Angel Land

Victor J. Banis
Quest (2008)
ISBN 9781935053057
Reviewed by Paige Lovitt for Reader Views (2/09)


The time is the late 21st Century.  The United States is now divided into The Fundamentalist Christian Territories.  If you are not a fundamentalist Christian, you are considered a heretic, no matter what your faith.  God forbid if you are a homosexual. Homosexuals are contained in ghettos called The Zones of Perversion.  AIDS is a thing of the past, now the gays have the highly contagious Sept Virus.  They rely on the Fundamentalist government to provide them with medication to keep the virus in check.

The lead character in this story is Harvey Milk Walton.  He ends up in the ghettos of Angel Land.  The Fundamentalists are not happy with him.  He develops close relationship with some of the people in his community.  When the Fundamentalists try to punish them, with starvation and lack of medicine, they band together to survive.  He also falls in love with a man who should be forbidden to him.  Because of his relationship, Harvey learns that the elders have very dangerous, despicable plans for his people.  To survive, they are going to have to fight back or try to run to freedom.

I found “Angel Land” by Victor J. Banis to be absolutely fascinating.  Within most of us, I think we carry a fear of being ruled by a government like this one.  The hypocrisy of the self righteous is absolutely nauseating.  What the people of Angel Land have to endure, simply because of their sexuality, is horrifying.  I pray to God that no one will ever have to experience a life like this.  I think that everyone who reads this futuristic story will find it riveting

 

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