THE FINAL SOLUTION

A Novel for the End of Days

by

R. F. Dietrich

Available at www.amazon.com or www.bn.com under ISBN 0-595-13273-1

Nothing truer has been said about our age than this:

“Religion is going to be the death of us,

 if the lack of it doesn’t get us first.”

---from Wolf Berlin’s Holy Wars

Once again, the world is forced to deal with people who lust for Armageddon.  And in the tale told by Wolf Berlin in The Final Solution, you will discover how few it takes to make an Armageddon these days, and that things are not as they seem in the choosing of sides and weapons. 

Wolf Berlin authors a warning book called Holy Wars because he has seen the horror of a man-made Armageddon coming, and in more practically trying to prevent that discovers that the Osama bin Ladens of the world are merely the front for a far more serious and far more scarifying apocalyptic plot developing behind the scenes, one whose denouement you will not guess.  Because he knows no one will believe him, especially in our clueless government, he takes desperate measures to get people to listen to him.  Out of this come realizations about the historical roots and causes of Armageddon-lust that everyone now needs to contemplate. 

  As you read Wolf's tale of his being locked in apocalyptic combat for the soul of the planet, you will hear echoes of ancient and recurrent religious battles, of "Final Solutions" past, that remind us of how the greatest evils are often committed by the most righteous, those who think themselves the most pure, as Osama bin Laden and the Taliban do.  This novel reminds us too that the Nazis who coined this term--"The Final Solution"--seriously thought of themselves as knightly champions of a purifying religious quest, in which, in their own version of Judgment Day, they were saving Western Civilization by purging it of "impurities."  This idea they got from the Book of Revelation, which got it from the Old Testament, which got it from Persian religion, which got it from--well, who knows how far back this idea goes?--but this obsession with cleansing the world of "the impure" or "the infidel" seems to have been a founding stone of almost every religion in the last several thousand years.   Is secularism the only answer to the seemingly inevitable destructiveness of religion?

The tale told by Wolf Berlin is first and foremost of his despair at realizing that his secularism's failing to civilize the world and satisfy spiritual needs has opened up a vacuum into which religious fanatics are rushing from all directions.  As the impasse in religious beliefs that has held for over a century collapses beneath the weight of on-rushing fundamentalisms, Wolf embarks on a last-ditch effort to give Secularism the spiritual dimension it is said to lack by making a religion of it—“The Religion of the Future” he calls it, optimistically.   He worries, though, about how effective it will be because it lacks “drama.” 

But he soon finds “drama” enough when he's startled to encounter another would-be messiah, an old soul-mate of his he had lost track of, who has a radically different and far more effective but apocalyptic plan for the world, to which, ironically, Wolf is invited to contribute as the Peter and Paul of a post-Apocalypse religion.  With advanced technology at his command, Wolf’s old friend has concocted a demented plot to purge the world of its poisons by first using Moslem-faced terror and Western counter-terror to get all the world's hatred out into the open, and then to “save the world” at the last minute through an incredible, climactic act of sacrifice that will make the crucifixion of Christ look small and tame!   What ensues is a harrowing tale of conflict between two would-be messiahs who struggle to break through the religious impasse of our times and simultaneously pre-empt the fundamentalists by devising a new, world-conquering religion of their own.  But it eventually becomes clear which “messiah” has the means to pull it off.   It seems Wolf is going to need help.  Will he get it?

This novel illustrates once again how the greatest truths can sometimes be envisioned only through fiction.  The actualities of September 11th, 2001 horrified the world, but unless we can imagine and understand the much greater horror that may ensue from this, as this novel does, it may be that we will be forced to live it.  

To learn more about this work and the author, go to:

 http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~dietrich/publisher_final_solution/index.html 

Available for purchase at www.amazon.com or www.bn.com

under ISBN 0-595-13273-1

A thoughtful, engrossing, prophetic, and ultimately scary novel, with an ending you won't expect or forget, The Final Solution is for those who see the need for religious revival but who wonder if our religious beliefs are taking us to a global catastrophe instead.