Founders

The Coming Collapse #3

by James Wesley, Rawles

THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT IS GONE. It’s the near future, and thanks to a perfect storm of reckless banking practices, hyperinflation, a stock market gone mad, and the negligence of our elected officials, the entire social, political, and economic infrastructure of America has collapsed. Chaos reigns in the streets, medical treatment is no longer available, and a silent coup has placed a dangerous group of men at the helm of a false government. America’s fate is in the hands of those few individuals who have the survival skills, the faith, and the forethought to return this country to the state its founding fathers intended.

Genres: Fiction, Post Apocalyptic, Survival, Dystopia, Science Fiction, Apocalyptic, Thriller

288 pages, Hardcover

First published September 25, 2012

About the author

James Wesley, Rawles is a internationally recognized authority on family disaster preparedness and survivalism. He has been described by journalists as the "conscience of survivalism." Formerly a U.S. Army intelligence officer, Rawles is now a fiction and nonfiction author, as well as a rancher. His books have been translated into seven languages. He is also a lecturer and the founder and Senior Editor of http://www.SurvivalBlog.com, the Internet's first blogs on preparedness that has enjoyed perennial popularity and now receives more than 320,000 unique visits per week. He and his family live at a remote self-sufficient ranch surrounded by National Forest lands that is is cryptically identified as located "somewhere west of the Rockies.

Rawles worked as an Associate Editor and Regional Editor (for the Western U.S.) with Defense Electronics magazine in the late 1980s and early 1990s and concurrently was Managing Editor of The International Countermeasures Handbook. He worked as a technical writer through most of the 1990s with a variety of electronics and software companies including Oracle Corporation. In 2005, he began blogging full-time. On his book covers and in his blog, he presents his name with a comma, as James Wesley, Rawles, to distinguish between his given name and his family name.

James Wesley, Rawles was born James Wesley Rawles in California in 1960 and attended local public schools. Rawles received a Bachelor of Arts degree from San Jose University.

From 1984 to 1993, he served as a United States Army Military Intelligence officer. He resigned his commission as a U.S. Army Captain immediately after Bill Clinton was inaugurated as President of the United States.

Rawles is the editor of SurvivalBlog.com, a popular blog on survival and preparedness topics. The blog has been described as "the guiding light of the prepper movement." The main focus of his blog is preparing for the multitude of possible threats toward society. In his various writings, Rawles has warned about socio-economic collapse, terrorist attacks, and food shortages.

He is now a freelance writer, blogger, and survival retreat consultant. One journalist called him a "survival guru" He was described as the "conscience of survivalism." Rawles is best known as the author of the survivalist novel Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse.

Rawles is an outspoken proponent of family preparedness, especially regarding food storage and advocates relocating to lightly populated rural "retreat" areas. His preparedness philosophy emphasizes the fragility of modern society, the value of silver and other tangibles for barter, recognition of moral absolutes, being well-armed, maintaining a "deep larder," relocation to rural retreats, and Christian charity. In an interview in The New York Times, Rawles identified himself as a "guns and groceries" survivalist.

Rawles interprets the 2nd Amendment as supporting citizens' individual rights to bear and keep arms. He believes they should be able to take arms to public events.

Rawles is opposed to racism. He supports abolition of modern slavery in the world.

Rawles is a spokeman for the surivalist movement. A central premise of that movement is that there is a high risk of a coming societal meltdown and the need to prepare for the repercussions. Rawles said that the popular media has developed an incorrect far-right "lunatic fringe" image in part because of the actions of a radical few such as Timothy McVeigh. He called this a distortion of the true message of survivalism. Unlike the handful of fringe proponents, Rawles focuses instead on family preparedness and personal freedom. Rawles explained that the typical survivalist does not actually live in a rural area, but is rather is a city dweller worried about the collapse of society who views the rural lifestyle as idyllic. Speaking from his experience, Rawles cautions that rural self-sufficiency a

Reviews

[Charles · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was in the mood for some "popcorn" fare, so I grabbed this book off the shelf at my local BAM, thinking "this should be fun." When I got home, I plopped on the couch and launched into it, preparing to be entertained without being seriously challenged. By page 5, I thought "this guy can't write dialogue for shit." By page 20, I thought "this guy reads too much Clancy." Soon thereafter, I noticed that every character was "good church people." Several pages read like a car mechanic's manual. When, in Chapter Three, Rawles introduced the Jew for Jesus, I threw the book down and resigned myself to having wasted eight bucks.

