Sixth Column
by Robert Heinlein
This book takes place in a pretty distant future time, when the PanAsian empire has had a long time to expand internally until its population is very high, and it has technologies the western world lacks entirely. One day, the empire invades the United States, knocking over its defenses overnight. The only folks left behind are in a secret defense base barely known of outside of its walls.
Just after the invasion, one of the scientists comes up with a fundamentally new kind of technology based on the interaction between gravity, magnetism, and electric fields. This is as opposed to merely the interaction between magnetism and electricity, as much real-world technology works. The only problem is that, in the first trial of the technology, he accidentally kills most of the polulation of the base, including himself.
Most of the story consists of the remaining few soldiers trying to hold a successful revolution of a whole continent and superior technology, but miniscule numbers.
Since the war in the story is essentially a war between races, this is seen by some as a racist book. It also involves several racist characters, contributing to this idea.
I did not find the "racism" to be obvious in the book (except for a few places, where the context was appropriate (read: racist characters doign racist things)).
I give this book a 5/10
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