Bedford: A World Vision

by Ellen Williams

From a review by Steven Yates: This is a scary book! Ellen Williams, Southern Heritage activist and retired schoolteacher, has penned this novel set in the near future. Just how far off its events are we don't know - exact years are always blanked out. However, a character born in the 1920s is 93 and still living during the story's main events, suggesting less than 20 years. Bedford: A World Vision is set in a political and cultural climate in which the entire Western world has come under the domination of a global government - World Vision - and makes full use of today's most recognizable trends. Bedford: A World Vision is the most compelling work of dystopian fiction to appear since the PC era began. It is this era's 1984 or Brave New World. The characters are well-drawn, and could be the people next door. Interestingly, we never meet or encounter references to whoever is running the World Vision empire. There are occasional flashes of sardonic humor - as in a reference to the U.S. Attorney General of the 1990s as "Jane Reynolds." That reference, however, makes a serious point about how you-know-who, the actual attorney general who really did brand Christians as "cultists" and outlined her conception of who "cultists" were: people who believe in the Bible, support Christian causes, homeschool their children, believe in the Second Amendment and distrust large government.

299 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2000