Out of the Ashes Part 9; or, Rocks Fall, Everybody Dies

You know what? I've finally broken. I am going to skip every last bit of this book and just finish this thing up. This is for two reasons; 1) It's the end of August, 2) I really want to move on to something better, and 3) The last third or so of this book is just concentrated stupid. I wrote a 20-page rant about just how stupid the Rebel's new society was, and then realized that I wasn't even finished. So, I shall just write a short post to tie this up and move on. And, for the record, their society really is that badly done. In any logical world, it would have collapsed within a month.

Anyway, the sequence of events goes something like this:

1) Rebels form Tri-States (really imaginative, guys)

2) New US expands to regain most of its territory within five years, somehow.

3) New US wants to reabsorb Tri-States.

4) Tri-States doesn't like the idea.

5) New US invades Tri-States.

6) There is much rape and murder.

7) Tri-States loses.

8) Rebels regroup to destroy New US.

9) Book ends.

If I might muster one final gripe, the whole "Invade the Tri-States" event demonstrates, for any of you who might still have had doubts, the fact that Johnstone has a love of gorn that has never been equaled. He describes one New US soldier blasting out the stomache of a pregnant woman, for instance, and for some reason, any capture female Rebel is raped. Why? Is discipline so bad in the New US army that the instant there's a woman present, they stop the fighting to force themselves on her?

That's about all I can say about Out of the Ashes, which has become a candidate for "Worst Book Ever Written" by this point. Well, granted, I could say more, but that would take all day, and I doubt any of my non-existant readers want to read things thing for that long.

And now, I shall go read the entirety of The Belgariad again. I need to purge myself...