Counterstrike,
by Hal Colebatch
(Acashic Publishing, 245 pages, $23.99 paper; $19.99
e-book)
In the Information Age, a lie may be the most
powerful weapon of all.
The American Spectator’s own Hal G.
P. Colebatch, Australian lawyer and poet, as well as author of
nonfiction books and co-author of works of science fiction, has
branched out into a new subgenre of speculative fiction — a near
future story focusing on the war of ideas, in his freshly released
novel, Counterstrike.
The time is about five years from now. The war of militant
Islam against the West continues. There has been murderous rioting
in England, and Sharia Law is taking hold there. But far away in
Australia, it all still seems unreal. Harry Godwin, our hero, is a
lawyer and a part-time university instructor in an unnamed (but not
unguessable) western Australian city. Still smarting from the
break-up of a romantic relationship, he diverts himself with
sophisticated war gaming along with other members of a local club,
moving model ships and sailors across an elaborate board. He’s a
romantic at heart, somewhat regretful that he’ll never have the
chance to participate in a real naval battle.
He joins his friend Toby in what they call an
“immram” (an Irish word for a sea pilgrimage, inspired,
they say, by The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) to explore
offshore ocean islands and do some diving from Toby’s small
sailboat. En route they encounter a pair of Toby’s friends, a
married couple who sail a large yacht, along with their attractive
friend Leonie. They decide to all throw in together for the immram.
In the course of it, Harry and Leonie are drawn to one another,
though he’s gun-shy and awkward with her.
As they voyage they encounter a university research vessel
carrying, among other personnel, a visiting lecturer from the
United States, a Professor Sojourner, who has recently made
headlines with his theory that the British government knew in
advance of the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, but withheld the
intelligence from the U.S., hoping to draw the Yanks into the World
War II. A famous lost warship, he believes, carries proof of this
betrayal.
In the course of their diving, Harry and his party
discover what seems to be the wreckage of a warship of that period.
Which sets them on a collision course with Professor Sojourner and
the university faculty, in a battle of truth and lies that
threatens the very existence of the U.S.-Australian alliance, just
when both countries need each other more than they have for
decades.
Counterstrike isn’t an action novel.
No shots are fired onstage, no punches thrown (though there is an
explosion). This Armageddon is ushered in through ideas, through
words, through the mendacity of people who hate liberty, who feel a
“moral” compulsion to destroy the cultural roots that nurture them
in service of an ideology more powerful (to them) than loyalty or
love. Some things are won, and many things are lost, but hope
abides.
Colebatch is a sensitive and descriptive writer, investing
his story with all his affection for his city, his country, the
sea, great literature, and history. Through Harry Godwin’s eyes, we
observe a sun-bright world made fragile under the threat of a thing
so apparently trivial and laughable as a conspiracy theory. At one
point, Harry says:
There’s a strange syndrome present. Different conspiracy
theorists will very often associate with, and reinforce, one
another even when they have mutually incompatible beliefs. On the
9/11 conspiracy sites one theorist who claims that a missile was
fired into the Pentagon will associate himself with another
theorist who claims a remotely controlled plane was crashed into
the Pentagon. And how many Islamicists will proclaim simultaneously
that 9/11 and the rest were great blows struck for Islam against
the West and that they are part of a Jewish plot to
discredit Islam and give the U.S. an excuse for invading Iraq and
threaten Iran?
…Tens of thousands of people evidently think there’s
something in it, “if” — magic phrase — “you keep an open mind.”
I’m coming to think the truth is that if you keep an open mind
people will throw all their crap in it — and as often as not have
you pay them for doing so.”
Counterstrike is something like a
bright photographic negative of a night scene, displaying evil
through its contrast with goodness. Not only is it an enjoyable
entertainment, it’s a “beat to quarters” to defend the truth, for
its own sake and for the sake of all the things we cherish, that
depend on freedom.
Highly recommended.
