In both his novels and in his groundbreaking 2005 essay, How We Live Now, John Twelve Hawks was one of the first authors to warn us about the growing power of surveillance technology. Now he has written Against Authority, a personal and controversial book that shows how our lives are watched and analyzed by governments and international corporations. In a world in which our actions can be monitored by a computerized grid of social control, is there anything we can do to defend our freedom?

Is this a new era of political fiction? Faced with threats to humanity such as global warming, writers might wonder if they should address these concerns in their novels, short stories, and screenplays. In a short, insightful essay, the New York Times best-selling author, John Twelve Hawks, describes both the power – and limitations – of fiction. Writing as the Sky Rains Death raises crucial questions for contemporary writers, and readers.