In our current American dystopia, all our problems are domestic. Unlike during the Cold War, we face no major power challenges.
A single encounter thousands of miles from our shores and that could all change. That is the message of 2034: A Novel of the Next World War.
Written by E
While the book at times reads like an advertisement for “Fifth-Generation Fighters” (brought to you by Boeing), it’s ultimately about the decisions that government officials and military commanders make during times of extreme stress, when all the options are bad.
“America used to end wars. Now it starts them,” a character from a rising nation says late in the book, meaning that we joined World War I/II after the great powers of the day were exhausted, and accrued the benefit of global dominance. Now, we’re the great power, with military bases, commitments and troops in nearly every corner of the world.
2054: A Novel picks up twenty years after the war. This time, there is a new threat: Artificial Intelligence.
Including many of the characters from 2034, and their children, it’s a techno-thriller in which a variety of countries in a multipolar world work toward the Singularity, a melding of computer and human minds that will fast-forward our technological evolution.
The country that reaches the Singularity first will be able to dictate humanity’s future.
While the stakes are much, much bigger than 2034, AI is more of a nebulous, hard to explain and hard to depict kind of a danger, not as dramatic as fleet actions in the Pacific.
2054 doesn’t grip you as much as 2034, though, for me, it did have its moments, like learning that the Metro is still running in 2054. Washington will always need a subway.
What I like about both books is that they get the DC geography right, a pet peeve of mine. The authors know that Columbia Heights is on the Green Line, where Lincoln Park is and that going across town during rush hour is impossible.
2034 will get you thinking about the benefits of being a superpower, and how quickly that can disappear while 2054 will make you realize that technology is something that we, as citizens, should control before it controls us.
