End Time: Notes on the Apocalypse

by G.A. Matiasz

This is a brand new edition of the prescient, near-future thriller. Written in a slashing, evocative style, End Time has received rave reviews in underground and small press circles. Is it just sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll in the year 2007? Hardly!
War and civil war rage across the former Soviet Union and much of the globe. Prosperous, competing regional capitalist blocs have been consolidated in Europe, North America and East Asia under transnational corporate leadership. The US is fighting a sophisticated, high-tech counterinsurgency war in southern Mexico, against a popular libertarian revolution claiming the tradition of Zapata. A military draft has been reinstated, and a strong antiwar movement flourishes on American streets. In Alabaster, a small town north of San Francisco, the novel's protagonist, Greg Kovinski, and a group of antiwar college students, gain possession of enough bomb-grade riemanium to build a nuclear weapon, and the City of Oakland rises in revolution to become the 21st century's Paris Commune.
"A compulsive readable thriller combined with a very smart meditation on the near-future of anarchism. End Time proves once again that Sci-Fi is our only literature of ideas."—Hakim Bey, author of TAZ and Immediatism
"G. A. Matiasz has created a charged, political, and very readable novel in End Time , jump cutting P.O.V. from character to character, pulling the reader into the plot as each character, quick as a Polaroid, develops into a fascinating persona." —Factsheet Five #51

Genres: Politics

299 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1996

About the author

Born in 1952, G.A. Matiasz was a late hippie and an early punk. He began self-publishing at 17 with a high school underground newpaper, and burned his draft card at age 18. Essays from his publication Point-Blank/San Diego’s Daily Impulse have been reprinted in Semiotext[e] USA, the Utne Reader, and War Resisters’ League’s short-lived youth publication SPEW! He has also published essays in Against The Wall, the New Indicator, Draft NOtices, and the San Diego Newsline. His first science fiction novel End Time: Notes on the Apocalypse was published by AK Press and was reprinted in Portuguese by a Brazilian publisher, Conrad Livros. He lives in San Francisco, where he wrote a monthly column of news analysis and political commentary for Maximum Rocknroll under the name “Lefty” Hooligan. 1% Free is published through his business 62 Mile Press.

Reviews

[Smiley III · Rating 5 out of 5]

G. A. Matiasz's mini-opus covers an awful lot of ground in just over 200 pages; considering the ideological (as in: the thought patterns people subscribe to, and the divergences that occur when they try to put them into practice) and mechanics (who knew this much about computers who was writing fiction in '97 — except Gibson, Sterling, and Shirley?) apparati which drive the people in this high-caliber work of speculative fiction, you wonder why so much other acclaimed stuff is, by comparison, so half-awake and lazy.

AK Press brought out a winner! Try and catch up. Be as surprised as I was.

[e v · Rating 4 out of 5]

what a beautiful riot what a beautiful fire

boastful 90's anarchist / third-worldist agit-prop reenvisiong the coming insurrection but way too silly and 90's it hurts

instead of the revolutionary masses , unions , and councils of the new zapatistas , the throngs of the autonomous anarchist black bloc ripping through the bay , the communists and anarchists all over the third world taking up the flags of the CNT/FAI , Pancho Villa , the Paris Commune , Tupac Amaru , the newly re-formed new afrikan black liberation army uniting lumpen gangs and the underground turning their guns against the pigs , and those who have are and will make history with or without " proper " organization

we focus on student activists boasting a revolutionary capacity their actions won't live up to just bluffs and playacting while the real action is off stage left

which is truly the curse for first world anarchists caught in the non-profit NGO'd activist trap of a coordination of components and campaigns offering room to manuever but not the mandate or autonomy to take the action that matters

and if you're not or you're claiming that you are but you're really not or if you're justifying why you're not even though you know you must then that's really fucking silly

but i guess when the time comes you'll be a fugitive sneaking into the liberated zone to defend the revolution anyways and the petty-bourgeois radicals can sneak back to their studies and jobs and structural comfort while their comrades who risked it all are in prison and the guerrillas in the south continue on towards their future

silly or heartbreaking i'm not sure

but how beautiful to imagine revolutionary free liberated new afrikan oakland even if for a moment

[Paulo Oliveira Jr · Rating 5 out of 5]

A realidade nua e crua em uma reviravolta ao império americano

[Jim Beckmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Planning on re-reading this as all I really remember was that I really liked it. It will be interesting this time around to read a future history set in 2007. 9/12/13 Just finished it. Even better than I remember. So much going on in this story but it never gets confusing. What I liked most were the political commentaries of the main character. He was a peripheral member of the anti war movement till a chance encounter puts him in the middle of the action. Though this book comes from a left perspective, there is extensive critique of all manner of leftist ideologies and actions. He dissects the good from the bad in Marxist/Leninism, Anarchism, violence, non violence, consensus, etc. This book is so many things, a detective story, a future history, science fiction, and a commentary on politics, and relationships. Refreshing and rare to see an author so thoroughly take apart his side of the political fence. highly recommend this book.

[Ryan Mishap · Rating 2 out of 5]

At times, this novel is exciting, imaginative, and downright incise in its political/social survey of the near future. But, it becomes obvious that the author idolizes Illuminatus! too much, and, at these points, the book descends into silly male sexual fantasy.
The "reports" describing warfare and technique/technology are worth getting the book for from the library or used some where, if you can stomach the poorly written sex scenes.