Simmons, a little short story or, The Century War I

At the instigation of Claw of the Conciliator I checked out a little short story by Dan Simmons. I found it neo-con propaganda promoting the idea that all Muslims are our enemy and we are mamby pamby twits for not being tough enough on them. I thought, though, that I should give this a little more thought and a little more space on the blog to explain my thoughts. So...

The basic story: a time traveler pops up in the author’s study with no explanation of how he got there, convinces the author that he really is from the future, and precedes to scare the crap out of him with a story about The Century War between the Muslim world of terrorists and jihadists and, apparently, everyone else on the planet. All PC obligatory thoughts of love and peace among all God’s creature to one side, the story must be critiqued on how convincing it is as a forecast of the future. There are also a number of assumptions about the world as it is now underpinning the whole thing. In fact, for an American, as both Simmons and Clemens are, it can read as a satiric criticism of the American and European reaction to the great Islamic Threat.

Let’s examine some of these assumptions.