wasn’t bothered by a lot in this book, but one of the things that did bother me was Rollie not discovering who was actually behind this lockdown of the country earlier. It bugged me that we got a “It was so and so all along!” in the end, when it’s clear as day earlier in the book who it is.

If you can handle the mix of fact and fiction, it’s a good enough read.

Overall, three out of five stars.

Thanks to St Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the reading copy.