The Mirage

Alternate Reality & well worth checking out!

The Mirage tells an alternate version of history. Where the world is rocked by a terrorist attack on the Tigris & Euphrates World Trade Towers in Baghdad on 11/9/01. The planes were hijacked by Christian fundamentalists from the Third World country of America.
Years after the attack on the superpower, a homicide bomber is captured in the United Arab States (UAS) & questioned. He tells a strange story of a mirage. This mirage is one where the UAS is the super power & America is poor & broken. He argues that this is not true reality...that in the real world the USA is the super power & was attacked on 9/11 by Muslims. Gradually the Homeland Security officers in Arabia begin to unravel the story & start to believe this crazy bomber.
The story is very well written & makes you stop & think without at doubt. At times it is humorous (The Quail Hunter from Crawford, TX who takes his enemies out on hunts & accidently shoots them or the crazy man in TX who is always looking for someone or something but can't seem to find it or remember who or what he's looking for or David Koresh leading the reisitance in America or Timothy McVeigh appearing as a protector to one of the invaders). This was well worth the time. The only reason it gets 4 stars from me is that it is a book you can't put down or read in small chunks. You need to read it straight through to keep everything straight, but it is well worth the time!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Mind-stretching book

There’s an old adage that history is written by the victors. Matt Ruff expands and explores that idea in Mirage. Mirage is the story of a world in which Arabia is the superpower and the United States a third world backwater country. In this world, Christian fundamentalists fly planes into the Twin Towers of Baghdad on November 9, 2001 (11/9 vs. 9/11). The twists keep coming in this upside down world. Except some of the terrorists remember a different reality. One in which the United States is a superpower and the Arab world a backwater. And they have some artifacts from this reality that seem to back up their story. Mirage is told largely through the eyes of Arab Homeland Security Agents, mainly Mustafa al Baghdadi. He is tasked by the president to investigate the “mirage rumors”. There are people within the United Arab States who don’t want that to happen, as well as people who think their lives would be better in the mirage world. I enjoyed this book because if features interesting characters with interesting backstories. The concepts explored were also very intriguing. Are the seeds of violent fundamentalism always present in any religion? What circumstances cause them to come out? How might political alliances that we view as unshakeable change if they sprang from different circumstances? My criticism of the book is that the reverse parallels seemed a little overdone and at times seemed gimmicky. (11/9 vs 9/11, wikipedia vs. libraryofalexandria, etc.) The placement of prominent public figures on both sides of the conflict in roles they might play in the mirage world is well-done for the most part, although sometimes it seems unnecessary. The most enjoyable and identifiable characters are the fictional ones. Despite any criticisms, Mirage is a story that makes you think and keeps you engaged. The core concept is brilliant and the exploration of the alternate world is fascinating. The characters, especially the ones without real-world counterparts, are interesting and well-developed. I was fortunate to receive an advance copy of this book. It is an enjoyable read that will stretch your mind. 3.5 stars.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Matt Ruff's THE MIRAGE is an incredibly unique story where the p

Matt Ruff's THE MIRAGE is an incredibly unique story where the post 9/11 world is seemingly turned inside out by a higher power looking to teach the arrogant United States a lesson.

In this book, what we know as the United States is a collection of small, religious based nations constantly fighting each other, and the middle east is the world's true superpower. After fundamentalist Christians bring down the Arab world trade center on 11/9, the Arab superpower invades North America, and fights a long drawn out war against insurgents. But occasionally "artifacts" and other items pop up that show that the Arab-superpower world may not be what it seemed, and that there is an alternate reality where a United States is the superpower.

Many of the post 9/11 players make appearances in the Mirage world. Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, Donald Rumsfeld, and even David Koresh all play roles. And a key theme is that while the world they may be a part of has changed, the fundamental nature of the particular person is the same in both worlds. A cold blooded manipulative killer is still a cold blooded manipulative killer; his victims are just different.

I particularly liked the inserted "articles" from the "Library of Alexandria," which were modeled after Wikipedia articles and filled in some key gaps in the reader's understanding of the Mirage world.

The book has plenty of action, and moves well. It introduces an element of fantasy when discussing how the Mirage was created in the first place, and why, and that did confuse me a bit, resulting in some re-reading. But overall, this was an enjoyable, thought-provoking fiction/fantasy thriller worth the time invested.

By now I'm sure you have read some of the other reviews of this

By now I'm sure you have read some of the other reviews of this book and have a fairly good understanding of the setting and plot, so I won't rehash what everyone else has already covered. What I will say is that I was pleasantly surprised by this book, and given its somewhat abrupt ending I would recommend it to anyone who enjoy alternate-history fiction or just a good sci-fi mystery. For some reason, I found myself comparing this book to the most recent season of the TV show 'Fringe', given it's development of the "alternate universe/over there" world that was introduced in Season 4. If you enjoyed that storyline in 'Fringe' you will definitely enjoy this book.

I found the "Wikipedia" entries (called The Library of Alexandria in this book) on various subjects and characters incredibly entertaining, and some of the references to alternate-reality real world people made me laugh out loud. (There is a character introduced in the latter third of the story that absolutely cracked me up given the reference, but I will not spoil that for you - suffice to say that it is a very fitting name given).

As I said above, I did enjoy the story despite it's somewhat abrupt ending; and it intrigued me enough that I checked out another one of Mr. Ruff's novels that was an equally great read: 'Bad Monkeys'

Disappointed. Not the political satire/commentary the premise suggests of itself

The premise is brilliant. Flip 9/11 and the subsequent 00's - Christian fundamentalists from a balkanized America drive planes into cosmopolitian Baghdad's World Trade Towers.

I was anticipating - or at least hoping for - a biting socio-political satire, like a few of the alternate world novels that came out of the Soviet bloc, or Vargas LLosa's "The Real Life of Alejandro Mehta"; or a lugubrious chess match between mind and reality like Philip K. Dick gave us, whom the B&N review references with "The Man in the High Castle".

But for all it's imagination and clever and occasionally laugh-out-loud mirroring - the Muslim world's current hit rock album is Green Desert's "Arabian Idiot" - it is a heavily (i.e. unrealistically) plotted political "thriller", with winks to the reader aplenty, and despite some of its "still too soon" moments of gravitas, devolves into magical fantasy.

Broken

Bought this book from BN Nook store. Will not run on Nook Tablet.... go figure. I want my money back.

0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

A thought-provoking modern parable

Some have criticized The Mirage as being unbelievable, which to me is missing the point. Like Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt, The Mirage is a story whose focus is the same-ness of people everywhere. I loved this book because it pulls no punches in its critique of the United States' behavior over the past decade. Unfortunately, the people who would benefit most from seeing the other side of things will probably never read this.

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