Spero elaborates on the events described in ‘Fidelis’, but starts and ends in different places.  This may sound like an odd way to tell a story (book two of a series traditionally picks up where book one finished, after all), but it proves to be a refreshing and clever way to - almost literally - weave a narrative, with a different thread of the future history that Horvath is constructing being plucked out of the tapestry of the whole and examined.

We follow the fortunes of two characters who we met in Fidelis, Tasha and King, from their first meeting just after a massive nuclear strike on the USA.  Told initially from Tasha’s point of view, but thereafter mostly from King’s perspective we get a different look at the unfolding events in this post-apocalyptic landscape.  At first the two friends are making their own way through the troubled country, giving us an insight into events not witnessed by the primary characters of Fidelis, but later we come to the first meeting of Tasha and King with Fides and Fermion, now seen and described through different eyes.

Here is where Horvath’s device of overlapping different characters’ narratives in successive books risks becoming repetitive as we are taken through events we have already read about, but the change in point of view and the individual concerns of the new characters (in the teenage King’s case, touchingly recognisable worries about girls are jarringly set against a back-drop of dystopian civil war) make the story fresh and interesting, even if we occasionally know what is coming next.

Some questions from Book One are answered (who is Fermion?), while others are left unresolved (who are the Shadowmen?).  Puzzles still remain at the end of the book about the characters we have been following throughout - for instance, is Tasha, who slays multiple highwaymen with rather more skill than your average elderly lady, really all she seems?  Tune in for Book Three to find out (I sincerely hope!).

Horvath’s villains are a nice mix of well-rounded characters who can be quite difficult to spot, and out-and-out rotters with nothing to recommend them whatsoever.  This balance between the black-and-white good vs evil ideology of a traditional heroic adventure story (or any of George W Bush’s speeches) and a more thoughtful approach satisfies both emotionally and intellectually.

The diverging paths of the main characters preserve an unknown ending, which does not disappoint for a dangling cliff-hanger on the edge of a cataclysmic battle with the evil Pledge forces, with elements of a Tolkienesque epic mythos seen again in the closing paragraphs.

All in all, I found Spero to be an excellent book, which made me want to go back and read Fidelis again.  The only question remains, what’s he going to call the next one?

We’ve had ‘Faith’ (Fidelis), and now ‘Hope’.  If this were a trilogy, I would have to go for the Latin word for ‘Love’ (taking my cue from 1 Corinthians 13:13) - I’m thinking possibly ‘Amare’.  However, since I have it on good authority that there are seven books planned, then I’m going to have to put my money on ‘Caritas’, the third of the seven Heavenly Virtues (the polar opposite of the famous Deadly Sins) after Faith and Hope - Charity.

Danny F, England.

[Editor:  The third book is indeed titled Caritas!  Good job, Danny!]

Actually, the way that I’ve written the books they can each be read independently.  You can read either or both and in any order.  This will be true for the remaining of the series, too.

Why?

The series is not linear.

In other words, Spero doesn’t start where Fidelis leads off.  For a number of reasons, I am writing the series with each book (except book 7) reflecting the perspective of a different character in the series.  The time frames covered by all of the books is roughly the same and where the characters of the different books interact, the same scene is present in each book, seen from that character’s unique perspective.  Where the characters depart from each other, the story branches off.  You might say that each book overlaps the others.

This approach allows me to lay ever deeper layers of meaning to the events in the books.  One character will think nothing of an event in one book but in another book, another character will perceive the event as a turning point or startling development.

In short, you’ll be able to read any of the first six books in any order that you please.  Each is stand alone, but none are the whole story.

The seventh book will start, chronologically, where the first six books end, and proceed to tie up all the loose ends, weaving the six story lines into a single rope.

There are a number of reasons for why I took this approach.  One of them is that I perceive that our entire lives are like this.  Each of us is a character in a book.  There are some 10 billion books in the ’series,’ with many of our ’stories’ overlapping the stories of others.  Taken together, our individual stories constitute one grand story.  This grand story contains elements that are astonishing, but in my view, missed if you take the stories of our lives one at a time.  At the same time, one cannot overlook our individual lives, for pieces of them are what make the grand story, the Mosaic, we’ll call it, what it is.

My seven book series is a very faint shadow of what I perceive is reality.  It begs the question:  if the Birth Pangs series are a mosaic of my authorship, who is the Author of the series of our lives?  Is there really no Author?  Really?  I don’t think so.  If you think that way, one of my aims is to persuade you otherwise.

