INTO THE DAX

In Welch’s SF novel, a fascistic Christian regime in a future North America targets a family of scientists, seeking their genetic code to unlock a biological terror weapon.

Generations after a worldwide environmental collapse triggered by global warming, North America (the parts not drowned on the coasts) has been reshaped into “The Great Sort” of three major, technologically advanced nations that have coalesced around different ideals. Citizens of the eastern Atlantic Commonwealth are secular, science-minded adherents of “Gaiantism,” the theory that Earth is a living organism. At the opposite end of the spectrum is the Great Lakes Federation, a harsh Judeo-Christian police/surveillance state descended from Michigan militias. Still refuting climate change, they declare divine rights as “Elect” masters and inheritors of power to seize Great Lakes water tables and land, amassing wealth for God. In between are the Dax (for Adirondacks), a tolerant and spiritual aggregation of mystics who are also pro-Gaia (and semi-Christian) but in a manner reminiscent of Indigenous American tribes. In upstate New York/Vermont, where borders overlap, young scientist Kiley Van and her friend Jason are attacked by weaponized Federation drones. Kiley is secretly the daughter of a Federation scientist who defected to the Dax and who, with his late wife, developed a plant-based communications array that could be perverted to cause genocidal famines. This potential weapon naturally appeals to Federation extremists, who need Kiley’s DNA to decrypt the doomsday formula. The narrative begins at a run and rarely lets up until the lengthy third-act Dax debates over the ethics of using a mass-desolation weapon. When conflict between the Dax and the Federation turns hot, the material recalls such religious dystopian narratives as Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments (2019) and Andrew J. Offutt’s Evil Is Live Spelled Backwards (1970). Welch grants the villains immense resources, strategic cunning, and a dishonest mass media that makes the contest of Bible bullies versus tree huggers far from a sure thing. Readers may note echoes of the George W. Bush and Donald Trump Republican administrations and (especially) Fox News...none of which are on the side of the angels here.

Impassioned pro-green military SF featuring drone combat, corrupted religiosity, and insidious propaganda.