Cold War Lit. Written Twenties Years Too Late

I finished reading Faith of the Fallen (the sixth book in The Sword of Truth series, but I haven't read the ones between it and the first; these were the only two the used bookstore here had) the other day and I briefly pondered the novel.

My main thought was that it would have been much more interesting if it had been written during the Cold War. See, the book is about a huge empire trying to overwhelm smaller kingdoms and cities to bring to under the rule of The Order. The Order is a group of people who see it as their duty to bring peace and equality to the world and the people. The Order regulates the prices of bread and iron and all other good. It regulates housing by taking buildings away from people who charge too much and puts a landlord in charge to care for the place for The Order. It places people in jobs and then heavily taxes the pay to help support those who can not work and therefore don't make any money, but also can't be left to starve. People wait in line for hours to buy a loaf of bread. Shipping companies are only allowed to ship a certain amount a day so they won't cut into the profits of other shipping companies. Men who load carts aren't allowed to drive them because that would hurt the drivers. And all this is done in the name of The Order because within The Order the individual means nothing, the group means everything.

The book very clearly states that The Order is wrong by the horrible condition of the cities, the starving people, the terrifying artwork, and the lack of desire among the people. It's the enemy of mankind. According to the hero, The Order is an enemy to life.

HUAC would have loved this book. I enjoyed it for what it was (when I could ignore the some of the politics), but I thought that Terry Goodkind was being too black and white in his interpretation. In the book, there are good people, but they're the ones who want to live as best they can within the system until an opportunity comes to change, the rest of the people are all worthless lumps of flesh who are better off dead, they may not all be evil, but by supporting evil they're almost as bad. I shouldn't have been surprised, though, since this book is written by a man who claims Ayn Rand and Objectivism are his biggest influences.

Still, there would have been such an awesome reaction to this book twenty or thirty years ago. I bet Regan would have read it.