The Foulks Rebellion

by Malcolm Berry

A quirky political thriller of the "country-boy-saves-the-nation-from-peril" genre. The nation is going to hell, unemployment is rampant, yet somehow the sitting administration is re-elected by the lowest voter turnout in history.

What's wrong with this picture?

Seven-term Congressman Victor Sligo joins high-level officials at Independence Hall to take steps to bring down the government. Out of nowhere comes unassuming Edwin Foulks, a man able to see directly into the heart of every person he encounters. Foulks flies an incendiary banner across Philadelphia: "Taking over the government. Go to Rebellion.com" Sligo and Foulks endure a frantic cross-country escape from the FBI, Homeland Security, and a cheering nation on the verge of a meltdown. Together they conspire to fulfill Foulks' unthinkable dream - to restore ordinary compassion to the American landscape.

Joining the two unlikely heroes is a redoubtable cast, including an octogenarian Vietnamese computer geek speaking through a tracheal chip, a vigilante hacker scarred by US government experiments on his brain, and the reincarnation of DB Cooper. Altogether a wild bunch who will challenge your fictional boundaries and cause you to lock up your children and reexamine your dust-covered copy of the Constitution.

408 pages, Paperback

First published February 11, 2011

About the author

Rising from a hardcore Progressive childhood in Washington DC and Philadelphia, it was inevitable that Malcolm Berry would write the quintessential 21st Century satire on the miasma known as the US government.
After forty years of writing novels and raising two families, Berry has finally published the long-awaited though slightly mind-bending picture of how it might be if somebody were to rise up and restore common sense to the national agenda.

Reviews

[Rosemary Cantrell · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a political novel about trying to oust a government of evil and dishonest men who have trampled on the rights of the citizens. The best thing I can say about the story is that it was actually quite funny in places. If this was meant to be slapstick portrayal of government gone bad and those who try to make it right, then it succeeded.

If it was meant to be a novel of warning about the direction things are moving and the need for the citizens of this country to wake up and let their voices be heard, then it wasn't so successful. The characters were mostly cartoonish, the events unbelievable. The time setting appears to be a little into the future when there are enough new gadgets that the government is able to brainwash individual citizens without their knowledge.

Those who are into conspiracy theories will be love it. Those who are at the liberal extreme will love it. There was a clear political bias by the author. I have found the truth to be somewhere in the middle and had to suspend my own beliefs to even keep reading. For example, one will come away with the belief that all big business is bad and out to destroy every one else. My own life experience is that there are plenty of bad business people and they need to be controlled, but there are also many who provide a solid structure to society. I just don't like the idea of painting every business with the same evil brush. The same standard was applied to other issues - they were all black and white, when in reality it just isn't that way.

So, if you want a good laugh with some funny characters, then you will probably enjoy this novel. If you want a serious look at the direction government is going and what needs to be done to bring some control back to the people, you might want to look elsewhere.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for writing a review.

[Terri · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Foulks Rebellion by Malcolm Berry is a story of a Unites States we should all hope never comes into existence. The book chronicles a one-man rebellion of the government just before the inauguration of the president. There is also a mysterious murder that many of the story's players want solved.

A major setback in reading this book is that there are simply too many characters. Most of the main characters are not memorable enough for the reader to really tell them apart and connect to their parts of the story. As late as about 50 pages from the end, there were still new characters being added into the fray, which is much too late.

There were also a few holes in the story that were never filled in. A little more back story would have been helpful. And while this book is supposed to come of as a parody/comedy, most of what is supposed to be funny sort of falls flat, especially with the names of the characters and random slapstick humor moments. These elements just seemed like they were trying too hard. Overall, this is a book that a reader definitely has to work through just to get the story out of it.

*Reviewer received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads

[Melodie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Foulks Rebellion centers around the horrible state that the US finds itself in,sometime in the near future. A third party has risen(sound familiar?) and has pretty much taken over. Corruption is rampant.Civil rights are trampled on daily.
Enter Edwin Foulks, and his disparate band of not so merry men and women.He is going to take back the government from the radical right and give it back to the American people.He has his work cut out for him. Voter apathy is as high as the rate of corruption and only nine percent of people voted in the last election.
This is a short book, compared to what I usually read, but it took me quite a while to get through it. The pace of the book is fast, it should be a page-turner.To me the pace was almost frantic, and I found my nerves jangled frequently. It was also choppy in places, leaving you wondering, what the hell just happened?
Still, it is a decent cautionary tale of what is possible if we as voters let our guard down. Conspiracy theorists should love this book.