[Schadenfreude]

At one point in the story, the main protagonist, Ace Futrell, has taken a plane to Riyadh, SA in order to enter a large bank. He plans to surreptiously insert a CD-ROM containing Promis software into any ordinary desk computer found on the the bank's main customer service floor.

This Promis software on the CD-ROM will infiltrate the bank's money centers around the world (and those of other banks), stealing countless millions of dollars for the express use of investing in clean energy alternatives to fossil fuels thereby defeating the evil US political establishment and American oil cartels.

When Ace gets into the bank in Riyadh, he is greeted by a Saudi bank manager who queries Ace about his business objectives in the country. Ace says that he is engaged ina $2 billion/yr sports memorabilia business and produces one of his company's latest products - a piece of gum "that will give you the freshest breath in the bank". He urges the bank manager to try a piece.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')l-Kuwaiz unwraps it. Hesitates, then pops the yellow rectangle into his mouth. The gum is laced with Burrundanga, a soluble powder better known in Columbia as Zombie Dust. Made from the Borrachera plant, Burrundanga has been called the world's most dangerous drug as it leaves its victims in a virtual coma, preventing the brain from recording any and all memory until it wears off hours later.

[lexicon]

*****************SPOILER ALERT!!!!*********************


*******WARNING! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS***


*****************SPOILER ALERT!!!!*********************


OK, now that I've got that cleared up, I have to say that I really enjoyed this book. Not just because it had an exciting thrilling plot driven by a lead character I enjoyed rooting for, but I enjoyed Alten's stylistic approach to the story, juxtaposing it with quotations preceding each chapter usually corresponding with some real-life neo-con machination mirroring the contents of the story. I'm a huge fan of Michael Ruppert's Crossing the Rubicon, so it was great to read a fictional account predicated on his research and set in a futuristic environment. But I had a major problem with the ending, so for anyone who's read this, perhaps you have the same sense of bewilderment that I do.

Is it just me, or were things tied up just a little too neatly at the end? Not that I have a problem with Ace escaping from Saudi Arabia and living happily ever after with his kids; I was really rooting for him and was glad that happened. I didn't expect Prescott to be hung for treason, so that resolution was believable. But it made absolutely no sense that the focus of Mulligan's solution to Peak Oil was a massive switch to ethanol. Ethanol?! It really astounded me that someone who has clearly done an exhausting amount of research on the subject could believe that such an approach could be adopted on a nationwide scale and be successful. I think John Michael Greer put it best here:

The advantage of energy sources that can use existing infrastructure is one of the reasons why ethanol and biodiesel have entered the energy stream in amounts large enough to affect total liquid fuel numbers, and have helped drive grain prices to stratospheric levels into the bargain, while so many other alternative fuels languish on the drawing boards and the imaginations of peak oil optimists. Both of these can be distributed and used as though they were petroleum products. Neither one is a viable response to the broader problem, of course; stark limits get in the way of fueling an industrial economy by pouring our food supply into our fuel tanks. All the arable land on the planet is not enough to produce more than a small fraction of the liquid fuels we get from petroleum today, and long before even that inadequate point was reached, mass starvation or violent revolution would cut the process short.

http://www.energybulletin.net/42029.html

So to summarize, excellent plot, good characters, great treatment of the subject matter. Maybe the ending will help sell a Hollywood screenplay, but to me it rang a little false.