The Number of Infinity
By A.K. Zander

      Things aren’t looking good these days for the Democrats. If Howard Dean gets desperate, he can plagiarize his next assault on President George W. Bush from A.K. Zander’s apocalyptic The Number of Infinity.

In Washington D.C. 2012 (two presidential campaigns away), the world is in turmoil, with freakish weather, environmental disasters, electricity cutbacks, nuked cities, food riots, food rationing, a thriving black market, lawlessness, impending war between Russia and China that makes North Korea look like a sissy nation, and of course the inevitable conspiracy by the government to make themselves look better at the expense of the people. The U.S. President never makes an appearance in the book…let us see; could Gray Davis somehow have been elected? Maybe 2012 is the year Hillary steals the presidency. Incidentally, the villainous Vice-President Wilson is the most active vice-president we’ve seen since…well, since “Air Force One.” On the upside, we actually have a working space program with three dashing astronauts.

Mixed in with this Tom Clancy/Michael Moore/Noam Chomsky paranoia is a “Deep Impact”-esque story of an asteroid on collision course with Earth, a mysterious alien civilization, a “Night of the Living Dead” alien plague mad robot disease subplot, and a Russian femme not-so-fatale named Svetlana Kerenskia. Oh, I forgot, there’s also a Doctor Zhivago-esque romance between Svetlana (Sveta for short) and Brad Henderson, your typical clueless but brilliant single guy. Brad and Sveta generate enough chemistry, awkward at first, to make the romance as engrossing as the science fiction thrills, something George Lucas couldn’t manage in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. Brad seems like a typical Star Wars fan, with the exception of having a love life. Brad is the adorably goofy guy we all wish we’d fall in love with, and we do when he and Sveta end up saving the day.

The key to Earth’s salvation lies in DeBeers. Brad and Sveta stop the natural disasters by solving an ancient riddle with help from Sveta’s engagement ring. There’s a lesson here: technology and theories are great, but plain old love works every time.