In the beginning, it was just a book. In the end, it was just a book. 
 But in between, it was reality. It was scary, it was so real. This book is the newest, most relevant of a series of books that may or may not have begun with Orwell's 1984 and continued through untold numbers of others, among them Koontz's Dark Rivers of the Heart. 
 This book and others like it illustrate a quote by one of my favorite historical figures, Benjamin Franklin. "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."