American Kiss by Dr Danny de Gracia

“…the classic icon of the 20th century was the American kiss.  Look at the scenes from the end of the Second World War.  Men and women had fire, moral passion, unbridled love for life and love for one another.  It showed in the way they kissed each other.”

Danny de Gracia: political scientist, patriot, politician, writer, my good friend, and now – novelist.

This summer de Gracia finished his first book, American Kiss; a collection of short stories about what once made this country great, and how it might one day be great again.  It is a patriotic romance, eminently comparable to the writings of Robert A. Heinlein.

A weighty claim that?  Certainly – and one I use as both a compliment and a critique.  As much as I love Heinlein, his writing had its flaws, but in my estimation his virtues out shone his vices; I feel much the same about de Gracia’s writing.  And if you’re a fan of the former, I think you’ll enjoy the latter.

The similarities have much to do with the characters of the two authors.  Danny de Gracia is an erudite, political idealist, nearly to the point of naivete, saved by his solid grounding in realpolitik and military affairs.  His editorial writing is strongly informed from both a political science and “Air Force Hardware Junky” perspective, while his rhetoric is full of passion and integrity.  This is what makes American Kiss great; the speeches given by the various protagonists on morality, self-sacrifice, and hope – and the attention to detail given to the hardware/scifi elements.  This isn’t ‘military scifi’ that explores the nature and implementation of, say, rail guns and lasers, or nano-bot medkits; rather it’s scifi space fighters being written about by a man who’s intimately familiar with the development cycles, cost/benefits analyses, and performance/repair ratios of modern day military tech.  The world feels very ‘lived in’ and realistic – these aren’t iPads, they’re user-unfriendly milspec.

The stories are varied, both in their focus and their the date in which they occur, but the themes of romance and personal integrity run through them all.  It begins with a presidential candidate in the 2030s, explaining the themes of his presidency (and the book itself) to his staff.  Next is a look back to the 90s, as Generation X experienced the death of romance.  It’s followed by a speculative short where the State of the Union has become a lottery-based Reality TV affair.  After that, more speculative-fiction in the near-future/present, where the military takes advantage of Multiplayer Games to develop talent.  He finishes off with 23XX (and what a great note to finish on), an American-led Earth revolt against a Galactic Federation of schmoozing bureaucrats and rat finks, mixed in with a great romance, religious symbolism, and…

…well, read the book, I’m not going to spoil it.

Now I compared his writing to Heinlein, both as a compliment and a critique, and I should address those criticisms.  His heroes and villains are just that – heroes and villains;  de Gracia doesn’t write about cynical anti-heroes, there is no gray, just the harsh contrast between black and white.  Personally I find this refreshing, but it can lead to a sense of the characters being simplistic to modern eyes.  I don’t believe that they are – there is a great deal of philosophical depth to the characters, but there is a lack of literary depth to the characters.  Furthermore, his action sequences aren’t gripping in and of themselves; the writing is clear and accurate, but not emotionally impactful.  It’s exciting because you care about the characters, because the world is believable, and because you understand the stakes – but I thought there were opportunities missed to examine the visceral horror of certain scenes.

It’s the opposite of Transformers, which had no characters, but the Pod Race was pretty cool.

One critique I will make, unique to de Gracia though – this book badly needed chapter breaks.  Make sure you have a bookmark when you read it.

Overall, if I had to give it a numerical score, I’d say the writing is 7/10: it’s functional, it’s clear, it’s clean, it’s a pleasure to read, but the writing alone doesn’t suck you in.  The stories, however – that’s 9/10.  There were some places where I think it could have been tightened up, where the pacing was a bit slow, but I cared about the characters, and it was such a pleasure to read a novel by someone who truly believes in American Exceptionalism.

American Kiss can be purchased at Barnes & Noble, or through Amazon.