There is an old Chinese saying (some say it’s a curse): May you live in interesting times. No doubt about it, we absolutely do; it all depends on how you define ‘interesting’. Putting aside the pandemic for the moment, global politics is at its nadir presently. We have national and international corruption and coups going on right now. We have countries firing missiles into the sea for the sheer hell of it. We have a major superpower preparing to invade one of its neighbours because it can. This happens while the rest of us watch on, not knowing (or caring) how or if any of this will affect our daily lives. To people like me, books can sometimes provide the answers to where our future lies. However, most of the answers I’ve been getting in recent times haven’t been, shall I say, optimistic. When I put Enemy, a dystopian thriller by author Kimberly Amato, down after finishing it, I became very distressed about humanity’s chances of ever surviving the choices it made in recent decades. That’s not to say you shouldn’t read it: you really should. But don’t expect easy answers.
The year is 2045. It’s New Year’s Day, and Jerrik Laskin, President of the United States of the Russian Federation celebrates the dawn of a new year by executing dissidents who planned to assassinate the British prime minister and reform the United Kngdom’s royal family. Former Multinational Security Council agent Ellie Goldman watches on and hatches a plan that she hopes will one day soon end with the death of the president and a restoration of normal order around the globe. It’s a tall, almost impossible order, seeing that Russia’s King Valkov practically rules the world, with Laskin merely one of his puppets. Ellie and what’s left of the resistance have to fight on many fronts, but they’re holed up beneath New York City, deep within its subway system, with only a handful of operatives able to travel above ground.
Meanwhile, another of the Russian king’s goons, Colonel General Gregor Macalov, oversees a plethora of human experiments on Riker’s Island. He’s assisted by Tim Flynt, a soldier whose brother Sam secretly works for Ellie. Macalov is a deeply unsavoury character, but there’s hope that Tim may see the light if Sam can somehow sway him. Ellie’s right hand man, Anton, wants to hit Riker’s Island with all they have; but Ellie has her sights set on a more global operation. There is disagreement in the resistance, and there maybe a spy or two feeding information further up the chain to Laskin and Macalov’s desks. But Ellie is so focused that she risks the entire resistance ultimate betrayal and destruction. Every chapter in Kimberly Amato‘s Enemy is full of danger, subterfuge, and, at times, extreme violence, some of which made me wince.
The book is written and reads at a manic pace and you will be finished before you know it. But you will be drained at the end and in need of a good hug. I know I had to read something more light-hearted once I’d finished Enemy. The Bible came to my mind, because if nothing else, we as humans need Divine help before we succumb to our greed and lust for power and end up blowing ourselves up.
What I think About When I Think About Writing. 