Black August

About the Book

“There are simply too many people,” a university chancellor explains to a group of wealthy corporate CEOs and financiers.”

“But that’s exactly the way we want it,” the CEOs and financiers respond, “A huge mass of cheap labor - people fighting for what crumbs we’re willing to offer them. Cheap labor is the source of most of our profit.”

“No! You misunderstand,” the chancellor tells them, “What I mean is - there are simply too many people now for our police to control. We may be on the verge of a world-wide workers’ revolution.”

The wealthy CEOs and financiers react with indignation, and bringing in the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, have him design a series of brush-fire wars for the purpose of bleeding off the fervor of revolution. It also will gain them more territory and concomitant resources from the Caribbean, South and Central America.

A poor and aging adjunct professor of Sociology in a small community college learns of the senseless death of his two children in U.S military service. His lectures have been heard outside the classroom, and he is recruited by an organization attempting to form a new “United Party.” Their candidate for president is framed by main party officials, and he is arrested and murdered in jail. A rebellion erupts as a result, and the aging professor is caught up in the hysteria. He is rescued from arrest in a violent confrontation between police and students.

In a second confrontation, the students are all killed, and the old man barely escapes. He commandeers a small boat and begins the treacherous trip across the fog-shrouded Lake Ontario to the Canadian side. There, exhausted and prepared to give up, he stumbles across two injured and terrified children. He learns that he is of some value after all, and takes the children under his wing. But during the night, after the children have been fed and put to bed, an ominous flash, followed by a spiraling mushroom cloud erupt across the lake where Rochester, New York had been.

About the Author

R.J. Cantwell, PhD. Retired adjunct professor of Geology, Biology, Geography, and Anthropology, resides in Dunlap, California.