James Wesley, Rawles - you suck! And what's with the stupid comma in your name?

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having read the two previous novels, Patriots and Survivors, I felt somewhat obliged to read Founders.Now looking back on all three I have to scratch my head and ponder on just what the hell the author was thinking, or not, when he wrote these books. This latest one Founders kind of fleshes out some characters from the previous first two books. So now having read all three here is my comment. Take all three books put them in a shredder, copy, edit cut paste, put a page in here and there and you would have one complete book. Not three separate books that jump here, there and everywhere. I think as one cohesive unit this idea would have more impact and have come out as a better book than these three disjointed and jumpy books.
So having said that why did I give this one three stars? Because I know there are going to be a lot of atheist liberals that are going to "read" this book just so they can piss and moan their way through some kind of review. I really enjoy anything that can tick off a liberal. And my thinking on that is if you object to the material why the hell would you read it in the first place? You already know what the book is about yet you pick it up and "read" it just so you can bitch about it?
Anyhow I really cannot say that I was impressed with the way these books were printed. As I say, as one whole book put into proper chronological order this would have been much better off.

[Chris Sherwood · Rating 1 out of 5]

Im giving it one star, and in doing so am being generous.

Rawles needs to stop writing. His first book was pretty good and they got progressively worse, this one I couldnt even finish. I finally said to hell with it and stopped.

" End of the world as we know it" scenarios have so much potential for a good story, just not when Rawles writes them.

A hint for you Mr Rawles, should you decide to continue writing: Not everyone is a born again Christian, and as such do not need a sermon disguised as a fictional book. And honestly some of the "values" you espouse through your characters are as antiquated as it can get, just shy of arranged marriages and dowrys.

Seriously, stop writing.

[Jason Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book never got me interested. I felt more like I was being preached to than anything else. Not my flavor for apocalyptic lit.

[Gophergirl58 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boring. Too much jumping back and forth, some characters went without telling what happened to them. A mishmash of people and stories, kind of like it was all thrown together without thinking the entire story through. It started out pretty good, but just fell apart, IMO, by the halfway mark.

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Filled in some gaps from the first two books, I think he should have stopped writing after the first book or made the first really long and included all three books into one.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good story that hits a little too close to what could happen if we don't smarten up. I will probably read his other books.

[Drew · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed by Founders. After what I thought was a so-so book in Patriots, I thought the author knocked it out of the park with Survivors. This I feel is a significant step back. The first issue I have is that the main story throughout the book is of the Layton’s journey to their group’s retreat after an economic collapse. I knew this was the case coming in but the details of the journey just weren’t interesting and didn’t add much to the overall story of the three books. If you are reading this first (or second after Survivors which is the order I would suggest) I think it would be better but if you have already read Patriots it doesn’t seem to offer much to the overall story. Second the Author also seems to revert back to his lists to fill the pages. We get it, the government has banned every conceivable weapon you don’t have to make us read the entire list to get the point across. Same thing with the list of what the Layton’s are carrying or have left in their car. It just doesn’t add anything. Not adding to the story brings my to my last gripe. At the beginning of the book there is a ton of talk about religion. I don’t mind it and I’m not going to penalize the author for putting it in, but I will penalize him for putting it in where it doesn’t add anything to the story. He’ll spend tons of time talking about how their lives are guided by religion then skip over a decade of their life in the story. If you’re going to write a book about religion, write a book about religion. If you’re going to write a book about survivors in an economic collapse, write that. If you’re trying to combine the two please make sure that how you incorporate both, please have it add to the story.

[Sheehan · Rating 2 out of 5]

If there was a "meh" list for prepper fiction, I would place this book on it.

I'm pretty sure most of the narrative established in the first two iterations of this series, "Patriots" and "Survivors" was sufficient, so this third effort really felt a lot like filling in back stories missed in the other two. Founders is more like a remix album of some musicians greatest hits, it lacks the gravity and effort clearly placed in the original foray, "Patriots." Founders leans heavily on religion and statecraft to convey the well-tested education through fiction methodology Rawles has come to depend on. I'm pretty sure at least one chapter was lifted wholesale from Survivors (the tale of the couple getting out of urban meltdown in Chicago) word for word, and that just struck me as lame.