So what do I think?

Well, I won’t rule anything out.  Anything can happen and can happen quickly if circumstances are right.  In the Birth Pangs series, it took between thirty and fifty years for events to unfold.  That remains in my mind much more plausible.   What Igor Panarin’s analysis omits is a catalyst of any kind.  In the Birth Pangs series, it was the destruction by atomic bomb of Washington DC.  I don’t see current events trending towards a disintegration any time soon without a suitable catalyst.

We also have to factor in logistics.  Panarin proposes that Russia will take back Alaska and that the Chinese will take the western side of the United States.  But in either case, for this to be accomplished, there have to be boots on the ground.  For Russia/Alaska, this isn’t very difficult.  But for China to dispatch the number of troops needed to occupy and subjugate the American West, there have to be transport vessels, a navy to defend those transports, and then suitable staging areas.  Without a catalyst leading to a massive dehabilitation of the American military, such conditions are unattainable in the nearterm.  At best, China could stage an invasion from Mexico.

It is that kind of scenario that the Birth Pangs series envisions but even then Mexico has to want to go along with the Chinese.  My series explains why Mexico goes along with the Chinese.  it is odd that Panarin thinks that the Mexicans wouldn’t take California and Arizona for themselves. Why would La Raza allow that?

Also, without the needful catalyst, it is difficult to imagine any kind of dissolution being followed by international occupation.  Panarin underestimates the cultural homogeneity that exists in this country.   I have relatives in numerous states in the union and have no particular loyalty to one American state over another.  To the extent that those in the US have rivalries, they are fairly benign, of the University of Michigan versus The Worthless Ohio Buckeyes type or the Packers versus the Bears or Dallas versus Everyone.   This is profoundly different than the British/Irish rivalry and Chechnya and Georgia versus Russia.

The American Civil War was over something of real substance and not on petty ethnic grounds.  Slavery was a suitable catalyst- no such catalyst is imminent… at least not as long as Hawaii keeps its iron grip on certain birth records.

Another thing Panarin underestimates is the Constitutional right to bear arms.  The fact that there are a lot of guns in this country might support a civil war hypothesis it weakens a foreign invader hypothesis- again assuming there isn’t a catalyst, and in this aspect, one that disarms the average citizen.  Foreign invaders would find it difficult to subdue the American people.  One finds themselves almost wishing someone would try to attack Texas.  I mean, good luck.

Finally, much has been said about the thinning of the American military but this isn’t really accurate.  Yes, we have American soldiers spread throughout the world but barring a global EMP assault (which would also undermine foreign armies) these soldiers could be quickly recalled.  Not only that, but the fact that they’ve been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan means that American soldiers have something that most of the world’s armies do not have- battle hardened troops both at home and abroad.

Finally, thinking in Panarin’s terms, I see no reason why the upper midwest and the East coast wouldn’t remain largely untouched.  Canada isn’t known to be expansionist and precisely what European countries could conceivably lay a hand on the East coast beyond New York, where the only armed people are cops and criminals?  Pennsylvania, Georgia, Virginia, etc, are easily a match to Eurpean attackers.

So, all in all, assuming things continue as they have been with no catalysts, I must pronounce Panarin’s hypothesis as untenable, and the similarities to the Birth Pangs series passing and superficial.

Here is Panarin’s map:

To my surprise, BarnesandNoble is offering the best prices hands down- even beating me- especially on the hard cover.

Here are current prices:

Amazon.com

Fidelis is the best speculative fiction I have read since the early 80’s. Reminiscent of Heinlein’s writings with the skills of a master wordsmith, A.R. Horvath has created an amazing world and looks to a possible future that is dark and brooding. He creates a world in which the United States has entered a second dark ages after a military defeat. The writing is superb, the characters believable and engaging. As you read you become transported into the events by Horvath’s skill with the pen for he draws you in and captivates you. His storytelling is masterful.

Read the rest of the review.

If you recently purchases a copy of Fidelis in the first edition cover, please contact me and I will send out the second edition to you for $10 which includes media mail shipping.  This is essentially sending you a copy at cost.  Email me at author@birthpangs.com.

I note that Amazon.com is now selling Spero for $14.35, undercutting me by a good sixty cents!  No biggie.  I can still do what Amazon.com can’t, though, and that’s sign the books.  An autographed set of a second edition Fidelis and first edition Spero is just right for the readers in your life.

