Exile-and Glory by John Ringo (2008, Unabridged, Compact Disc)

John Ringo's "The Last Centurion" was an incredible book- mostly because the story is eerily like today's headline news. The story follows "Bandit Six", a Captain in the U.S. Army tasked by the American government to secure a huge supply base in Iran. The story takes place in the near future of 2019-2021, a time of rapid weather changes (think ice age) brought on by global-warming and a great plague brought on by the Avian Flu (also know as H5N1). The difference with this version of the Avian Flu is that it spreads through human-to-human contact rather than from bird-to-human making it a nasty and rapidly spreading disease. The H5N1 virus exterminates hundreds of millions of humans.

Bandit Six is an heroic character- full of life, leadership, courage and blood-and-guts fighting. Throughout his journey through Persia, Iraq and in the United States, Six survives incredibly low odds by his brilliant military tactics and his genius leadership. All of this while working under the direction of an inept "First Female President" of the United States. She is the worst of the worst. From directing vaccinations to the wrong (non-essential) people, to declaring martial-law and attempting to freeze elections, her power trip plunges the U.S. into total chaos.

After surviving war, plague, and the onslaught of an ice age, Bandit Six helps to re-build America by providing expert knowledge to would-be farmers (whom he refers to as "soy eaters" and various expletives). Since Bandit Six was a farmer from southern Minnesota, he was able to lend his expertise to people forced to live on and work farms to feed America's starving. Of course the Avian Flu wiped out the farmer's as well as millions of other ESSENTIAL personnel. Everything is chaos.

A fascinating look at the history that "could be"- and "might be"- if we continue to be a world full of hating, power hungry, self-absorbed people. Thankfully, we are not all like that. The stars of power will shine through, just let them and assist in any way you can. BohemianCollections