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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN num: 9780786019533
ISBN number: 0786019530
Label: Pinnacle
Manufacturer: Pinnacle
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 480
Printing Date: January 01, 2008
Publishing house: Pinnacle
Sale Popularity Level: 39944
Studio: Pinnacle
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Product Description:
Searching for his missing family in the aftermath of a post-apocalyptic America, rebel mercenary and patriot Ben Raines is united with the civilians of the Resistance forces and moves to the forefront of a revolution for the nation's future. Reprint.
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Rated by buyers 
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A modern day retired Special Forces Soldier, Ben Raines, is certainly Smoke Jensen reborn. He certainly feels that his is the only one type of justice for evil people and that justice needs to be handed out swift and hard. In this story, after a germ and nuclear war, Ben gets to defend a Tri-State conservative area of the Rocky Mountains against the corrupt and liberal Remnants of what is left of the East Coast United States goverment.
Good vs. Evil; right vs. wrong; it's all here with violence and romance. But the action really drags and the story slows with the describing of the "perfect" Tri-State government. If you don't mind skim reading, the ending is OK and good enough to get me to read the subsequent story in the series; someday. "Preacher" is still my favorite Johnstone character with the early Smoke Jensen next.
Rated by buyers -
Book 1 of the Ashes series
Plot kernel - Rouge elements in the US Military cause world-wide nuclear and biological war - with absolutely no significant lasting health effects whatsoever for those that survive: the nukes were "clean" and the biological danger diffuses with the wind and time - any areas "permanently affected" are only briefly mentioned and then dropped from the story. It is said that 2/3 the population has perished.
A writer of paperback action adventure novels, himself ex military special forces, survives the collapse of civilization. He travels about the states east of the Mississippi, meets many violent racists (he himself is not one) and generally very bad people, usually groups of men looking to rape women. He also meets the occasional woman, herself a victim of gang rape or a witness to it, who quickly and eagerly decides to sleep with him and stay, temporarily and with affection, in his company. (Rape and racism are referred to and talked about a lot in this story.)
He eventually heads west and becomes the leader (the setup for this role is provided) of a break away, racially diverse, government comprising Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming: the Tri-States. Despite the (one would think) devastation of nuclear and biological war, both the Tri-States and the reconstituted US government now under the control of a radical left wing senator seem to enjoy all the conveniences of the modern world. (This is not a story about a survivalist or survivors of a world-wide war coping with physical hardship.)
The Tri-States government is utopian, militant, communitarian (it seems), and judicially very severe, yet with a slight mixture of libertarian principles (prostitution, for example, is legal). Education, however, is state controlled, Biblical (the implication seems to be that evolution is out, creationism is in, although there is no explicit suggestion of anti-science) and compulsory. Those who refuse to work are deported, their children confiscated by the state, and adopted. The laws of the Tri-States are determined by an approximately 90 percent majority, and so regarded as the true will of the people. Anyone who disapproves is free to leave. Anyone who stays is required to obey or suffer the unbending consequences.
The US government, now at its worst as a tyranny, will not allow the Tri-States to exist separately from the 47 other states. Complications arise.
(The novel preaches against bad politics and the government which bad politics creates and then presents an alternative, utopian, society, which is not laid out well enough to really understand. The nuclear war occurs within the story merely to allow the author to clear some land, create conclaves of lawlessness to show human nature at its worst, institute a US tyranny, and set up this preferred alternative society. It is a story about tyranny and freedom fighters. This book is the very first in a series that is currently 30 novels long.)
Rated by buyers 
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I'm usually a romance book reader, but I was curious & read the back cover & decided to give it a try, something different...
