Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Systemic Shock by Dean Ing James Nicoll's Millennial Reviews: I was going to review the entire trilogy but Life Is Too Short plus I want to save up my bile for the Baxter HC that just came in [1]. Synopsis: It's 1996 and the entire world is about to go pear-shaped. Young Ted Quantrill is a teenaged boy scout out with his officious and incompetent scout master when WW IV starts [WW III was General Sir John Hackett's 1985 WW III]. The book follows several main points of view: Quantrill's, Boren Mills' [an intelligence officer] Sandy Grange's [a 9 year old girl at the beginning of the story], Eve Simpson [teen holostar sexkitten], and an omniscient narrator writing from some point after WW IV. Don't know much about that last except he's an American and possibly a Mormon. The war is between the Sino-Ind Axis [India, China, the Arab Islamic Republic: the swath of nations from China through Africa to Brazil] vs the white nations. Because the Allies are not going to be saddled with the Free French this time round, the Russians appear to have suffered extreme oxygen deprivation prior to making important policy decisions. Various Cool Toys get used. Plagues are spread. A 100 million tree hugging American Liberals are righteously turned to ash and carrion and American becomes a much more conservative, Mormon dominated nation. Eventually, The Sino-Ind alliance makes one critical mistake too many and the Allies win, more or less. Canada [I am not making this up] kicks ass all round, humilating their irksome RUS allies with chocolate and occupying the border states from New England to Oregon. Mexico does its own territorial landgrab down south. The Mormon President is dying of cancer and unaware that his Veep has much darker plans for Streamlined America. Is there some reason Veeps are so often evil in US fiction? Mills is a power hungry intel type and we follow his career as he backstabs his way to serious power, including stealing a Chinese power fusion generator for his own use. He forges an alliance with Eve Simpson, who is also adept at grabbing power. Ing seems to have weight issues with women. Odd bits: just prior to the war, they find life on Venus in SS. How odd for a book written this late. Perhaps it is foreshadowing the disconnect between the rest of the book and the real world as it appeared in '81. Quantrill is just the sort of young boy you don't want along when the bombs fall because he's a survivor and to press the point home, pretty much nobody he meets is. After one of the scouts he is with is run over, he leaves his scout group and hooks up with Abby, an obliging lady who introduces 15 year old Ted to sex. They make their way to Oak Ridge, which has been invaded and taken over by nasties. Abby is raped and murdered but Ted kills or maims everyone with the misfortune to get between him and a "delta", a cargo dirigible the bad guys have hijacked. He helps the Delta escape. They take him to a research station, drop him off and are then destroyed by a Sino-Ind aircraft. Ted meets the Granges. The father is dying of rad-poisoning. He and Sandy get along fairly well. After Sandy recovers a nuclear device [Which AFAIK ends up rotting in a cave somewhere], she and her mother are kidnapped by a splinter sect of insane Mormons. Ted thinks they are dead and runs off to join the army. Ted is noticed as a fine killer and sent off to Section T to get further training as a gunsel [AFAIK, Ing doesn't know the other meaning of gunsel]. He kills various people. His instructor and another recruit go off on mission and don't return. Eventually, he is sent out to step on the nutcase Mormon sect with his sometime sex-partner Sanger. They wipe the sect out but Mrs Granger is murdered and her baby and her daughter Sandy escape in circumstances which lead Ted to think they are dead, killed by Ba'al, a huge Russian boar who has made that piece of Texas his territory. Instead, Sandy has formed an alliance with the boar. T Section is turned into Search and Rescue and Ted is kept on as a man who will kill anyone who inconveniences the new President's plans for rebuilding America as a Mormon theocratic state. Oh, and all of Israel hops into hovercrafts and relocates to Cyprus and eventually, to L5 colonies. I'm Not, as Dave Barry would say, Making This Up. As long as Ing is focussing on Quantrill and Sandy, this book is ok. Quantrill's continuing alienation and isolation is well handled, I thought. I think I have had teachers like Mr Littleton, the scout master. Mills is flat. Simpson is flat. The farther away from Sandy and Ted we get, the worse the book is, with the caveat that Ing handles fog of war fairly well. Both sides make terrible errors based on mis- information, with the exception of the RUS, who are imbeciles who have taken up Tragic Error Making as a serious lifestyle, with or without misinformation. This TL has a WWIII in it which we did not and that may have accelerated tech development some. I don't think it's credible that ABM systems would be