(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

The Mid-Century Modernist era was the height of book-length manifestos masquerading as action novels (see 1984, Atlas Shrugged, and Walden Two for great examples of what I'm talking about); but this subgenre is still alive and well here in the 2010s, as evidenced by Roland Hughes' awkwardly titled John Smith: Last Known Survivor of the Microsoft Wars. Set 68 years in the future, after a cataclysmic event that not only broke apart the continents and ended most life on Earth but whose origins have been completely forgotten by the survivors, this ostensibly takes the form of an interview between a futuristic journalist and the last known person to remember the pre-apocalypse world; but in reality this is essentially a 80,000 word expository speech (or if you like, a 300-page Wikipedia entry), broken up every couple of paragraphs with one of exactly two phrases from the journalist in question, over and over again (either "I don't understand" or "You're crazy"). And it's...you know, an interesting enough scenario that Hughes is laying out here, if not heavily on the obvious techno-conspiracy side (corporations are evil, iPhones have made everyone a voluntary NSA slave, eventually we'll all be screwed over by this, etc etc); but I have to say, without interesting characters or a full three-act plot, a little of this stuff goes a long way, especially when your entire novel only consists of two people and one them spends 300 pages exclusively saying, "I don't understand, tell me more." Less a commercial novel and more like one of those free paperbacks you get handed by some weirdo in front of the train station, I suppose this will be up the alley of those who enjoy visiting the websites of the Drudge Report or Alex Jones; but the rest of you can pretty safely skip it, as long as you understand that this now officially makes you one of the "sheeple."

Out of 10: 6.5 ( )

*Book source ~ A review copy was provided in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the author.

Susan Krowley is a reporter in the town of Fieldspring (population approx. 5,500) and she goes out in search of a story. Two days on horseback bring her to 79-yr-old John Smith, the last known survivor of the Microsoft Wars. She asks him what seems a fairly straight forward question: “Can you tell us why they were called the Microsoft Wars and were there really more than one?” John’s answer? “You don’t have any frame of reference to ask that question.” And thus begins a long and detailed explanation going back to 20,200 B.C.

Written in interview form between Susan and John there is no simple explanation John can give to Susan since she has no frame of reference. After the polar shift and subsequent apocalypse where the majority of the population and human knowledge was lost Susan’s question, while seemingly simple, is actually extremely complex. At first I had no idea what the Ice Age in 20,200 B.C. had to do with a modern war, but it slowly came together with John’s explanations. The information is diverse and interesting and the journey to the answer kept the plot flowing inexorably to the end. Oh, and the very end? It came as a surprise, but really it shouldn't have. Overall, a fascinating read. ( )

When I started reading John Smith – Last Known Survivor of the Microsoft Wars I had a really, really vague idea about what I’ll find in this book. John Smith – Last Known Survivor of the Microsoft Wars is a post-apocalyptic novel, but the style chosen by the author makes it different from any other similar books that I’ve read. The story is told as an interview, the frame being a new world, built over the ruins of the world we know today. The entire history of the past and of the moments before and after the ending of the world as we know it today is told by John Smith, the last survivor of the Microsoft Wars. The author starts from the present global situation, covering a wide palette of domains, only to return in the past, at the mysteries of Atlantis and the fate of her inhabitants, with an eye also on the influence they had over many civilizations during the time. Matter-of-fact, the most important aspects of humanity in the last thousands of years are brought into focus, and the post-apocalyptic genre starts to blend with the fantasy, thriller and conspiratorial genres. The author’s ability to make you believe what you read it was really interesting. Starting with the real aspects, he then passes on to some fantastic things in such a subtle way that you don’t even feel the change and the information that gets to you later seems to be as truthfully as the pieces from the beginning, which are undoubtedly true.

Another important aspect is the fact that unlike other books based on post-apocalyptic worlds, in John Smith – Last Known Survivor of the Microsoft Wars, the attention is not centered on a single character which is observed during the story. Of course, in a way, you could say that John Smith and Susan Krowley are the main characters, but this is not completely true. Because their actual role is to deliver the story. The actual protagonist is a collective one, from which no figures can be identified as being more important than others. Moreover, we are not given any individual names, portraits or actions, because absolutely all the events have a pretty large group as a main character, represented by the privileged families of Atlantis and the auxiliary personnel.

