America 2014

by Dawn Blair

In this starkly terrifying political thriller, Winston Smith is a young, successful producer of patriotic commercials for the Department of Homeland Security. While working to fulfill his dream of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1571781757
• ISBN13: 9781571781758
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Progressive Source Publishing
• Length: 222 Pages
• Weight: 0.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Frighteningly realistic

This is a book whose time has come -- what with the Bush administration riding roughshod over our constitional rights and all. And their never-ending expansion of executive branch powers. It all seems disturbingly reminiscent of "America 2014." And now that people like Rudy are being taken seriously as a candidates, the more chilling the scenario presented in this book becomes. A fascinating read.

real as it can get

The book's haunting vision is real; or maybe it's real and I don't know about it--yes, exactly, that makes it even more real. America 2014 captures reality more closely than George Orwell's 1984--where the ideas like Newspeak and one global mega-state might have been too much for people living in 1948. For instance, last week I was waiting for train at Great Neck, a small train station in Long Island. It's a peaceful town in the outskirts of New York City, and in the waiting area only advanced technology is a big electronic screen saying "If you see something, say something" and every minutes or so a monotonous voice echoes throughout the station "If you see something, say something." Why is that monotonous voice and screen so reminiscent of "we're watching you" propaganda in 2014; the voice I was picturing while reading the book is the exact same-the sense that people around you are suspicious, the sense that we're all under constant danger, the sense that we need an almighty figure--like the government who's feeding these messages--for our protection. Not to mention thousands of monitoring cameras watching us every step of our life, not to mention mega-billion wire tapped phone records NSA allegedly has--these are happening right now at this moment. Media conglomeration is another big thing; News Corp (which owns Fox, Myspace, you name it) resembles the pervasive, fear-mongering, totalitarian media outlet we see in 2014; every time I walk in the streets of New York, I see Fox declaring themselves The Most Powerful Name in the News--well, not much different from the Only Truth media we see in 2014, ain't it. And tortures. We have already seen evidences of our government torturing people not only in the United States but in other parts of the world as well. And common sense tells us that what we see about government is only inkling of what actually happens behind the scenes; think about it, how much we don't see about what our government is doing; yes, we see the President giving speech and footages of the Congress making decisions and what-nots but that's just a teeny-tiny bit of what's being planned in White House and in Congress, right? So we see these pictures of our government torturing people abroad, who are you to say brutal killings and abusive prison environment in 2014 are not happening? The year 2014 is approaching, and will we see things happening in 2014 actually happening? They might be happening, but we might not know about it--and that's the most dreadful implication.

Don't miss it!

Ever since I read this book I hear its echoes in the daily news headlines. Suspenseful and shocking, it reveals the grotesque logic of the Bush administration policies carried to the extreme. A rare contemporary example of politically engaged pop literature, this is a must-read for fans of the fantasy genre and every concerned citizen of this country.

Bush-world - Awesome book! - funny and scary

After reading this visionary tale I can see why Buzzflash.com wrote America 2014 is "destined to become an underground classic." I read through the book without putting it down in five hours: laughing my butt off and shaking my head at the picture of the horrifying Bush-world Blair presents. America 2014 is a breath of fresh air in this world of increasingly vacuous media silence and conformity.

Amazing America 2014!

America 2014 is one of the best books I have ever read. It's 1984 repackaged with relevance to today. Dawn Blair (a pseudonym) cleverly creates a world in which the supreme power is George O. Blush, and in which Homeland Security has become similar to the Gestapo. America 2014 poses the scary question: "What If?" What if George W. Bush continues to pass more Patriot Acts (a staple of the book, and instrumental in taking away freedoms of Americans), and what if he runs for a third term? I read this book on a recent vacation to Mexico and finished it in about four hours. It's a smooth, great quick read. And the fabulous thing about it is how relevant it is. Everything's not just drawn up as in a science-fiction tale, but it draws off things from the present day (i.e. the Patriot Act, Homeland Security, etc.). Coming back from my trip, I saw that several of the things mentioned in America 2014 had been implemented in America. Fingerprint readers and Cameras were now present at each U.S. Customs booth. Is the world becoming like America 2014? Let's hope not.