An almost good book that gets more and more racist as we get into it. So this is the book that inspired the movies Red Dawn, but it’s incredibly more intelligent and inventive than either of those two movies could ever claim. The Pan-Asian army has taken over the United States and a group of scientists in a secretive lab have survived the war in secret and been left with their equipment, minds, bodies, and capabilities in tact. The only issue is that there is only a small number of them (a few hundred) against an army of millions. The rest of the United States has either been killed (a sizeable minority) or subjugated (the rest). They hatch a plan to first create important technology that will help them strike blows against their new oppressors, and hopefully to win against them in time. They decide to use a phony religion to help create underground resistance cells across the US since the policy of the Pan-Asian government is to allow their subjugated people their localized religions, much like the Romans did. This obviously proves to be their downfall.
So, like I said, this book is incredibly racist. It’s almost impressively so, especially given that the US has been and will be the oppressors of people from Asia in the US in their past (not to mention the history of colonialism and racism within the US and the various genocides to boot) and in future wars. So the constant use of racial slurs and dehumanizing language is stark and upsetting, but in addition to the righteous tone being used since the Pan-Asians are US’s oppressors, it’s somehow extra insulting. But in a way I won’t get into, the “racial genetics” of Asian people (keeping in mind that this is just factually not a thing) is used as a tool to kill thousands of them. So there’s like some straight to the core racial/genetic eugenics happening too. Cool cool cool. It’s funny because this audiobook was created (the book had been out of print for awhile) in 2012 because of the upcoming release of the new movie, and it could have simply lay dormant.
(Photo: https://www.amazon.com/Sixth-Column-Robert-Heinlein-ebook/dp/B00APADSUE/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2F5ATPE1MSI8M&keywords=sixth+column&qid=1577817904&sprefix=sixth+co%2Caps%2C163&sr=8-1)