One thing that annoyed me during several pages is Susan Krowley’s attitude, the woman who interviews John Smith. I understand that once the world was destroyed, the survivors were forced to practically start all over again, considering that the civilization degree and the technological development had a sudden decay. I also understand that stories tend to lose their value and their credibility during the years and also, that when you hear things that don’t correspond with the real situation of your world, you tend not to believe them. Susan Krowley lives at more than six decades after almost the whole world was destroyed. Considering the fact that the people who survived had to go back to a simple life, deprived of the advanced technology from our present and that the next generations don’t even have the memory of it, seeing it more like a myth, it’s obvious why in the beginning, Susan inclines not to believe a single word from John’s story. However, having a job like that, being a journalist, I really think she should have been more open-minded and more capable to sustain a more complex dialogue. Unfortunately, during the first half of the book, we basically get only a John Smith monologue, which is sometimes interrupted by Susan’s amazed exclamations and even more frustrating, by her accusations that he is lying, inventing everything he’s telling her. Only later, the conversation begins to look like a normal interview and Susan finally starts asking the right questions, seeing the clues, getting some of the conclusions and engaging as a real journalist should.

Although not very long, the story is not one you devour in a few hours. Because it covers countless themes, it should be read in a moderate rhythm, with breaks that allow you to “digest” what you’ve read, to give enough time to the newly discovered things to connect and take their place in the vast puzzle created by the author. Roland Hughes is not only discussing a lot of major issues of the present and of the history, but he is also overthrowing most of them, creating them new origins, offering them different faces and unexpected explications. The religion, the wars, the myths, the lost civilizations, the evolution of science, the mysteries kept until today, the whole course of the history, everything is changed in Roland Hughes’ story, everything is exposed in a different light. And the most impressing fact is that no matter how incredible those interpretations are, the author manages to deliver them in such a realistic way that you start to doubt the truths you know and start asking “What if…?”

The ending offers a huge surprise that will bring a large smile on your lips and the epilogue is just growing your amazement, creating more bonds that begin to suddenly mix together.

PROs:

- The real side of the story is so well documented that the transfer to the imaginary side is unnoticeable. Furthermore, during the story, the truth and the fiction keep blending together, giving you the feeling that you are actually reading an alternative history of the world.

- The balance between the personal tone and the general one. Although most of the story covers issues about the humanity and its evolution, there are a few paragraphs that allow us to suddenly see the real John Smith. And we get to see him in both the current state, as a survivor of a lost world, finally at peace with his destiny, but also as his old self, a teenager surrounded by drama, forever marked by the fall of his entire universe, by the traumatizing solitude and by the huge responsibility that fell on his shoulders.

CONs:

Susan Krowley’s attitude during the first half of the book. ( )

Disclosure: My copy was offered by the author in exchange for an honest review.

Once you read the description of this novel it’s impossible not to pick it up immediately. The Mayans knew about the end of the world because they survived it before? And that puzzle made of pieces we can find in classic science-fiction writing and TV shows sounds way too intriguing. Oh, and the Microsoft Wars… let’s not forget about the Microsoft Wars. What can they possibly be? This being my initial reaction, you can imagine that when I started reading “John Smith – Last Known Survivor of the Microsoft Wars” my expectations were pretty high. I finished the book half an hour ago, and I can say that, overall, my expectations were met.

At first, it might seem just another dystopian novel about a bunch of survivors who are trying to rebuild their society. In truth, it is much more than that. We meet Susan Krowley, a reporter for The Times, who was sent to interview John Smith, thought to be the last survivor of the Microsoft Wars. Smith lives in a house he built all by himself above the bunker where he and his grandfather took refuge right before the world as we know it ended on November 13, 2013. The action takes place 70 years after the tragic event, which didn’t only almost destroy the planet, but also destroyed its history. Being part of the newest generation, Susan has no idea what the Earth was like before the Microsoft Wars. This is why Smith takes it upon himself to provide her with a frame of reference before he tells her what she wants to know.

