What I’m Reading: THE LOYAL NINE by Konkoly and Akart
The 
Loyal Nine, The Boston Brahmin Book 1, by the co-writing duo of Steve Konkoly and Bobby Akart, is a political thriller with a real world message: Get your act together. The end of the world as we know it (TEOTWAWKI) could come at any time.
The authors are up front about their prepper mindset and they have the street cred in that community to back it up, so the novel reads as part fictional thriller and part prepper how-to manual. The Loyal Nine also tries to draw direct connections (as in bloodlines) from the pre-Revolutionary War Sons of Liberty to a modern-day cabal called the Boston Brahmins. The Boston Brahmin are portrayed as an uber-rich, uber-connected crew that both direct and profit from world events. We’re not talking Tea Party takeover stuff, the Brahmin are only interested in manipulating world events for their own gain—regardless of who is in charge.
The lead Brahmin, John Morgan, has connected a next-gen group of nine comprised of his daughter, a US Senator, and hand-picked associates to develop a spare-no-expense shelter in downtown Boston in anticipation of TEOTWAWKI.
The authors spend a good portion of book one setting up the collapse scenarios. They grounded their narrative in current-day events, then took them to the next level. The Russian invasion in Ukraine gets out of hand? Check. US currency fails spectacularly after years of quantitative easing? Check. Strikes by major unions that take down major parts of the economy? Check. Whether you agree with the prepper mentality or not, they certainly did their homework in presenting plausible trigger events for a global collapse.
For me, the strongest part of the book was the hacker group, Zero Day Gamers. The ZDG probe networks until they find a vulnerability which they then use to blackmail the compromised business. Considering the recent news about data breaches, this narrative was especially chilling.
As a newbie to the concept of prepping, I thought the book was a fascinating insight into both the message and the substance of the prepper philosophy. While I felt that the story got a little preachy at times, I appreciated that the authors kept the narrative mostly apolitical. So often the prepper community is lumped together with extreme right-wing politics, which for me begs the real question: if the world came to an end, whether someone was a Republican or a Democrat would be the last thing on my mind.
The Loyal Nine, a great story and a fascinating look at what to do if current events go sideways in a hurry.
David Bruns is the creator of the sci-fi series The Dream Guild Chronicles, one half of the Two Navy Guys and a Novel blog series about co-writing a military thriller, and co-author of Weapons of Mass Deception, a story of modern-day nuclear terrorism.