"The Drought" is a short, intensely exciting novel about the desperate plight of decent farmers and ranchers in a distant but similar and technologically comparable future civilization. The farmers and ranchers are toiling in what was California's Central Valley. The book's theme concerns the consequences of unchallenged elements of corruption that run unabated in both government and industry; those consequences being the loss of democracy, freedom and a way of life. In a stark assessment of human passion, history repeats itself as dark plots involving insidiously placed and well financed terrorists who manipulate weather, train radicals for warfare, and successfully blackmail governments, contrasts sharply with the relatively innocence of kind citizens who are caught in the maelstrom of fear that unfolds from their evil designs. The book compels one to look closely at the price of apathy.