The First Team

In this quite dated novel, the Soviets (although never referred to specifically as such) have conquered America without firing a shot through "trickery". In this effort they were aided by a self-deluded peacenik Senator with ambitions for the Presidency, a narcissistic hippie rock star and sex fiend, a self-deluded Black Power militant who's a murderer, rapist, and has ambitions for the Presidency, and the abolition of the draft—along with a self-deluded popular peace movement.

I know what you're thinking: why don't the rock star and peace movement ALSO have ambitions for the Presidency? Well, maybe they do!

Donald Trump would probably like this book, if he were able to read. Although I'm sure it's too long for him, even if someone tried to read it to him.

You may know of John Ball as the author of the acclaimed novel "In the Heat of the Night", which was turned into a movie starring Sydny Poitier as Virgil Tibbs. But Ball's Virgil Tibbs was much meeker than the Poitier version; he was basically a white man in a black skin-suit. Ball was white and rather conservative in many ways, and it showed in the Virgil Tibbs series of books.

It shows in "The First Team" even more.

The main character is Raleigh Hewlett, a Russian translator who works in the White House. To clarify, he speaks Russian; he's not Russian himself. The President is gone and in hiding, and a Russian has been sent to take his place. Russian troops are being airlifted in continuously. The United States has gone from a free democracy (okay, credit me with not rolling my eyes here) to a slave state overnight.

But the previous President had anticipated this possibility and made plans for it. Who was this (still living, but unrepresented in the book) President? A quote make it clear that it was John F. Kennedy. That pretty much pinpoints the time that the book was written.

As you might expect, there are some black characters in the book; or rather, "Negroes", as Ball always calls them. Actually the book is filled with outdated and frankly off-putting references to race. There's also a lot about Jews, for some reason. For some reason the Russians seem to have turned into Nazis, as far as Jews are concerned. Most of them end up fleeing to Israel, the brave little country that's a beacon of hope to the world and would never, EVER commit genocide on helpless children. 🙄

Sorry, couldn't help myself that time.

Anyway, it's really not very good. I made it through, but I wasn't sure that I would. All in all it's pretty predictable. The Russians are comic-book villians, mostly, until one redeems himself a bit. The main Russian enemy is basically Hitler combined with Skeletor, with absolutely no redeeming qualities. The good guys win (surprise!).

Oh, I almost forgot: the representation of women in the book is quite creepy. The main female character (who becomes the protagonist's girlfriend and gets pregnant, of course) is described as a sex bomb in a very repulsive, drooling way. Even a secret group of professionals, the "First Team" that is working against the Russians, spends some time drooling over her. It's honestly kind of gross.

There was one passage in the book that I did find interesting, though; a description of America under occupation:

"The stock market was again operating, but it was a world of illusions and shadows; the substance of business growth and development was gone. Makeshifts and substitutes once more became a forced reality; good merchandise of almost any kind was increasingly hard to find. And skilled services normally available at short notice were spoken of more and more in the past tense. The whole pattern of living underwent a substantial change in outlook: people no longer planned for the future, they planned for the day immediately ahead and hoped to live it out in peace. Following that, if all went well, they would try to prepare for the next."

If for some reason you want to read this one, it's available to borrow for free at the Internet Archive. But there are a LOT of better books you could read instead.

archive.org/details/firstteamnovel0000ball

Happy reading! 🤓📖