The Take-Us

How much disruption could an electric car that not only generated enough power to run itself, but also enough to power a couple of houses while driving around, cause in today’s run-by-oil world? And what will those profiting from gas-driven cars do to protect their power and money? With the inventor of the Take-Us electric car being a self-taught inventor and using a no-gas road trip across the country as publicity (accompanied by an attractive Fox News executive), there is the potential for an entertaining romp across America, along with some room for thought. The Take-Us fails on its potential by relying on highly stereotyped characters, clichéd situations and Republican talking points.

Take-Us inventor John Christenson is a self-made man of Ayn Randian proportions and could easily have fit into Atlas Shrugged, which is either a complement or a criticism, depending on your view of Rand’s writing. The Take-Us relies on a very black and white view of the world, people are either Good with a capital G or Evil with a capital E. The Good characters are mostly Christian Republicans, and the Evil ones are either foreign (middle-eastern particularly) or liberal democrats. Which does leave room for this to be a readable book for those who view the world in those terms. It is a cop-out to review something with the statement “if you like things like this, you’ll like it,” but The Take-Us may be a great example of such a book; if you like the politics, you’ll probably enjoy the book. If you don’t, you won’t. And, in some ways, that is a pity There was a potential to tell an entertaining story for a broader audience, especially one with the electric car theme in today’s Green movement; unfortunately, a majority of those readers are probably liberal Democrats.