Jeffrey Lewis (2)

I skimmed through this story in one day. Much of this speculative story appears plausible given that Trump is the President. Story begins when North Korea mistakenly shoots down South Korean commercial flight filed with kids headed for a trip. South Korea retaliates, without consulting U.S. and this continue to go quickly downhill from there. North Korea fires nukes at South Korea, Japan and the United States. New York City, Northern Virginia and Jupiter Florida are some of the areas hit by North Korean nukes.

Trump panics. Millions die. Trump takes no responsibility. Trump had argued that North Korean missiles would break up before they struck the U.S. Melania dies as she was staying in Trump Tower when the nuke hits. Trump is not exactly broken up about it. Kim dies too as North Korea gets wiped out. Trump had also considered an attack against China too. Maybe this book is not as far fetched as one may think.

I sense the author is not fond of Nikki Haley. She is still our UN ambassador in the story and there is a reference to reputed affairs she may have been involved.

Pence becomes President in this book and there is no f’n way he takes over if the United States sustained that type of damage and casualties.

This book is food for thought as the author captures how thoroughly inept the current adminsitration is.… (plus d'informations)

We can all agree this book kicks ass. I mean just look at those ratings (I really hope they don’t take a dive after I post this). As such, I won’t be throwing my opinion into the mix - it’s the same as everyone else’s anyways. Instead, I have some tips and tricks to get the most of this book, so you like it as much as I did.

1) Read the endnotes. They help you figure out what’s real and what isn’t - important because it all seems real. It also shows you just how realistic this scenario is, so that’s fun.

1.5) “I won’t read the endnotes,” you might say, which is valid - people don’t often read endnotes when reading for fun. But for the love of god, please at least read the endnote for page 230. It provides crucial contextual information, I promise it’s worth it.

1.75) “I. WON’T. READ. ENDNOTES.” Alright jeez I’ll give you the TLDR: The accounts of victims of the nuclear attacks are actual accounts from the bombing of Hiroshima. Jeffrey Lewis wrote this entire book to trick apathetic Americans into consuming these accounts to better understand their suffering. I bet you feel like an asshole now.

2) Understand this is denuclearization propaganda. The author is a disarmament advocate and gives his reasoning behind writing the book in his acknowledgments. It’s masterfully composed propaganda, worth reading for how well and how subtly Jeffrey Lewis constructs it. Everyone should read it, but diehard pro-nuclear (defense) people might get a little miffed.

3) Read the acknowledgments. I don’t normally read acknowledgments, cause usually they’re just thanking editors and family and whatnot (which this also has) but these acknowledgments provide contextual information on the book. You can wait until the end like I did (they are, after all, at the end), but it's nice to see what Jeffrey Lewis was going for.… (plus d'informations)

If you like speculative fiction, this is pretty well done. It is an account by a hypothetical commission documenting the evens leading up to this "attack'. It reads like the executive summary of what would (in a typical such report) need to be thousands of pages of investigation documentation---the tone is captured pretty well.
Like all wars, this one starts out as a calamity of joint misunderstandings and mistaken assumptions. It is very plausible----all the more so because the (non-specuclative) facts are very well documented in copious footnotes. This is the major strength of this book. That, and the description of the horror of nuclear warfare.
Pretty good characterization of the thinking of some of the principals (Trump, Kim, etc) as far as I can tell.
This will give you some sleepless nights.… (plus d'informations)