Sixth Column - BookWyrm

mass market paperback, 256 pages

English language

Published Aug. 1, 1999 by Baen.

ISBN:: 978-0-671-57826-8

(6 reviews)

(This book is also known by the title "Sixth Column") An Asian totalitarian government using advanced technology conquers America practically overnight because America has basically disarmed itself. A supersecret laboratory becomes the last hope for America when a major breakthrough in technology is made. Unfortunately the breakthrough experiment also kills the lead researcher and most of the staff of the laboratory, leaving less than a dozen men alive, only one of them a scientist. A reserve intelligence Major, whose regular occupation is being an advertising executive, gets to the laboratory just after the experiment has killed most of the staff. His mission as the last free active military officer is to use the resources of the laboratory and the breakthrough (which looks like magic to the Major) to defend America and restore its freedom. The Major has to use his understanding of people in order to organize the resistance and …

(This book is also known by the title "Sixth Column") An Asian totalitarian government using advanced technology conquers America practically overnight because America has basically disarmed itself. A supersecret laboratory becomes the last hope for America when a major breakthrough in technology is made. Unfortunately the breakthrough experiment also kills the lead researcher and most of the staff of the laboratory, leaving less than a dozen men alive, only one of them a scientist. A reserve intelligence Major, whose regular occupation is being an advertising executive, gets to the laboratory just after the experiment has killed most of the staff. His mission as the last free active military officer is to use the resources of the laboratory and the breakthrough (which looks like magic to the Major) to defend America and restore its freedom. The Major has to use his understanding of people in order to organize the resistance and understand the enemy in order to use the breakthrough effectively to win freedom. The difficulties of fighting a totalitarian regieme that has no respect for life are explored. The temptation of great power in the hands of a few is another thread. The battle for freedom must restore power to the people. An entertaining read. Typically Heinlein.

14 editions

ospalh reviewed Sixth Column by Robert A. Heinlein

Review of 'Sixth Column' on 'Goodreads'

1 star

A “terrible, racist, authoritarian, eugenics-inflected yellow peril novel”, as Cory Doctorow wrote. Or racist dreck, as i would say.

That said, i amused myself a bit while hate-reading this with trying to work out who the evil, evil invaders are. These “Pan-Asians” ar Chinese and Japanese, that hav been turned into Communists by the Soviet Union, that they conquered, or something.
If yu don’t believe the racism: the invaders are just called “yellow monkeys” a lot. And so on.
Ah, and the Americans don’t even try to learn the language. In the end the underground army of thousands, maybe tens of thousands has exactly one translator. The language is described as “meaningless singsong”. W T F.
Oh, and because there is exactly one Asian-American in the story, they arn’t important. Just shoot any Asian yu see. Dto. African-Americans. Their “basic weapon” magically kills “Mongolians” and spares “Caucasians”. As everybody …

A “terrible, racist, authoritarian, eugenics-inflected yellow peril novel”, as Cory Doctorow wrote. Or racist dreck, as i would say.

That said, i amused myself a bit while hate-reading this with trying to work out who the evil, evil invaders are. These “Pan-Asians” ar Chinese and Japanese, that hav been turned into Communists by the Soviet Union, that they conquered, or something.
If yu don’t believe the racism: the invaders are just called “yellow monkeys” a lot. And so on.
Ah, and the Americans don’t even try to learn the language. In the end the underground army of thousands, maybe tens of thousands has exactly one translator. The language is described as “meaningless singsong”. W T F.
Oh, and because there is exactly one Asian-American in the story, they arn’t important. Just shoot any Asian yu see. Dto. African-Americans. Their “basic weapon” magically kills “Mongolians” and spares “Caucasians”. As everybody knows, only Whites are Real True Americans. F⸺ck this.
Btw. from the Caucasus it is about half as far to Mongolia as it is to the USA. Those two terms for the “races” is as silly as talking about human races at all. They don’t exist.