Digital Analogue

Balance of power

A few days ago I finished the book Balance of power, by Richard North Patterson. Without giving away any more than the book jacket, I'll summarise the plot as follows: a liberal President with an anti-gun agenda is handed an incident that maximises the sympathy and outrage of the American public along every imaginable axis, and yet it is still far from trivial to actually implement even the most commonsensical of gun control laws, due to powerful politicians and lobbies. As you might imagine.

I enjoyed this book immensely. Much better than the last few audio books I've gotten; I don't think there was any point in this one where I felt I was forcing myself to slog through. Indeed, much as with actual book books, good ones, I found myself unable to "put down" the book, popping CD after CD to find out what happens next.

But I think I can review it very concisely. To the extent that the function of a review is to tell its readers whether they'll like the thing reviewed, here's all I need to say: you will like or dislike this book exactly to the extent that, and for the same reasons that, you liked or disliked the first four seasons of The West Wing. Other than that, I don't really need to say anything (except maybe that I really liked the big speech, a masterpiece of persuasive oratory).

"He's just not the sharpest knife in the drawer. But that's what we get when Democrats run awful campaigns. Really, Democratic candidates should be more mindful of their responsibility to protect this country from their opponents." --Michael Kimmitt