Empire of Lies

I like Andrew Klaven. His Klaven on the Culture videos are good natured and entertaining little bits of political satire that I will always watch regardless of the topic. Empire of Lies is a thriller which attempts to take on political correctness in our post 9/11 world. Klaven’s approach to the problem is to cast against type and make the protagonist an un-ironic born again Christian (with a somewhat unholy past). He soon finds himself confronting his past and getting caught up with a bunch of islamic terrorists. The book can be pretty jarring in its political incorrectness, but that’s the point: let’s face the facts and call out these “Islamofascists” for what they are. All this probing cultural analysis is fine and dandy, but the book falls a little flat in the thriller category. Many of the plot points just feel too ridiculous to me, and not in a hyperbolic/satirical way (That’s the kind of thing South Park does much better). It feels like that Mitchell and Webb skit where a couple ill-informed of British slackers who have never been to America, let alone in an American courtroom, write an American courtroom drama.