Reviews for Foreign Influence

The average rating for Foreign Influence based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-07-08 00:00:00 Johan Lepamets 3 to 3.5 stars. Better than his previous book (The Apostle), but I am not sure how I feel about the convenient story lines and the repetitive plot points. It is still an interesting action/thriller, but the torture sequences and anti-Muslim sentiment have become almost cartoony - they do not necessarily advance the plot, they just show how angry the author is. I will keep reading this series because I enjoy political thrillers, but I hope Thor starts to migrate back to his earlier style - more intricate adventure, less shock value.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-02-09 00:00:00 Scott Wheeler Hmmm. This guy is really, really mad. To the point that I am curious why and what in his background made him this way. Homeland Secutity veteran? Some of it is obviously based on true events. Makes me worried about where the world is headed. I am appalled that he is a bestseller. The more I think about this book the more mad I am myself. Who are you clowns that buy this stuff volume 1-9. I threw the library copy in the trash and I will pay for it. You are the people that gave the Heil Hitler. It just seemed like the thing to do. Everyone else was doing it, so it must be right. And I am a gun-toting Texan that believes that people should pay. This is not about vengeance. It is about propaganda. "You are being attacked. Fear. Foe. Fire. Do what I say to be safe!" "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."-Benjamin Franklin Brad Thor claims to be defending America. After all he is from Homeland Security! He makes the case in novel form that to defend freedom we should have Secret Police with unlimited power. He even loathes the FBI, which most would consider right arm of the enforcement community, as meddlesome and an impedance to the "real guys" here in the US. The entire book rants that the rights we have are stupid and dangerous, that the civilians do not deserve them, that we are morons and traitors, that we should all be under constant surveillance with drones and cameras on every corner. Phones and computers tapped. Half the book is about how to torture, the best way to torture, how it should be done more and expanded. The rules against it are stupid and dangerous. That his chosen people pick who is grabbed and tortured whenever they want. Obviously. In the US or abroad. At one point his main character hands over a prisoner to be tortured, as a reward for good work he gets this guy, and laughingly tells the other agent to kill him after he's "downloaded" all he can from him. Extreme hatred and dehumanizing of people based on race and religion. "Some of them are here, and some even look like us." (Sound familiar? It should. Check WW2, and Communist Russia and China) This guy is either crazy or is writing for crazy people, or both. And when I say writing for crazy people, I do not mean the people who buy the book for the most part. I mean "for" as in a job. Some of this stuff I will not even repeat. I do not like his Muslim fundamentalist villains either. I think all organized religion is silly, at best. But you know how to make someone like that really dig in? Give power to the extremists? Attack them. Kill their dads. I think that is the point. An enemy is needed. To fight one another over religion is in the words of Yassar Arafat, "like having a fight over who had the bigger imaginary friend." It is not fair to paint a whole culture of billions as inherently evil. If that were the case we would all be dead, because there are a lot of them. For the most part they are just trying to live their lives. Brad Thor conveniently forgets the heinous points of Christian history. Including a great deal of historical badness aimed directly at these people. Much of it recent. He wants us to be worse than them. That is his answer. And if that happens America is dead anyway. These people that would destroy our liberty to "protect us" are the greater danger by far. Brad Thor, meet the Dumpster. "Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." -- Reichsmarschall Hermann Wilhelm Göring, founder of the Gestapo, Head of the Luftwaffe, at Nuremberg 1946