Nature's End by Whitley Streiber and James Kunteka. If you haven't read it, do so!

[tom_paine]

I don't know why it never occurred to me to post this in E/E before.

This book, a piece of speculative fiction and a damned good story, was written in 1986.

http://www.amazon.com/Natures-End-Whitley-Strieber/dp/0446343552/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212622599&sr=8-1

It is set in 2025 and it's environmental predictions are astonishingly accurate. Not only that they predicted George W. Bush! No, they didn't mention him by name...but the fictional facsist piece of shit is a dead-ringer for Bushler...astonishingly so.

Not only that, but they correctly figured the time-frame that Inverted Totalitarianism (complete with great numbers of unConstitutional laws) would arrive. Fallon was first elected in 2000!

For that alone, predicting Bushler a full 14 years before he arrived, the book is worth reading. Though Bushler is not a character, he is a part of "history" often referred to.

But the REAL eye-opener is their environemntal prediction, most of which are occurring right on schedule. I remember when I first read this, back in the late 80s. I remember thinking to myself that Streiber and Kunetka exaggerated the nearness of the environmental threat, probably as a literary device to make things seem more imminent, and therefore more exciting.

Turns out, as XemaSab often says, that everything environmental is happening faster than expected and so they were right on target.

I don't want to give spoilers, except to say that the story is thoroughly entertaining. (I'll leave that to Amazon.com. I also don't want to give the impression that it is spot on with all of it's predictions, particularly in the area of technology. Saddest of all, the technology that brought down the Bushler character is one of the things they seem to have been most mistaken about.

Although it is possible that it exists, but hwat they were wrong about was that it would become available to the public.

Anyway, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who hasn't read it. I think you'll enjoy the story, and you'll be blown away at just how much these guys got right, 22 years later.

If anyone has read it, I would love to hear your thoughts on it.

[shenmue]

1. Whitley Streiber thinks aliens speak Gaelic. Read the end of "Communion."

There was a time when things like this were characterized as what they were. Nonsense, sleep deprivation or illness.

Now, however, it's all "spiritual."

Is there anything people *won't* believe?

[tom_paine]

2. I could care less about Streiber's fascination with aliens.

(which I think I heard that he now admits may be semi-waking hallucinations)

It has nothing to do with this book, and thus I wouldn't give a crap if Streiber walked around every day with a styrofoam alien head with antennae.

[gateley]

4. Thanks for the recommendation - I'll check it out.

Whitley Streiber also co-wrote a book with Art Bell (non-fiction) called The Coming Global Super Storm which was made into the movie, The Day After Tomorrow. Many of the things they foresaw are also on our doorstep.

I wonder how many things I'm looking at today that I think are "out there" but really aren't. I'm thinking the NA Union and the Amero might be the next thing we're saying "they tried to tell us, but..." :shrug:

[dhill926]

3. a great read...

I read this years ago and still re-read it every few years. Still remember the imagery of Denver's pollution. Scary stuff. And unfortunately, pretty close to the mark.

[The Diest]

5. I think it sounds interesting, maybe I will check it out.

I don't care about the alien stuff. Lots of people think all kind of things that cannot be either proved or disproved.

[tom_paine]

6. Shameless kick.

:kick:

[phantom power]

7. I remember reading that.

"Convict Gupta Singh."

[tom_paine]

8. Remember what happened to the Bush/Fallon character?

Dear God, if only we had a licensed convictor (oh, and the technology which apparently does not exist yet) on our side.

I have no doubt a conviction of Bushler would reveal shit that is five times as horrific and evil as the Bush/Fallon character had revealed through his.

Guaranteed.

[phantom power]

9. I remember what happened to Singh.

I remember the Amazon forest drying out and burning to the ground, in a continental tree-crown fire. At the time, that seemed implausible. These days, not quite so much.

I remember the closing line. Very soon humanity must choose.

[tom_paine]

10. Bush/Fallon was "convicted". His ultra-pious Christianity exposed as fraud.

He was humiliated just as Bushler would be if conviction technology was real and people could quiz a 100% accurate psychologically constructed digtized Bush who would be unable to lie when answering question about himself, what he REALLY believed, etc.

In the end, the Bush/Fallon character was so humiliated that he shot himself through the eye in the Oval Office. To anyone reading this, it isn't a spoiler...this is all mentioned as a twenty-year old historical aside. Knwoing it doesn't ruin the book at all.

Of course, our Bushler would NEVER do that in response to such humiliation. He would simply have his al-Qaeda pals do a nuclear 9/11, then declare martial law and punish the shit out of the peasantry that now knew his darkest psychological secrets. I mean concentration camps, the works. A Bushler humiliated in that way would be as dangerous to every individual American as Pol Pot was to ever individual cambodian, I think.

He wouldn't kill himself. He would kill others and bloat himself with joy on our blood and tears, considering it revenge for us daring to buy the product, daring to laugh at him. This I believe to be the most liekly outcome, now that I think about it.

So, maybe it's a good thing conviction technology is fictional.

[Systematic Chaos]

11. I remember a line near the end where that conviction software...

...even nailed him for killing cats!

That remind you of anyone else, besides *, who has been in the media the past few years?

I read that book when it was new and I was still just an already fucked-up teenager trying to cope with a nutcase mother. Yeah, that was a fun one all right. :(