From the blurb for The Coalition, a new novel from “Jerry” Boykin and Kamal Saleem:
Our story is set in the not-too-distant future. Muslims have succeeded in becoming the majority of several European populations, adding to their dominance in the Middle East. With the accelerating spread of radical Islam and Sharia law as the backdrop, our character-driven novel tells the story of a divided world and two men who epitomize the ideological chasm…
The Sodality, (operating publically as Global Reparations, an NGO) was formed by a small group of mostly American retired military leaders, businessmen, politicians, and ministers. What started as a loose connection of friends and colleagues crystallized into a powerful network dedicated to fighting the onslaught of global jihad and those conspiring with them for their own agendas.
Based in the Czech Republic with facilities in fifteen locations worldwide, the Sodality runs missions ranging from sabotaging terrorist finances and supply lines to assassinations of terrorist leaders. Their formation and activities were inspired by relentless attacks on a constitutional republic, attacks on the West, and fecklessness government leaders.
…As the spread of the Muslim religion accelerates toward dominance, the war between Sunnis and Shi’as is subjugated to the common desire to destroy Israel and America.
It should be remembered that Saleem has stated that Obama is a secret Muslim who performs an Islamic prayer when he pretends to pledge allegiance to the flag, while Boykin famously warned that Obama is preparing a “private Brownshirt army” to enforce Marxism acorss the USA. Boykin has also called for mosques to be banned in the USA (although he introduced a bit of vagueness to what he meant following controversy).
The book was published last month, and the authors recently discussed it on radio with the American Family Association’s Sandy Rios. Boykin and Saleem have been appearing together in the media and at various events for some time, and they are both closely associated with the neo-Pentecostal evangelist Rick Joyner. Boykin’s endorsement of Saleem has also been used to bat away the overwhelming evidence that Saleem has lied extravagantly about his past in order to present himself as an expert on Islam and terrorism.
However, although Boykin and Saleem tend to focus on the Christian Right speaker circuit, The Coalition appears to be a secular affair: the book is published by Post Hill Press, an independent publisher that produces a strange mix of novels, political memoirs and conservative polemics (it also has the current rights to Oliver North’s 1991 Under Fire). Unexpectedly, the imprint is owned by Permuted Press, which publishes apocalyptic horror stories (particularly involving zombies), and this genre appears to be the specialism of the editors who are thanked in The Coalition‘s acknowledgements. Also involved with Post Hill Press is Anthony Ziccardi, who heads Newsmax Media’s Humanix Books.
By contrast, Boykin’s previous creative endeavours – Danger Close and Kiloton Threat – were co-authored with a professional Christian adventure author (Tom Morrisey) and published through religious imprints. However, The Coalition seems to be part of the same series: in all three books, the main character is named Blake Kershaw, and there are appearances by an elderly General Sam Wilson (there may be other connections between the books). It’s clear that “General Sam” is the real-life Samuel V. Wilson, the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency: in Danger Close “Sam Wilson” is a retired General with “an office” at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, just as the real-life Wilson was the college’s president; in Kiloton Threat he’s given the “V.” middle initial; and in the acknowledgements for The Coalition Boykin says that the real “General Sam” is “a ninety-one-year old in and mentor”, fitting with Wilson’s birth in 1923. Wilson appears to have approved of how he was portrayed in the earlier books, for which he provided endorsements.
This time, perhaps the prospect of the good guys running “supply lines to assassinations of terrorist leaders” was seen as bit too red-bloodied for a Christian imprint; here’s a passage in which General Sam gives advice to Kershaw about an invitation to join the counterjihad group:
“I’m as ready to strap it on as I’ve ever been, but I’m also really unsettled with the concept of doing it outside the government… The idea for the Sodality has been floating around me since just after World War Two. I was four square against it until the major moves were made to dismantle our Constitution, and in particular the separation of powers, at the time we were also seeing the greatest threat from without since Pearl Habor. Left to the status quo, America might have already been pulled down to third world chaos. If you take their offer, you will find out what they’ve done in just a few years to buttress the wall around America…”
Coincidentally, one of the leaders of the Sodality is “Lt Gen Bill Garrison”, which just happens to be the same real-life ranking of Lt Gen William G. Boykin, and it’s made clear he’s running a group “with no restrictions on proselyizing”.
The book’s Amazon page includes an endorsement from Oliver North:
To know where our fight against radical Islam is heading, you must read The Coalition by my warrior friend Jerry Boykin and Kamal Saleem. They say it’s fiction. But it’s truth with a warning label: ‘Your Thinking Is About To Be Challenged.
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Another new novel engaging with a somewhat comparable scenario is Houellebecq’s ‘Soumission’. Also of interest, from a couple of years ago, is Dan Simmons’ Flashback – what’s challenging about this novel is that Simmons is a seriously good sf writer. Flashback is not in the same league as his very best work, but it’s an absorbing novel, whatever one thinks of his politics.