I am going to start off with something that is actually written in the book ”who does this jumped-up ******* despot from some fourth-rate town hall in Normandy think he is?” – of the French Foreign Minister. There are other examples of this suggested foreign policy, some not very palatable descriptions of Russians, Chinese and of course that cover all term for anyone east of Turkey (probably including Turkey) “Arabs”. There is a more derogatory term used frequently but I won’t give it the light of day in this review. Now when I was looking at some reviews on Amazon.com people were scorning the writing of this book but praising its overt anti-pc message. I am with them on half of it; the writing is terrible.

I do struggle though when I see such overt political writings within a novel, it isn't fun to read. I love seeing characters within a novel, controversial characters are also great and in isolation I have no problems with Admiral Morgan's obvious xenophobia of anything not made in the good ‘ol US of A but I do find fault with the attitudes of all the major characters within the US government being portrayed in such a way.

Scimitar SL-2 follows on directly from Robinson’s previous novel Barracuda 945, another book I have read, reviewed and hated; I even swore never to read another offering from this author, however I was tempted to give it another go, much to the disagreement of my more sensible side but I do believe we should always give something a second chance. Maybe not in this case though…

The book is overly long, it takes an age to get going, an age to build up the inevitable final sequences and an age to do just about anything. There are pages and pages dedicated to how one would evacuate New York – after reading a few pages I managed to skip large parts of this as it wasn't relevant to the story. As with Barracuda 945 I struggle with the efficiency shown by virtually all of the major characters, they are all just too good. Finally, but most importantly, I struggled with the almost anti-democracy, right wing damn near fascist undertone that the book purveys. Almost to the tune of the US government only being a sham front for the real power in the White House – the military.

Overall I wouldn’t recommend this book, that said I have discussions with a friend on the subject and he assures me a lot of Robinson’s earlier work is far better than his latest offerings. Take from that what you will, but this is getting only my second 1 star review – as to the identity of the first I am sure you can guess.