Book Review: The Hidden Truth by Hans Schantz
The Hidden Truth by Hans Schantz is part alternate history, part coming-of-age story, and part techno-thriller, peppered with wry observations about the nature of people, politics and power as seen through the eyes of a youth learning a hard lesson about the evils men hide.
This is a world nextdoor to our own, one where Al Gore won the 2000 election, and the 9/11 attack struck the White House, and the internet is under direct federal control.
High school student Peter Burdell of rural Tennessee, while preparing for his debate club contest and learning how to flirt with girls, discovers an odd discrepancy in an electronics paper from the days of Maxwell and Heaviside, which points to the existence of an entire branch of electromagnetic phenomena apparently never investigated — but after the murder of an innocent bystander, Peter realizes that the knowledge exists, and has been ruthlessly suppressed.
With the help of his self-reliant father, pistol-packing mother, and computer nerd best friend, some home-made ham radio gear, and plenty of healthy paranoia, Peter steps into a dangerous funhouse mirror labyrinth of falsehoods, feints, arsonists and assassins, frame ups and cover ups, where choosing whom to trust is a life-or-death gamble.
And when the conspirators become aware of Peter’s investigation, disaster strikes.
The characters are warm and likable, the alternate history is too close to our own for comfort, the family feuds and the petty ambitions and government corruptions described are all too real. This is the tale of a young man who learns, too late, what evil will do to hide the truth.
Let this book warn this generation of the dangers of our day; deep state corruption, fake news, public school political indoctrination, and the panopticon surveillance state; just as George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four was warned his generation of the dangers of socialism and political correctness in his day.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