as advanced by '96 as in this TL but at least that point is arguable. The Deltas are cool and seem to have solved the ground crew problem which makes airships uncompetative today. I think one would have to be a complete lunatic to throw biowarfare around the way people do in this book but the downside is made extremely clear by the end. The Sino-Ind-Islamic alliance strains credibility. The oil price kickbacks seem motiveless. The RUS reaction to them, even granting their resentment of their current ex-Superpower position seems poorly thought out and the joint US/RUS strike which condemns millions of Indians to starvation seems to me obviously insane, given the geopolitical balance of power in this 1996. The Jews in Space plotline seemed tacked on and intensely stupid, even in '81 when the absurdness of O'Neill's space colony fantasies was not so obvious. Everyone else in _Systemic Shock_ has the fortitude to prevail under trying circumstances and it seems out of character for the Israelis to just run away. I think it is highly unlikely a nation which has just lost half its population and economy could function as well as the US does in this book. Even more unlikely is the role Canada plays: Ing torches Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Edmonton, plus some minor cities. I don't think he had any idea how much of our population is urban and how much of our economy is concentrated in Central Canada. I don't think he realises how few cities we have: Kitchener is minor by any standard and last I checked, we were the 11th largest city in Canada. There's no way we'd have a functioning country after losing those four cities plus some minor ones and we'd certainly not be in a position to fight WW IV as we do or to take over 25% of the US, as desirable as that might be in the circumstances. Still, despite the demented bits and the disjointed structure, a fun book. Completely silly but entertaining in a Doom kind of way. You just have to forget anything you know about the nations whose names appear in the books. 1: Perhaps Baxter will surprise me and the book will merely be bad instead of awful but that's not what the first few pages lead me to believe. Dean Ing. A rough-and-ready, adventurous boy faces perils and adventures as he comes of age in WWII-era Austin, Texas. Cover by award-winning artist Dan Dos Santos. An adventure-filled coming of age story set in World War II era Austin, Texas. It is the . Gyp Artist. Max Wald is a "half-blood" mahrine -- an outcast from the Romany community -- who lives by his wits, his charm with women, and freelance assignments from Hollywood studios. When parts of an unreleased late 1930's von Sternberg movie The Tango Dancer . Soft Target. Briar Patch. While one Kzin commander tries to stop the war between the powerful felinoid warriors from the planet Kzin and the weak leaf-eating monkey- boys from Earth, Carroll Locklear, stranded on a world with prehistoric Kzinti, must race against time to disco. The Rackham Files. DOOMSDAY. ARE YOU READY? Harve Rackham: Bounty hunter, race-car driver. His best friend is a hunting cheetah. Ready for ?dirty? bombs from terrorists, or full-fledged nukes from a rogue nation, Harve has turned his California home into a survival . Loose Cannon. From the bestselling author of The Ransom of Black Stealth OneDean Ing returns to his fascination with experimental aircraft, but this time instead of the big jets of The Ransom of Black Stealth One, this one is about smaller, more insidious flying m. The Skins of Dead Men. While trying to rescue a child from vicious Middle Eastern terrorists, a veteran counterintelligence agent is horribly scarred in a fiery attack, but when the skin grafts he receives from the slain terrorists cause strange visions, he sets out to exa. Flying to Pieces. Today they seem to be boring old men, telling wild stories to anyone who will listen, but once they were the hottest pilots in the Pacific--men who could fly anything, anywhere, any time. And they've just been handed the chance to end their lives as . Soft Targets. America thought it was safe from the dreadful plague of terrorism scouring the rest of the world. Somehow, the cruel violence could never pass our borders. Somehow, the oceans, or God, would spare us. But jets do not stop for oceans, and the northern. Systemic Shock. We have 6 copies available starting at $6.00. Systemic Shock. Ing, Dean. ISBN : 0441793835 Bookseller: Better World Books. Systemic Shock. Dean Ing. Published : 1986 ISBN : 0441793835 Bookseller: ThriftBooks. Systemic Shock. Dean Ing. Published : 1986 ISBN : 0441793835 Bookseller: ThriftBooks. ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less.Dust jacket quality is not guaranteed. Systemic Shock. Dean Ing. Published : 1986-10-01 ISBN : 0441793835 Bookseller: Ergodebooks. Systemic Shock. Ing, Dean. ISBN : 0441793835 Bookseller: Wonder Book. Systemic Shock. Ing, Dean. Published : 1981 ISBN : 0441793835 Bookseller: Eric James. Can you guess which first edition cover the image above comes from? What was Dr. Seuss’s first published book? Take a stab at guessing and be entered to win a $50 Biblio gift certificate! Read the rules here. This website uses cookies. We use cookies to remember your preferences such as preferred shipping country and currency, to save items placed in your shopping cart, to track website visits referred from our advertising partners, and to analyze our website traffic. Privacy Details. Tor.com. Science fiction. Fantasy. The universe. And related subjects. Canadians in SF as Written by Non-Canadians. Canada! Perhaps best known to fans of British soap operas, for whom it serves as that mysterious land to the west to which characters vanish after their purpose on the show has been served. Of course, all that is needed to learn far more about Canada than you would ever need or want to know is to get trapped in a conversation with a Canadian, uninvited exposition concerning their homeland being as natural to the average Canadian as it is any given inhabitant of a fictional utopia confronted by a woken sleeper from the pre-utopian past. One might reasonably expect that most SF touching on Canada was written by Canadians and the Canadian-adjacent. Perhaps it is. Quite a lot of it is not. Here are five examples of Canada and Canadians in science fiction, as seen by foreign eyes. Vertigo by Bob Shaw (UK) (1978) Contragravity gave humanity cheap, personal flight. This was a terrible idea. A casualty of the endless struggle to force fliers to conform to rudimentary safety rules, British Air Patrolman Rob Hasson is sent off to Tripletree, Alberta to convalesce from workplace injuries…and also to keep him safe from English gangsters until he can testify in an upcoming trial. At first glance, Tripletree seems an unpromising rustic community innocent of civilized amenities, populated by dullards and lackwits. In fact, it’s worse. Rob soon discovers the Tripletree’s principle entertainment is vicious bullying and endless feuds. None of these should be the convalescing Air Patrolman’s problem, but of course they soon are. Most of the authors whose work I will mention do not appear to have extensive (in some cases, any) personal exposure to Canada. It is probably not coincidental that most of the really noteworthy examples that came to mind predated the World Wide Web and easily accessed online research materials. Shaw is a notable exception, in this respect. Shaw briefly lived and worked in Canada. Vertigo presumably draws on that experience, which is why it’s a bit distressing that with one or two exceptions, Tripletree is populated almost entirely by hapless ninnies and smirking brutes. Oath of Fealty by Larry Niven (USA), Jerry Pournelle (USA) (1981) Todos Santos is an arcology, a 1000-foot-tall city/building erected in the ruins of a riot-leveled section of Los Angeles. A shining example of success—in fact, the only successful arcology to date—one might expect the community to be revered as an example to emulate by the rest of L.A. Instead, the insular arcology and its host city have a relationship best described as mutually hostile. Todos Santos’ situation becomes even more fraught when the community is targeted by terrorists. But where are the Canadians, you ask? Oath of Fealty adopts one trope from utopian tales: the outsider to whom the realities of daily life in Todos Santos can be explained at length. That role falls to Sir George Reedy, Deputy Minister for Internal Development and Urban Affairs, Dominion of Canada. Alas, that “Sir” immediately suggests unfamiliarity on the part of the authors with the 1919 Nickle Resolution (reaffirmed in 1968), which directed that Canadians no longer be bestowed with foreign titles. Non-Canadians who might doubt just how firm Canada is on this point need only ask Conrad Black, Lord Black of Crossharbour, what it took for him to acquire a title. Systemic Shock by Dean Ing (USA) (1981) 1985’s World War Three reshaped the world order but managed—somehow—to avoid a full-blown nuclear exchange. 1996’s World War Four addressed this oversight, as a series of unfortunate decisions catapult the Allies (North America, Europe, and Russia, plus a handful of others) and SinoInd (an alliance of southerly nations reaching from Brazil to India and China) into a global thermonuclear exchange. Youngster Ted Quantrill survived nuclear war and the plagues that followed. His talent for killing made him a critical resource for a fractured America determined to prevail. Canada plays an indirect but important role in Quantrill’s new circumstances. Although Canada’s small population is highly urbanized, thus extremely vulnerable to nuclear annihilation, Ing’s Canada is one of the major post-war powers in this novel. Somehow. Although near-certain almost total depopulation and a shattered industrial base would seem insurmountable impediments to martial prowess, Ing’s version of Canada prevails to confound our enemies and annex the northern third of the US. For said annexed territory’s own good, of course. I, Martha Adams by Pauline Glen Winslow (UK) (1982) Thanks to President