In 2161, civil war has broken out between the Guild Dominions and the Islanders. American fights American. Families are torn apart, and no one is safe. The free Islanders are rounded up and placed back inside the walls of Island 42 to freeze or starve. In the Mountain West, the two armies grow increasingly brutal in their pursuit of victory.

When I first began writing The Islander in 2001, such a scenario seemed unimaginable. Today, in 2016, does anyone doubt that something like it might someday happen? Every year we march closer and closer to the possibility of walled off Islands where dispossessed Americans struggle to survive. To me it no longer sounds like science fiction.

The ultimate result of oppression, the stripping of rights, the dominance of one group over another always leads to violence.

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