Black Rain For Christmas

After 50 years of the Cold War and 25 years of the War on Terror, the world hoped for peace and prosperity but instead faced crisis after crisis: genocides in Iraq, Somalia, Rwanda, Congo, and the former Yugoslavia. Meanwhile, global militaries shrank as nations pursued a "peace dividend," relying instead on technology to act as force multipliers stealth bombers, advanced tanks, and digital systems that made small forces devastatingly effective.

Yet history echoed Plato's warning: "Only the dead have seen the end of war." Every collapsed regime and ignored genocide was a signal of how quickly the world could spiral into total conflict. After 9/11, counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke told the commission America failed due to "a failure of imagination."

Black Rain for Christmas, written in 1992, imagines how a small international crisis could spark a third world war. Told through news reports, letters, and narrative, the novel explores how 21st-century technologies might both empower and endanger modern militaries. Decades later, its predictions are familiar. It's a haunting reminder: when mankind stares too long into the abyss, the abyss just might stare back.