Fire in the Ashes

I really enjoyed this book. Johnstone writes some pretty raw stuff. Reading about what America could become is alarming! Reading this really helped me appreciate the freedoms that I have. It also helps me appreciate the economic favor we've had in this country for so many years. Someday America could very well become a totalitarian state. Just think if certain circumstances were to happen. I've also read the previous book in the series. This is what I get so far. It shows the good guys losing but then being resilient in the face of defeat/disappointment. Personally, I recommend one should definitely take up martial arts of some sort and purchase a gun and learn how to use it after reading this! Sure in today's society the likelyhood of you ever having to use a gun or your hands and feet to defend yourself even once in this life is pretty low right now. Probably slim to none for most folks. But in Johnstone's Post-apocolyptic America the likelyhood of you having to defend yourself (with your hands or a gun) is very high. This was definitely a good read. I look forward to reading the next.

Fire in the Ashes is the perfect continuation of the "Ashes" series. Bill takes the reader onward from where "Out of the Ashes" left off, and provides a lot of flashback so that even the reader who starts with this one can understand the storyline. The flashback sequences are terrifically done and masterfully crafted. Ben Raines dogged determination to pull America up from destruction is enough to have everyone raising the banner of freedom.

IN the 30s, when pulp adventure was king, there was a magazine called Operator 5 about America's greatest secret agent. Excellent stories, but especially noteworthy is the "Purple Invasion" set of stories where Op 5 had to contend with foreign invaders who had seized control of America. The "Ashes" series rings with echoes of those great pulp stories. After WW3, America is in grips of a brutal, yet American run, dictatorship. Ben Raines is the head of the Rebels trying to overthrow the ruling govt. and return America to democracy. The first 3/4 of the book show Raines in his struggle with the ruling party. The last quarter is a grim account of the world being swept by the Black Plague. All in all, it's an exciting and worthwhile adventure with one proviso. Normally I don't mind a little sex and violence in my action fiction. Heck, violence is an integral part of any men's adventure fiction. What is disturbing about this book is the sex and there is plenty of it. However, almost all of the sex portrayed in this book is brutal rape. When the secret police are trying to get information from anyone in this book, they are, for the most part, raped, sodomized or forced to watch loved ones undergo the same treatment. A couple of incidents would have been fine to show characterization of the men in power, but Johnstone goes way overboard. It was a bit disturbing

I have read many of the ____ IN THE ASHES books, and i have yet to read this one. However, as everyone of the books in this series i have read so far is excellent, i can honestly say that this one is a masterpiece also.

This book is number 2 in the Ashes series and it a great sequal to number 1. It keeps you there right in the thick of things and it shall leave marks on your neck from the stranglehold it put on you. You might think I exagerate and who knows I might be doing just that but for you to find out you have to buy it and read it. So go ahead I dare you.