Book Review: My Father’s Name Is War

Reviewed by Nikolas Mavreas

An urgent collection of short fiction dealing with the U.S.’s military culture

Bauder’s My Father’s Name Is War: Collected Transmissions is a powerful collection of short fiction criticizing the United States’ military system and the consequences, both actual and imagined, of the so-called Global War on Terrorism.

Each of the nine pieces collected here is prefaced by a two or three pages long essay presenting the idea about to be explored. These pointed nonfiction sections are unflinching and scathing and perfectly situate the stories that follow them.

Most of the stories are grounded science fiction set in some near future where now-infant technologies, like artificial intelligence, virtual reality and brain-computer interfacing, are fully materialized realities. The author duly exploits but does not indulge in the dystopic potential of these nascent dark materials.

The futuristic premises include the use of socially marginalized groups as vehicles in computerized warfare and a vague apocalypse with a twist ending. In one story, Bauder projects the current lack of care for war veterans into a plausible future where they receive therapy through virtual reality, which allows them to revisit the source of their trauma. 

In others, big data and artificial intelligence corporations realize their unrestrained ambitions with unforeseen consequences. In the last story, we catch glimpses of the author’s family history but without the autobiography distracting from what is a piece of gripping and thought-provoking science fiction commenting on current American family dynamics, which are more than ever affected by ideological differences.

Bauder does not shy away from experimentation with form and style. Despite a couple of sentences drowned in excessive alliteration, this serves the work well, giving it character and a sense of ambition. One of the book’s chapters takes the form of a play, while another comes in the shape of a poem. The latter partially employs the stressed half line meter of Beowulf and Old English, thus indirectly creating echoes of other, long-dead military cultures.

The author’s prologue warns that the book is not an easy read and that it doesn’t intend to entertain per-se. The first is quite true. If this collection doesn’t entertain, it does provoke the reader to think and feel. It is a serious book with its anger constant and at times white hot. The anger, however, doesn’t obstruct the thinking, as the two are found in productive balance throughout. 

My Father’s Name Is War grapples with an individual’s own experience inside and adjacent to the United States war machine, but not without objectivity, resulting in a relentless critique of a manifestly destructive system. Bauder effectively urges the reader to stand by the country’s veterans and to help share their message. This compelling book is a powerful example of deep thought and anguish externalized through fiction.

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