All this being said, I have a great deal of respect for Rawles effort in writing these books and attempting to educate through entertainment; the underlying thesis is sound, it just gets a wee bit preachy around religion, but to the author goes the spoils, he gets to tell his story however HE wants, and I can take away what I want as the reader, fair trade.

I wouldn't really recommend this book out of the series, as the narrative bent beyond collapse and into revolt and rebuild is pretty contingent on the author's specific circumstances, so the education aspects are seemingly less relevant. For example, I don't believe I need to know in the immediate how to organize a guerrilla cadre to agitate against unelected aggressors, nor how to effective encrypt information and courier dispatches in a totalitarian state.

"Patriots" is worth it, "Survivors" is interesting and seemingly relevant, "Founders" may have jumped the shark.

[Aaron Kleinheksel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book continues Rawles' "Coming Collapse" books. Sometimes I get the feeling James almost WANTS this scenario to happen. It would make a twisted sort of sense considering how much of his personal fortune and life he has invested in "prepping" himself.

The editing in this one is actually worse, not better, than the previous 2 books in this series. Did no one who read this prior to its publication have a problem with all the small sub-chapter segments following no consistent timeline? Also, there is too much verbatim repetition of sub-chapters that were presented in the previous books. The 3-4 year war to re-establish a perfect constitutional libertarian utopia is glossed over and wrapped up in a very brief time following all the build-up that takes place.

All is not lost, however... more great chapter-leading quotes, like these!!!!

"If an American is to amount to anything he must rely upon himself, and not upon the State; he must take pride in his own work, instead of sitting idle to envy the luck of others. He must face life with resolute courage, win victory if he can, and accept defeat if he must, without seeking to place on his fellow man a responsibility which is not theirs." - President Theodore Roosevelt

"The right of self-defense is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and when the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if no already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction." - Henry St. George Tucker, in Blackstone's 1768 Commentaries on the Laws of England

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an odd book. It is connected somehow to his 2 other books, but I don't know if this is a sequel, prequel, or just part of the same story. There is an overwhelming detail of trivia things - like details of (apparently) every gun he has ever seen at a gun show. If you took out the details that aren't needed for telling the story, you'd only have half the book. In the beginning there is a lot of details about religion, but then that goes away about a third of the way in - kind of a small course on religious variations in modern america. I almost stopped reading the book at about the 1/3 point. I don't really know what to think of this. On the positive side; I did learn a lot about the way preppers think, and got some good quotations from the beginning of each chapter. About half the story lines he opens up do not get closed - maybe they finish in the other books. In the same way, he would sometimes open a new story line with a familiarity like we were already supposed to know these people - maybe they started in another book.

[Taylonbork · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed how the author wrote this book. I, personally, liked this book because it created a life-like situation of what might happen if the United State’s dollar becomes worthless and everything politically related had collapsed. The story focuses on a group of friends and parts of their family trying to overcome what has happened to their country. They are left to survive with backpacks of supplies, little food, and guns with ammunition for protection. Conflicts and situations interfere with them throughout the book. They are just wishing to get the United States back to when the founding fathers created their Constitutional Federal Republic government. This has more of a onesided religion that goes with this book. For nonreligious readers I suggest not reading this book. I would recommend this book to people who are into politics. This book follows the theme of politics and economics.

[Jane · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was a little worried when I started reading this book as in the Dramatis Personae at the beginning, the author lists most of the female characters as "wife of". Not a great start. Then I read some of the reviews and I knew that there was a definite religious slant to it which is definitely not my cup of tea! But I read it anyways and I did manage to finish it. The novel's female characters turned out to be on the same level of ok as the male ones (none of the characters really had depth to them - I felt that they were too two dimensional). Generally I found this novel to be too convoluted with technicalities, particularly about firearms (of which I know nothing about). I felt it really didn't have much of a plot and was a bit too "God Bless America" for me by the end. I won an advanced reading copy of this book from the publisher.

[Joel · Rating 1 out of 5]

A lot of copy-pasting from the other books. The stories from the precedent finish. A lot of preaching. But I'm happy to see that I survived this book.

The only chapter I did like is the 30th and last : 158 years after the collapse, you'll find out what use will Ignacio Garcia's loot find. Among with some very interesting anticipation fiction. Although the environmental points do sound true to me the others made me laugh.

It's a bit like the author is tired, so instead of making a good narrative where there is potential, he just lists the events, no suspense...

Quite boring ranting. Like listening to a Christian radio : never ever does the preaching suspend, it's just a continuous flow.