I found the storyline & the dialogue to be very easy-to-read & the story rolled as if written by a 'real' person (if a bit preachy, but the guy sure knows what he believes in!). It's a great 'what-if' story of the ever-popular 'end of the world as we know it by nuclear war'. What if some of the people who are left want to band together, rebuild, create a society that enforces law-abiding, the right to defend yourself & your family, & live in peace ? No racism, no sexism, everyone works somehow, no free-loaders, everyone votes on the basic laws & majority is 90%, not 51%. Anyone who doesn't want to live there, can leave. Must leave. The main character hates 'scum, thugs & slime' of humanity, rape & murder are not tolerated, for any reason, justice is swift, & everyone learns, & carries, firearms, everyone from childhood is taught self-defense. Strong emphasis on Education: if your raise children to be productive, law-abiding citizens, they won't grow up to be 'racists' or 'thugs', or will know the consequences in advance. Age-old question: Would you rob someone or try to hurt someone, if you knew that they & all their family are armed ? Parents are required to teach their children clear right from wrong, so that they are not in doubt, anyone who doesn't do that, are kicked out. These people just want to live in peace & rebuild, health care for all, everyone pulls their share, only wants people who WANT to live there, they don't 'recruit' or 'force' citizenship, they just kick out anyone who doesn't want to follow the rules. No crime, no poverty, no slums...interesting concept.
& in the end, the 'NEW' government after the 'big bomb' that starts back up can't handle an independant society, living separately, prosperous, & in peace. The other side of humanity: the people who want to dominate & control, destroy for their own purposes....
If you believe in the death penalty for murder, rape & child molestation; the right to bear arms; & that governments usually tend towards corruption, then you will LOVE this book. If you are a bleeding-heart that thinks that violent criminals should be 'rehabilitated' & kept in comfortable prisons with cable & acess to law libraries to find a loophole to get out, then you will HATE this book. or you will cheer for the 'bad' guys in it.....
The descriptions of the landscape afterwards, the effects of the germ warfare on the survivors, & how the people that are left behind interact are interesting....(it is fiction & what-if, but you never know -- possible)
The weapons talk/descriptions was not as 'cumbersome' as I thought it would be, if you LIKE guns, you will like all their talk & comparisons on which is best for which situation, but if you are like me & not very knowledgable about guns in particular, you can still read without getting lost.
The places that he visits in his travels have interesting back-stories.
One cheesy point -- the phrase 'out of the ashes' occurs ALOT in the story...will make you roll your eyes a few times....
The girl in me found alot of the parts very sad & depressing, especially the parts that are very common among people, even in this 'advanced' day & age. i.e. it's EASY to be racist & HARD to be open-minded & fair. & when some people will work hard to rebuild & help others, there are always other people who will want to kill & destroy & ruin all their hard work & good efforts.....stuff like that....
Definitely worth reading, but I don't think I will endeavor all 34 of them....(well, maybe #2, & remember, I'm a GIRL, ha ha !!) :)
Rated by buyers -
I think a previous reviewer put it best when he summed this book up as merely pulp fiction....good pulp, but pulp nonetheless.
My very first introduction to the Ashes series was when I was a junior in high school. As part of "The Day After" generation, I was always curious as to what would ever happen if....and this series of books piqued my tenth grade curiosity...
Years go by and a nostalgic part of me vaguely remembers these books, but not the specific titles. After some research, I finally found them and as coincedence would have it, they are in re-print.
But I digress, the storyline in the series is very basic. Ben Raines, the hero, survives a nuclear and germ warfare attack brought about by the diabolical machinations of extremists hellbent on destroying the present society to allow a better one to take its place. After some reluctance, Ben accepts his "fate" to re-build a society based on very strict values and he assembles together a group of like-minded individuals for this purpose. The "good" guys are Ben Raines and his rebels, the "bad" guys are the US Government, the press and any other citizen who disagrees with Mr. Raines' views.
The plot is simple, the characters are even simpler and the writing is mediocre, at best. But the story is damn entertaining, assuming you can take Mr. Johnstone's over simplified social and political diatribes with a grain of salt. These books conceivably could have been made into top gossing action films (Hell, Rambo did)... meant to entertain, not elighten.
Rated by buyers -
I read this book more out of curiosity than anything else. I found the now 20 year old political views that swarm the book utterly fascinating, not always in a good way. The book is a not unusual (post) apocalyptic plot, flooded with political views interspersed with rather frank sex discussions. Rather too coarse to be interesting in my opinion, but I suppose that's personal view. No desire to read further into the series because the story line is not strong and not really what the author is bent on communicating. The author's website is kinda interesting, not seen anyone that prolific except certain romance authors. However, his stories are at that level... so I suppose it makes sense.
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