A Song Called Youth, Eclipse Book 1

By John Shirley
First Published: 1987
Rating: Very Good, but dated.
A Song Called Youth envisions a future in which the economy of the United States has crashed and the Soviet Union has not only remains intact, but also invades Western Europe. With the collapse of NATO, governments have abdicated control to an ostensibly private anti-terrorist and security firm, the Second Alliance. But the fascist mercenaries of the alliance are working from a hidden agenda, and their only challenge comes from the New Resistance, a rogues’ gallery of rebels who battle mind control and weapons of mass destruction with sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.
The “eclipse” of the title refers to the shadows that war casts across the light of conventional morality, allowing citizens to tolerate the erosion of their civil rights. The plot, praised as “chillingly plausible and carefully developed” by Kirkus Reviews, shifts between the political chaos of Earth and the vast space colony of FirStep. Originally published in 1985, the novel offers prescient views of the rise of drone surveillance, the growth of Europe’s radical right movements, and an increasingly dark web of media manipulation and propaganda. A compelling tale in its own right, Eclipse offers a wealth of action and intrigue that reaches a thrilling climax and conclusion in the sequels Eclipse Penumbra and Eclipse Corona.