[Topher · Rating 3 out of 5]

James Wesley Rawles has improved significantly as a writer, as can be seen in this, his 3rd draft of the first book of the trilogy. We hear the same stories, read the same characters, and get the same outcome as the previous two drafts / novels, but the writing is crisper and the dialog generally more believable.

I'm going to call it quits here, whether or not this is the end of this "series". My soul is starting to feel a little oily, and I'll happily go back to my "comfy catastrophe" novels for this genre, where the people aren't selfish and the bad guys are stock villains in UN uniforms.

[Wayne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm on page 70, so the book doesn't have much time to get better. I got the impression from the blurbs on the jacket that there would be some kind of political intrigue or at least a more detailed account of how this society unraveled...but so far, no. Just a bunch of vague, racist anxieties about the urban underclass. The action scenes have been okay, some of the tactical stuff seems overblown, but most of all, there's entirely too much religious crap. I feel like I've been tricked into reading a Left Behind book. It's gone from bothersome to tedious to grating. I'd file this under the tag #WhoWouldJesusShoot?

[Blair · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the follow-up to Survivors, but follows the writing style of the first book: disjointed and meandering. It reads a lot more like a bunch of newspaper articles than a novel because it keeps jumping around all over to different characters. There is an underlying plot, but no real hero you can get behind.

The topic is interesting and well-thought-out and the detail behind many of the items in the book is outstanding. If you are a prepper, read this book just for the good ideas. If you're in it for good fiction, you will probably be disappointed.

[etheRealityyy. · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.9-4.0

I think this book was pretty good, there were interesting tactics, all sorts of details ranging from the weapons and ammunition being carried and survival in post apocalyptic America as well as backstories. Some people may find paragraphs about ammunition and weapons boring, but I don't. I find it interesting to hear about the types of firearms people carry around, for some reason. But that's just me.
Aside from this, there's also tons of parts where characters bounce around times and years quickly, exposition here and there. The majority of the time, I found it entertaining where other people found it confusing and convoluted, which, to be fair, it is, but I still could understand enough of it to enjoy it. At the same time though, it got too confusing at times where I had to look back in previous pages for characters, at least there's a glossary though, which I really like.
This is **extremely** minor, in fact, it's in the first ten pages, but one of the main protagonists faces an attempted robbery. Everything went fine until the dialogue. The thieves dialogue was absolute garbage. The rest of the book had dialogue that at least made sense, it was okay at times, pretty good at others but this one scene alone hurts how I view the book.
Tons of people gave this book, what are in my opinion, unfairly negative reviews over its themes of religion, but if you're atheistic either don't read the book or keep in mind that the author is Christian, most of the characters (if not all) are, too, so detach that part of the characters from your reading and bare its preachiness at some points.


Overall, an entertaining read that was really just an entry into reading novels again. I most likely will pick up another book from the same person again since I've heard about his books previously being better to most, so that's nice. Lots, and lots of rough edges, but it's interesting and just good enough to keep my attention. That's it for now. See ya.

[Endangered · Rating 2 out of 5]

After running across a stack of this novel freshly laid out at BAM, I figured why not. I've put off this and the others from this series for a while, not for any particular reason. Here are a few things that left me feeling disappointed:

. The story bounces back and forth between characters, which is fine, except that it doesn't flow well. In fact, it flows about as well as molasses through a plastic straw. Once I would finally become interested in a group or character, it was time to start over with somebody else. The timeline really takes some getting used to.

. While I understand that religion may play an important role for some in extreme survival situations, there is no reason to constantly include religious background, preference, belief, and compatibility level. At one point, a several page long lesson on one specific religion was included. Not everybody necessarily needs religion to maintain bearing with their moral compass.

. The lengthy quote at the beginning of each chapter is distracting, not to mention boring.. occasionally feeling irrelevant.

. It's almost like Rawles would get bored with a relationship or character and unexpectedly abandon it. Then others linger around long enough that you just want to skip ahead to the next chapter. Then they return, again.. and again.. and again.

Overall, the book was good enough to blast through on the weekend. Two of the storylines were captivating and had me locked in. The others often times left me bored and frustrated. The author's military background shines through with extensive detail regarding rank, firearms, government abbreviation, etc. When you add a glossary to your novel, it generally means it's become a bit much..

[Jonathan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disclaimer: read this for a project.

