Culture: February 2023 Archives

Winterflight : a novel : Bayly, Joseph : Internet Archive

Joseph Bayly was inspired by the Roe v. Wade abortion and Baby Doe infanticide decisions to write this dystopian novel set in the US in the near future. Originally published by Word in 1981, this Victor Press edition from 2000 adds an afterword, added shortly before the author's death, addressing complaints about the book's appalling ending which is reminiscent of Nevil Shute's On the Beach. The book imagines an America in the mid 1990s with socialized medicine, a one-child policy, mandatory euthanasia at age 75, organ harvesting from social undesirables and the defective (the sort of thing no happening in Xinjiang), and no way to escape. The author attempts to deal with Christian complicity or indifference to government intrusions and the proper application of Romans 13 to an unjust government. He raises an interesting point that being too effective in fortifying the border against illegal immigration may turn the US into a prison for citizens trying to escape medical tyranny. It seems like the author got tired before he could write the ending implied by the title: There was no flight and the book ended before winter.