Readers, please join me welcoming Stuart Archer Cohen , author of The Army of the Republic who’s guest blogging here today! This book (Picador Trade Paperback; October 2009) is set in a dark alternate America – one that we have seen actual glimmers of over the past few tumultuous years. It is run by a corrupt government with designs to privatize public resources, and to silence dissent with a ruthless secret security force. But as the plans of greedy politicians and their corporate cronies begin to see the light of day, and dissenters are abducted and silenced, the citizens can no longer ignore the writing on the wall. Why I Wrote The Army of the Republic Like a lot of novelists, I usually write about things that won’t leave me alone. You have to really be interested in something to spend a few years with it every day, pursuing it around a dozen curves and into a hundred dead ends, only to have it disappear just when you think you’ve got it. The idea of revolution had been kicking a