If you can get past the dialogue, which sounds like it was written by someone who's never had a conversation with a human before, you'll get to read some casual racism (every looter is Black or Hispanic and every Black or Hispanic is a looter), anti-Semitism (the only good Jews are apparently Messianic ones), and a jumbled mash of right wing extreme policies (all immigrants are not allowed to be citizens, Christians have a duty to go abroad to "Crusade").

There's also this line: "Mickey was likable, but his broad facial features, vapid expression, and nasal voice immediately marked him as someone with Down syndrome." Glad he's likable despite that, James Wesley COMMA(?) Rawles.

On top of all that, you have the storyline, or rather, lack of one, where you jump from character to character, some new, some returning, with no discernible reason or pattern, and with no atttempt at development. You have some villains (one who is introduced only as Mexican and bad) who seemed to be introduced to be shot one of the 500 Christian protagonists a few pages later.

Then you have the lack of logic. There's supposedly a global catastrophe that caused the US to collapse...but supposedly Germany and BELGIUM have it together enough to send an occupying army to the US? Makes sense, I guess, if your only goal for this book is to entertain your "I'm a Patriot and one day I'll get to shoot some Communists and Nazis for 'Merica" fantasy.

All in all, this is the shittiest book I've read.

[Duke Wilford · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found a copy of Founders by James Wesley Rawles somewhere. I'm always up for a good post apocalyptic survivalist yarn.  This was not good.  The extreme far right Christian message was so thick you could cut it with a knife.  I think I gave up around page 30 or so when a secondary character was revealed to be Jewish, but that was OK because he had seen the light and been born again into the author-approved faith. I can only assume the author is one of those misguided folks who think the United States is a Christian nation and who go around sneering “What part of ‘shall not be infringed’ do you not understand?” While simultaneously ignoring the Establishment Clause just as hard and fast as they can.

People have complained that there isn’t a coherent story line. Understand: this is porn for white Christian nationalists. There isn’t gonna be much plot.

It was such a preachy pile of religious-right-wing crap that I actually recycled it rather than simply passing it along.  And that's saying something, because I almost never give up on a book once I've started it.

[Larry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book that has some serious flaws.
It's loaded with expository lumps about the author's religious and political beliefs as well as survival tips and techniques. It's basically an Author Tract.
The ending is rushed.
I was reminded of Left Behind a lot in that all the good-guy characters are Christians.
Having said all that, I found this fairly enjoyable and would probably read the other books in the series.
His protagonists include Catholics, Quakers and Messianic Jews, so at least he's ecumenical.
I liked the end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it concept of Quantitative Easing leading to hyperinflation.
If you're just interested in doomsday-prepping without all the religion, consider How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It: Tactics, Techniques, and Technologies for Uncertain Times.

[Tommy Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Um, this story tells the story of individuals who founded a safe haven after the economic collapse. Not a bad story, but I found same issues as in the first one where everyone is naturally gifted at military lingo.
The story wasn't bad, but there was still some jumping from one to another. It did make the story hard to follow. There were some fun aspects and encounter though that did make the story fun to read at time.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

listened to on CD. Not as good as Survivors. The author really pushed religion down you throat in the beginning during the setup. After that the stories moved pretty good. The end was a little too summarized. There could have been more stories told. I was also disappointed that a lot of the characters from Survivors weren't in this book either. Regardless I still enjoyed it and have already started the sequel.

[Kevin Barnes · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was gripping in that it held me through the whole book and it was hard to stop reading. I like to read alternate history/future books. The main characters felt to perfect. It was like they knew all the right answers and had the best luck anyone could have. When you read a book about Superman you should expect Superman to be himself, so when you read a book about survivors you should expect survivors to be the best as well. A good fast "what if" book.

[David M. Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another brilliant read of JWR

We are closer than ever to a societal collapse due to unsustainable processes and policies. Use the prepping tactics described to ready your friends and family

[Katrina J. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this because it was an abandoned copy in a waiting room. Would be a better book if there was more story and less description of gun/ammunition types and technical terms. Maybe it is meant as more of a handbook and less of a work of fiction.

[Terrie Larkowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another fine read

3rd book set in crunch time after economic collapse in America. Some overlap with previous 2 books. Americans finally recover

[Colleen Alexander · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a difficult read. Endless details about ammo and prepper stuff with little plot.

[Scott Sitompul]

I really enjoyed it and look forward to reading the rest of the series