Siege

by Edwin Corley

Corley, Edwin, A Novel

Genres: Thriller, Fiction

Hardcover

Published January 1, 1969

About the author

aka Patrick Buchanan, David Harper

Edwin Ray Corley was born on October 22nd, 1931, in Bayonne, New Jersey, and passed away on November 7th, 1981, in Gulfport, Mississippi. During the intervening 50 years, his career varied from that of an underage Air Force staff sergeant to a carnival fire-eater to a vice-president of a leading advertising agency.

Reviews

[Floyd Webb · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an amazing novel. I read this one week after I finished The Spook Who Sat by the Door in 1970...the year I graduated from High School.

Spook was intelligent, but adventurist, fantastical, while SIEGE was based in a realistic espionage style adventure with the goal of having the world weigh in and encourage the US Gov to grant African Americans 3 Southern States which would establish relations with foreign governments.

[Ni · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent opening (prologue) with a throw-away character that we come to care for in about 2 sentences, and then a stunning opening, characterizing and giving backstory in the first paragraph. Wow.
Shira
James-MEOW Date: Sunday, July 8. 12014 H.E. (Holocene Era)

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, it's an interesting enough story. It suffers from having a pulpy premise--a black revolutionary army takes over Manhattan and holds it to ransom--but a 'prestige' treatment. The book is 300 pages long and the actual 'siege' doesn't kick off until 200 pages in. An entire book could be written of all the stories that could happen during such an event and in its aftermath, but the book is almost over by then, so it just gets breezed through and we end with basically no indication of how this incident will affect race relations (aside from an implication that things will actually IMPROVE since now, to quote the Falcon, they'll "do better, Senator").

We get A LOT of backstory, which I guess is the author's way of being evenhanded by showing that the black villains were pushed to their actions, but it makes for an unsatisfying conclusion that even at the end, when millions have died, they're still insisting 'well, you MADE us do it.' No one points out the obvious counterargument that all the time, effort, and resources that went into this 'revolution' could just as easily have gone into fixing the problems they try to force the government to solve for them.

The author also puts a lot of plot armor on the revolutionaries so they can get as far as they do. I guess verisimilitude demands that their plan is unfeasible, but it has to be partially successful to keep the protagonists from looking too stupid for trying it in the first place--you end up with a lot of crap being shoved under the premise that "we took them by surprise!"

Yeah, sure, but if the logline of your book is "how would a black revolution realistically play out?", then what sense does it make for it to then be barely believable?

[Paul Hasbrouck · Rating 4 out of 5]

The themes for thrillers reflect the popular concerns of the American people, so the bad guys have changed through the years. Nazis, Communists, international cartels, the terrorist masterminds, and in the 1970's the Black Nationalists. SIEGE is about plot to take over Manhatten, by blowing of tunnels and bridges, to force the U.S goverment to give them piece of the country for a African-American nation......New Jersey! The best of the lot-AFRO-6, TRESPASS, THE SPOOK WHO SAT AT THE DOOR-the action is exciting, the dialog is terrible and the rest is a fun guilty pleasure.

[Magda Revetllat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tremenda, tremenda obra de la explosión de un colectivo que ha sufrido como pueblo esclavo y más tarde, ya liberado, la opresión constante y el no ser ciudadanos de pleno derecho del país que han ayudado a construir.

Los dos personajes principales cada uno llegado a una vivencia extrema y el resto, sólidamente construidos en un relato fascinante lleno de sentimiento, mostrando las diversas facetas de una sociedad muy dividida que desemboca en una rebelión sin precedentes.

Tanto la prosa, desde descripciones a dialogos y discursos, como el contenido, merecen las cinco estrellas que pocas veces otorgo pero que este libro merece sobradamente.