Roland Hughes managed to create an impressive history of the world by combining real, well-known facts with science-fiction details. Sometimes, you might find yourself so engrossed in the story, that you must stop and think which aspects are real and possible, and which are pure fiction. The fact that everything began with Atlantis was no surprise, but the way things evolved was really unexpected. The author developed an original theory about how the Atlanteans discovered a method of surviving thousands of years, thus getting to influence the new people that repopulated Earth after each end of a cycle. And this is just one of the many ideas that turn this book into such an exciting and thought-provoking read.

However, there were some things that made it impossible for me to read it faster. No matter how surprising everything John Smith described was, I couldn’t read more than a couple of pages at a time. From beginning to end, the novel is structured as an interview. Susan asks the questions, and Smith gives her an entire course in history, geography, technology, and so on, trying to make her understand how it all started and why it ended with the Microsoft Wars. At first, this interview-like structure was ok, but it soon got very tiring. I found it a bit limiting, especially because there’s no room for “show” when the structure itself requires “tell”. And reading pages after pages of “telling” can take away the joy and excitement. I understand that the main focus was to invite the readers to consider the ideas presented and the reasons why humans evolve only to destroy everything they have built, but a bit of action wouldn’t have hurt.

Aside from that, I truly enjoyed “John Smith – Last Known Survivor of the Microsoft Wars”, and I can easily say it’s one of the most original novels I’ve read lately. I would recommend it to those who love science-fiction and speculative stories about Atlantis, the beginning of the world and, of course, the end of it. ( )

John Smith: Last Known Survivor of the Microsoft Wars
Roland Hughes
Logikal Solutions
ISBN: 978-1-939732-00-2
Trade Paperback
2012
274 pages

Do you ever reflect about how your life could have been different if you had made different choices twenty, thirty, forty years ago? Imagine yourself sixty-eight years now in the future. What choices should you have made now on November 13, 2013? How could these affect your life and every living creature on the planet?

On November 13, 2013, the world ceased to exist as we know it. Now, sixty-eight years later, John Smith attempts to explain life before this time. He wonders if finally people are ready to understand the history that created the world of today.
Now, people live at a basic survival level without the use of our established means of transportation, communication, health care, and food service. How do you prevent the catastrophe of the past from ever happening again. In the hopes that this history will never occur again, John Smith has left his isolated world to communicate the mistakes of the past to a world that has no memory. He is the only known survivor from this event sixty-eight years ago.

John Smith was only eleven years old at this time making his age of seventy-nine the oldest known person alive today on the planet. On that fated day, John's family had built a bunker when the Microsoft Wars started where he was trapped for ten years.
Susan Krowley is a newspaper reporter for The Times which is published twice a month with the widest circulation of 5500. Reading newspapers is not a common activity and only for the few and the privileged. She is thrilled to be able to conduct this interview for her newspaper. This is her story of a lifetime interviewing John Smith who is the only known living person who actually experienced the Microsoft Wars.

The world is much different now. People travel on horseback. Schools of the past no longer exist, including colleges. Everyone learns from their home. Jobs that formerly required college degrees now are filled within families. Technology as we know it does not exist. Knowledge and books are limited. Life is at a simplistic level. Even access to books is extremely limited. Without the widespread usage of computers, telephones, and nuclear energy, life is very different.
The seven continents are now twelve. There is no way to travel or communicate from one continent to the next with an ocean covering much of the center of the United States. John was very fortunate that his bunker was in an area that had not been covered by an ocean.

"John Smith: Last Known Survivor of the Microsoft Wars" is thought provoking. The author reviews much of our technological advances throughout the years, while also demonstrating the uneven advances and questionable uses and obvious abuses with the ethical practices. This book is a warning of what could happen if we continue without a complete understanding of our societal choices.
This entire book is written as an interview between John Smith and Susan Krowley, as a question and answer format. Within the responses are the elements of action usually in a novel. This is definitely a different perspective of a novel and the message within the story.

Who is the intended audience? Everyone who inhabits this planet. The relevance of this novel is a perfect example of cause and effect and even goes beyond that concept. This is required reading for everyone. ( )