Carmody’s neglect of Reagan’s defense programs, Soviet missiles launched from Panama and Cuba annihilate America’s nuclear arsenal. Americans may now look forward to comprehensive restructuring—another term for rampant looting—as the defeated nation is integrated into the glorious socialist world order. Or rather, they could, if were it not for the fact that thanks to certain documents left by her late defense contractor husband, patriot Martha Adams is on the track of a nuclear superweapon powerful enough to drive the Red Menace from American shores. Not to belabour the point but one might expect that since Canada has fewer people than some major cities, the dastardly Reds would have collected us along with the Americans. Not so, for a rather curious reason. The Reds, or at least Winslow’s Reds, reject possession of Canada as too Asiatic…to quote the novel: New reports of huge numbers of Chinese agents and saboteurs at large in the Canadian population now infuriated him, especially since up until recent years it would have been impossible for this to have happened. Any Oriental in British or French Canada had been conspicuous. Then that fool of a Prime Minister had filled the nation with so many Orientals that it was beyond the resources of any intelligence service to check each and every one. While it’s true Canada was far more diverse by the 1980s than it had been, it didn’t take much to qualify as “far more diverse.” Even today, decades after Canada’s federal government rejected its traditional [note to self: find a nice way to phrase “incredibly racist”] standards to sieve potential immigrants, Asian Canadians are but a small fraction of the population, and that fraction was even smaller in 1984. Still, while unconstrained by factuality, Winslow’s bold take on Canada is a change from the more typical (and not entirely inaccurate, at least before 1970) perception of Canada as a continent-wide Sundown town. Light Raid by Connie Willis (USA) and Cynthia Felice (USA) (1989) Life in war-torn North America is stressful. Being evacuated from Denver to neutral Victoria is traumatic for young Ariadne; as is so often true, evacuees are seen less as unfortunates to help and more as resources to exploit. Ariadne has it worse than most, because her father is a useless drunk, while her mother is accused of treason. What can poor Ariadne, protagonist of a book calculated to appeal to readers her age, possibly hope to do that will make a difference for her, her family, or her nation? This North America of tomorrow has been comprehensively reshuffled. Canada in its current form does not exist. That said, not only does our heroine find herself in what is currently British Columbia, but the major antagonist in this novel is Quebec. And what a Quebec! Neither possessed of a vast population or prodigious birthrate, Quebec is outnumbered about 45:1 by the populations of the rest of Canada and the United States. Nor do current birthrates suggest that the situation will change in Quebec’s favour. Nevertheless, this Quebec of Tomorrow is able to hold its own in the face of far larger nations. Willis and Felice’s faith in Quebec’s prowess is inspiring. Of course, this is hardly a comprehensive list. Feel free to mention other noteworthy examples in the comments below. In the words of Wikipedia editor TexasAndroid , prolific book reviewer and perennial Darwin Award nominee James Davis Nicoll is of “questionable notability.” His work has appeared in Publishers Weekly and Romantic Times as well as on his own websites, James Nicoll Reviews and Young People Read Old SFF (where he is assisted by editor Karen Lofstrom and web person Adrienne L. Travis). He is a four-time finalist for the Best Fan Writer Hugo Award and is surprisingly flammable. Systemic Shock. We have 9 copies available starting at $1.56. Systemic Shock. Dean Ing. ISBN : 0812500385 Bookseller: Discover Books. Systemic Shock. Ing, Dean. Published : 1992-12-01 ISBN : 0812500385 Bookseller: Gulf Coast Books. Systemic Shock. Ing, Dean. Published : 1992 ISBN : 0812500385 Bookseller: ThriftBooks. ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less.Dust jacket quality is not guaranteed. Systemic Shock. Dean Ing. Published : 1992 ISBN : 0812500385 Bookseller: Buy The Book. Systemic Shock. Dean Ing. Published : December 1992 ISBN : 0812500385 Bookseller: Colorado's Used Bookstore, Inc. Systemic Shock. Dean Ing. Published : December 1992 ISBN : 0812500385 Bookseller: The Book Store. Systemic Shock. Dean Ing. Published : December 1992 ISBN : 0812500385 Bookseller: The Book Store. Systemic Shock. Dean Ing. Published : 1992-12 ISBN : 0812500385 Bookseller: Ergodebooks. Systemic Shock. Ing, Dean. Published : 1992 Edition : First Thus ISBN : 0812500385 Bookseller: Eric James. Can you guess which first edition cover the image above comes from? What was Dr. Seuss’s first published book? Take a stab at guessing and be entered to win a $50 Biblio gift certificate! Read the rules here. This website uses cookies. 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