In conclusion, make sure that if you buy Fidelis in soft cover that the cover is red and has the ISBN of 978-0979127656. Hopefully, the old one (978-0979127618) will be replaced by outlets like Amazon.com and the reviews transferred over appropriately.

It is clear in your writing that you go to great lengths to develop masculine men and feminine women, yet you go to great pains to make your masculine men not macho, and your feminine women not submissive or needy in the least, while remaining very feminine. What draws you to explore these issues of masculinity and femininity?

I suppose there are two aspects of this question.  What draws me to explore these issues and how did this get reflected in the presentation of men and women?

The ‘draw’ is easy enough.  In my own life I felt that there were a missing components of ‘masculinity’ in my own life, like I was meant for something quite different- as a man- but for one reason or another I was not acting like a full man.  If there is a ‘masculine ideal’ I wasn’t measuring up.  There seemed to be others who felt the same way, even if their conclusions were different.  The extraordinary success of Elridge’s “Wild at Heart” I think illustrates this.  I don’t think that only men feel this disconnect, either.

At any rate, it seemed to me as I tried to find a way to resolve this issue that the very structure of our lives de-masculinizes and de-feminizes us. Every where you go, no matter what you do, we are asked to… no, required to, water down the virtues of our respective genders.   No system could hold a fully masculine man or a fully feminine woman, each aware of the potency of their being and allowed to express it.  Systems would break in the face of that kind of individual Manhood and Womanhood.  But in Birth Pangs the systems and structures have already all been broken.

Because of the raw anarchy of the times, no man or woman can rely on some institution to come in and do what needs to be done.  If it is going to be done at all it will have to be done by people.  In Fidelis, this is expressed in a number of ways and in particular are expressed by the characters Fermion and Tasha.

For example, after one battle in which Tasha performs as admirably as Fermion, it is Tasha who swoops in to take care of the wounded and the wounded prisoners.  When others want to ‘finish off’ the wounded prisoners, Tasha inserts herself.  She does not insert herself diplomatically or passively.  She doesn’t offer a suggestions.  She asserts herself stoutly and dares all men to cross her… as I mentioned, she had already demonstrated that she was a formidable warrior… crossing her would not be wise.

This concern for the weak among us, this expression of the nurturing instinct among women, is revealed in all of its fierce righteousness in the conduct of Tasha.  I believe that this is well represented in Spero, as well.

Similarly, Fermion provides idealized illustrations of masculinity on the loose.  Not machoism, but masculinity.  Fermion does not need to do dangerous things in order to feel manly.  He does dangerous things because he is manly.  That is, he does them because they need to be done.  He does them because he has studied reality and man’s place within it and has a carefully thought out view of the world.  Still waters run deep, you might say.  When Fermion takes a life it is not malicious or arbitrary or bloodthirsty, but rather the manifestation of a principled way of thinking.   He commits his body completely to the task his mind has decided must be done.

Fermion makes decisions and makes wise ones.   He is the sort of man that others would want to submit to, and he is the sort of man who knows when it is time for he himself to submit.

Other characters represent various degrees of these somewhat idealized versions of men and women.  Fides, the main character of Fidelis, struggles to find truth in the broken universe he finds himself in- truth about the world and God, and about man.

I guess the lingering question posed by the Birth Pangs series in regards to masculinity and femininity is how exactly we are going to let men be manly and woman be womanly in our current life and times.  To that I don’t know the answer.

(and Fidelis) from the author or from Amazon.com

Fidelis, my first book, is Latin for faithfulness.  The second book, Spero, is Latin for hope.  Spero is an exploration of what hope is and why we need it.  It is an exploration of what things are good to put our hope in and what things are bad to put our hope in.  In the fictionalized America of the future portrayed in the Birth Pangs series, all of the things that people have traditionally put their hope in have been brought low.  There are no government agencies, no schools, and not even churches.  In the face of daily perils, people have to figure out how where they are going to place their hope.

It is interesting to me that the political candidate running on ‘hope’ is also running on ‘change.’  I think this illustrates the root of the problem.  The best place to put your ‘hope’ is where it won’t shift beneath your feet.  Also, we need to be clear about what things we hope to overcome.  Nearly all of our systems and institutions are geared to address certain day to day realities that are important but not, I’m afraid, ultimate.  There is one problem that surpasses them all:  death.

Spero is about people- even good people- putting their hope in lesser means to tackle lesser problems and being confronted with the consequences of that approach.  Spero is about being confronted with our chief problem and challenged to consider what possible solutions there might be to that problem… and whether any of these are within our control, or obtainable by our own effort.