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Title: When The Almond Tree Blossoms : by David Aikman ISBN: 0-8499-3641-1 Publisher: Word Publishing Pub. Date: 09 March, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $5.99

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Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (10 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: A Cautionary Tale of Liberalism
Comment: This book is a masterpiece. Not only is the writing good, but the story is scary and realistic. The "fiction" of which Aikman wrote is just around the corner if "liberal" leftists take over the country. All one has to do is look at the totalitarianism in the schools, media and govermment wherever the leftists are in charge. Imagine a government where mere speech is a crime; where being a "white" person is grounds for discrimination and hatred; where perverted sex acts are taught in schools. The horrors of the left could become a reality if the people fail to remain vigilant. Read this book and tremble.

Rating: 3
Summary: Not bad, but in places unintentionally funny.
Comment: Like many futuristic tales (from Sinclair Lewis It Can't Happen Here to Margaret Attwood's The Handmaid's Tale), this book creates a plausible future for the time of publication but one which grows dated as time passes. In the end, we learn more about the author's prejudices than about the future. Aikman clearly believed the worst about American left-wing politics (his depiction of two "mainstream" reporters and a cabinet meeting composed of factions of the looney left are hilarious, probably unintentionally). He's better when he deals with his heroes and his main Russian villain (though he verges on parody here as well). So we get an enjoyable thriller but not one to take too seriously. Although his prediction of America's fall starting with an economic collapse and a disastrous pre-emptive strike in the Persian Gulf is starting to look credible. But the danger is more from the American right, than left.

Rating: 4
Summary: An excellent, overlooked distopian thriller
Comment: I'm glad to see some other Amazonians remember and like this futuristic political novel. Aikman was a reporter when he wrote this and it shows - there's great detail in the imagined future of life in a quasi-communist America. Because the book doesn't completely demonize its villians (the socialists who seize power and become less democratic) or sanitize its heroes (the freedom fighters in the west), it fares better than other stories in this vein (like the tv mini-series "Amerika"). It's interesting that when he wrote this (before 1988) the author forsaw the pro-democracy movement coming to China (which would arise and, at least temporarily, be crushed in 1989). I think this was Aikman's first novel, and as a result sometimes the dialog is a little choppy, but if you're into this kind of stuff this is one worth hunting the used book stores (or used book web sites!) for.