Enemies Foreign and Domestic

Very well written. Great characters and plot.

Through the first 3/4 of the book it was so real I found myself getting depressed ... I had to stop and tell myself it hasn't happened *yet*. And I really mean it when I stress the "yet"; I remember reading Tom Clancy's "Debt Of Honor" almost ten years ago, and not really believing someone would fly a plane into a building as a way to commit murder.... and in his latest novel, he has terrorists wiping out the unarmed crowds in shopping malls. It hasn't happened - yet. Then I look at the Democratic Underground, Handgun Control Inc., Senator Feinstein - yeah, this could really happen. There are people out there serious (or seriously deranged) enough to make this believable. Good wakeup call for those not already aware of what's slowly but surely happening today in our country. But treating it as a work of fiction - albeit an extremely important one - I'll give it 4.5 stars (I rounded up). The characters are as real as those in any other novel and the book itself is hard to put down. The author either did some serious research or else he's an expert in quite a few categories, I found very little technically to complain about. The use of thinly disguised real names and products added immensely to the enjoyment. It's more than good enough to read even without the underlying message. If only we could find a way to get the gun fearing/grabbing portion of the population to read this. If you do enough research, you'll realize that this is why the 2nd Amendment was put in the Constitution. Unfortunately, I fear that only those who already support it will be reading this book - but I beg those who don't to read it, and try looking from a different point of view; the one held by 80 million Americans who realize guns are not evil, but some people are. I'm anxiously awaiting a sequel.

In the aftermath of a massacre at a football stadium, Congress passes emergency legilation banning all semi-automatic "assault weapons". American gun owners are instant pariahs, but respond to this violation of the constitution. This book accurately portrays what could happen if the portion of American society that desires to see all firearms registered, confiscated and eventually banned gets their way. This book shows how the "gun grabbers" could manipulate and shape events to spark a backlash against gun owners. In fact, it is not too differnet from the gun grabbers using tragedies such as school shootings to further their own political ends. The book also shows one possible response of the American gun owning public. American gun owners have been like a sleeping giant for far to long. Hopefully books such as this well help to awaken that sleeping giant before it is too late, and we become a nation of "sheeple" (to use one of the author's terms). The book is well written, the characters are believable, and likeable, and the book was very hard to put down.

Enemies Foreign & Domestic is a compelling, fictional novel about liberty and the 2nd amendment. It is packed with real life issues right out of today's headlines and it covers the political views and aspirations on both sides of the issue, while making it very clear that the unalienable right to self defense as enumerated in the 2nd amendment of the U.S. constitution, is endowed upon all citizens. That is something that every American should understand.It is also just a good, old-fashioned, barnstorming novel that you can't put down. One that has very real characters, each with their own talents and deficiencies who are brought together in the story in extraordinary circumstances. Matthew Bracken has hit one out of the park with this novel.

I began reading "Enemies Foreign and Domestic" over the weekend and I still feel unsettled after finishing it in the wee hours of Saturday. I feel unsettled because this book pulls no punches. It is realistic in terms of its portrayal the cold-blooded murderousness of some of the thugs that the government employs. It's dead bang on in terms of its assessment of those politicians who would cheerfully dance in the blood of innocents in order to advance their agenda. It's a clear-eyed picture of the unholy alliance between those who live to kill and those who seek to rule the living. What this book is not about are comic-book, unstoppable heroes. The author imbues his characters with the flaws that all of us posess to one degree or another - fear, doubt, uncertainty, the pull of the path of least resistance and the comfortable life versus the hard and often unrewarding road of the correct moral choice. Bracken uses his characters to explore some of the very real moral dilemmas that many of us will face when the lines between good and evil are not as clearly drawn as we'd like. Those moral choices become even more difficult with the realization that some of those who swore an oath to protect us against "all enemies, foreign and domestic" have in fact become those very same enemies.Perhaps the most unsettling aspect of this book is the authors unflinching take on the price that many of us will pay when civil disobedience turns to armed resistance. Freedom isn't cheap. In fact, if history's any indicator, it's going to get damned expensive.

Enemies Foreign & Domestic is a compelling, fictional novel about liberty and the 2nd amendment. It is packed with real life issues right out of today's headlines and it covers the political views and aspirations on both sides of the issue, while making it very clear that the unalienable right to self defense as enumerated in the 2nd amendment of the U.S. constitution, is endowed upon all citizens. That is something that every American should understand.It is also just a good, old-fashioned, barnstorming novel that you can't put down. One that has very real characters with their own deficiencies who are brought together in the story in extraordinary circumstances. In his first at bat, Matthew Bracken has hit one out of the park.