The Holy Land
 (follow this link to Amazon)

Robert Zubrin

Do you think you have a clear understanding of the situation in the Middle East?  Do you think you have the Arab/Palestinian/Israeli conflict finally understood?  Perhaps you need to test your assumptions b y reading Robert Zubrins new book, The Holy Land.

Writing a social satire within the Science Fiction genre seems a tall order, but Robert Zubrin pulls it off.  Zubrin uses Science Fiction with satire to make his points about the insanity that is our current Middle East reality.  Space aliens have been resettled to Earth by a powerful Galactic empire and are the centerpiece of this novel.  The Minervans are the relocated alien, and their home is Kennewick, Washington, USA their ancestral home and holy land.

Opposed to this resettlement is a U.S. government that is presented as a Christian theocracy.  Fundamentalist but totalitarian, this twist in the novel is jarring, but makes Zubrins satire work.  The U.S. President is presented effectively, and often comically, as a man who has hijacked a faith for personal power and control.  

The Western Galactic Empire is backing the Minervans, and it is through the WGE that Zubrin takes on our Western societies attitudes toward the Middle East.  The WGE is motivated primarily by the desire to keep the Helicity (read Oil) flowing, and that desire fuels the reaction to the Minervan-Kennewickian conflict.

All of this sounds familiar?

There is much in The Holy Land that will seem familiar, yet dont think for one second that you will find your familiar good guy in this.  Zubrin is exceedingly even-handed in skewering all sides for their failings.

In the end The Holy Land provides at least one answer that may serve us all well in looking beyond the satire to the reality of the Middle East.  Basically we need to reevaluate our assumptions about that region.  And there is nothing better then a hard hitting and amusing satire to bring a far away and little understood conflict close to home.

This is a novel well worth the read.