On The Nightstand – The Rods And The Axe – 5/7/2018

Sunk Cost Fallacy

In economics, a sunk cost is any cost that has already been paid and cannot be recovered. The sunk cost fallacy is a mistake in reasoning in which the sunk costs of an activity – instead of the future costs and benefits – are considered when deciding whether to continue the activity.  The sunk cost fallacy makes it more likely that a person or an organization continues with an activity in which they have already invested money, time, or effort, even if they would not start the activity had they not already invested in it. The greater the size of the sunk investment, the more people tend to invest further, even when the return on added investment appears not to be worthwhile. 

I can’t think of any other explanation for why I bought both this book AND pre-ordered the next in the series – “A Pillar Of Fire By Night” – than that laid out in the quote above.  This is the sixth book in the series – preceded by:

• A Desert Called Peace (2007)
• Carnifex (2007)
• The Lotus Eaters (2010)
• The Amazon Legion (2011)
• Come And Take Them (2013)

I thought I’d given up on this series after “Come And Take Them”.  The world Kratman has built is ridiculous.  It assumes a precursor race went to the trouble of terraforming a distant planet in such a way as to create a biological replica of Old Earth.  Once discovered, the Transnational Government of Old Earth colonizes the New World by transporting a representative sample of all the national populations of Old Earth – who promptly recreate their old countries on the new World.  You find the U.S., Russia, China, Japan, France, England, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Vietnam, Colombia, Argentina, Somalia, Israel – of course – Panama – the ultimate protagonist nation in the book.  They also manage to conduct a repeat of Old Earth history – with a World War that ends with nuclear weapons being employed by the new U.S. against the new Japan and a second Iraq War.  You’d think that cascade of improbabilities would be enough to prompt me to walk away.

Then there’s the central character himself – Carrera – the Blue Djinn – who’s hard to characterize as anything but a psychopath.  The compounding atrocities he commits over the course of six books just start to wear you out.  By the sixth book, any sympathy you might have felt for the underdog nation – the new Panama – and the Government Carrera helps to build – which is hard to characterize as anything but a Fascist dictatorship unconvincingly clothed in the trappings of a Timocracy – is unsustainable when weighed against Carrera’s ruthlessness, the body count he racks up, the executions, the crucifixions, the torture and the formation and ruthless use of military units composed of women and the handicapped.  It goes on and on and it just gets to be too much.

There’s the contempt and disdain Kratman heaps upon the rest of the New World countries, the New World version of the E.U.  and their U.N. masters resident in orbit in the ships which brought the original colonists to the planet.  Journalists, politicians, lawyers, liberal democracy, transnationalists – all are painted black and evil with such a heavy, hate-filled brush.  Kratman treats the new U.S. less harshly than the rest of the New World states but it’s relative – they are portrayed as suffering from much of the same rot he layers onto everyone else in the New World he’s created.

Finally, there’s the premise in the second half of the series that this small country – the New Panama – is able to build a military and a militarized society that’s capable of standing against and defeating the combined militaries of all the major nations of the New World – with the single exception of an uninvolved New U.S.

Even with all that foolishness, I see this book and I think – I’ve come this far – I should carry on.  I consider myself a relatively educated and intelligent individual.  With so many good books to read – why do I waste my time.  The only explanation I can find is the Sunk Cost Fallacy.  My only consolation is that other, smarter individuals have fallen prey to the syndrome in situations where the stakes have been much higher.

This is my chance to encourage any who haven’t started down this road not to take the first step.  If you have, please turn back.  It only gets worse.