patriots - Rated 
good book, slow to start with but picks up pace and is hard to put down once started.
pretty indepth with very good detail on all subjects....
Some interesting details but essentially a poor story - Rated 
There's just too many plot flaws and glearing inaccuracies for this book to draw you in. The author seemingly knows about guns, triage, military strategy etc. but falls down spectacularly in other areas such as economics and geopolitics. Essentially it's just one long pro-gun advert which asserts that a fair, democratic state cannot exist without the right to bare arms. Righto. His other book is probably a better bet for straight tactical advice although his credibility is somewhat diminished in my eyes having read this novel.
Patriots - a review - Rated
A US centric view of a post financial crash survivor situation, following the popular survivalist "bullets, beans and band-aid" approach. Full of thought provoking scenarios and well developed characters working through a variety of problems. Some dated content and unrepresentative of a UK situation, but all in all a good read. If you enjoyed other US based survival fiction such as "Lights Out" or "Pax Americana" you will almost certainly enjoy "Patriots".
Fascinating but flawed! - Rated 
As a survivalist manual thinly disguised as a work of fiction, "Patriots" contains much of what most gun-toting, freedom-loving libertarian types in America would feel they need to know (assuming they don't already) in terms of preparation for a militia-style stand in the remote northwestern regions of the USA, should a sufficiently debilitating crisis bring an end to the world as we know it. Given the no doubt salivatingly detailed descriptions of what kinds of gear, particularly weaponry, are best suited for the task in hand, the book cannot be faulted as a hardcore guide for survivalists of the minuteman bent.
The problems with the book, however, are manifold. For one, the author describes himself as a Reformed Christian, i.e., one who subscribes to Calvinist doctrine. Yet very alarmingly, the narrative groups Catholics and Mormons as good Christians too, in a way that would be anathema to any true blue Calvinist. Preposterously, he has a Catholic leading a Bible study attended by evangelical Protestants. As a result, a crucial plank of credibility in the author's judgment has been undermined, and of course, his own credentials.
Secondly, the story is built on too many oversimplifications. The characters are all shallow, seemingly with no extended family to worry about dispersed around the country, and all are affable yet without compunctions about killing. They never argue with each other, they never long for a restoration of nationwide peace, they all can endure years holed up in a remote fortress eating jerky, and the single guys mostly seem to have their libidinous impulses well under control. None of that could possibly ring true of the incredibly stressful backdrop to the story, however.
A further flaw I would suggest is that the ostensible enemy in the story, i.e., the Federal Government in cahoots with the globalists / New World Order, would in reality almost certainly have already made contingency plans to address the potential problems caused by the very kind of patriots described in the story. For example, if the right pretext saw the entire apparatus of the American intelligence, military and law enforcement agencies turned on these people right now in pre crash times, I very much expect they'd be mopped up with ease. Patriotic wars of attrition can only work in the USA if the ground conditions are exactly as described in the novel, i.e., breakdown of law and order. Absent that, there are any number of private citizens and lawmen who would be only too glad to disclose the whereabouts of these potential renegades.
A partial cure for "Head in the Sand" syndrome. - Rated 
I heard the author some months ago promoting this book. As I understood him, he had compiled the practical survival info some time ago as a "how to" book for surviving a possible societal collapse in the near future. The feedback was so great that he made the info into a novel. The majority of the main characters are christian but not all of them. Given the locale of the story, I find this fact to be no more distracting than if the book had been written by a chinese author, having characters who were practicing buddhists. To focus on such matters is to miss the valid lessons in the text. If you are concerned about current events, you might want to buy this book for your personal library. If you believe that man is infallible, that there is no god, that you are a genius, that human technology will overcome nature, that the leaders of the world today really do care what happens to you, that there will always be food when you are hungry, etc. then read the book for a good chuckle. As for myself, I will study the ant.
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