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HULAGU'S WEB
The presidential pursuit of Senator Katherine Laforge

The following review of Hulagu’s Web is a non-spoiler that outlines the basic premise of the story, without divulging the plots or events that occur as the story unfolds. You can find out much more about the story because the first five chapters are being pre-released in E-book and audio format to anyone wishing to enter the $1000.00 “Guess the Ending Contest”.

The E-book or audio book for the first 5 chapters are free to anyone desiring to see if they have the ability to predict the ending of the story. Each entrant who downloads the E-book of audio book also receives a $5.00 off coupon towards their future purchase of Hulagu’s Web on its 2005 summer debut.

The actual announcement of the winner of the “Guess the Ending Contest” will take place on July 4th 2005.

The story opens with the discovery of the bullet riddled campaign bus of Senator Katherine Laforge a few miles south of Charlestown N.H. The scene at the presidential campaign bus is grim with multiple bodies found in and around it. Her campaign had already been plagued with some of the most violent protests recorded against a presidential candidate, but the assassination attack of her and her aides became the symbol of the unrelenting waves of political hate that were tearing America apart at the seams.

Hulagu’s Web is a story about present day political turmoil and Senator Katherine Laforge’s run for the presidency. She is a second term Texas senator with a strong national following for her no nonsense solutions to critical national problems. She recognizes early on in the presidential race that she has a viable chance to win if she offers real solutions to critical issues and avoids the tumultuous, muck raking that her opponents thrive on.

Her solutions are quickly welcomed by a large segment of the voting population but just as quickly she and her policies become the target of media pundits and celebrities who take on the attack for the powerful elements of society who see their fortunes and life threaten by her draconian changes.

A clandestine audience with Saddam Hussein to deliver her own preemptive solution for the Iraq crisis is part of her strategy to upstage her opponents. She hopes that this trip will provide her with an Iraq solution she can offer to her constituents, just as President Reagan did in the 1980 election with the Iran hostage crisis. She feels her clandestine trip to Iraq is worth the political fall-out that may accompany it, because if her gamble pays off and she succeeds, she will be a clear and present danger to her opponents.

Part of her political platform is her draconian stand on replacing Income tax with a National Sales tax. Her promise to implement a National Sales tax and to phase out income tax confronts her with many who despise her proposed changes. Her adversaries include accountants, law firms and an army of IRS agents convinced that if she wins their power and life will be destroyed. Celebrities and many of the new rich become bitter opponents to Senator Laforge’s National Sales tax as they realize their conspicuous consumption and ostentatious spending habits would be severely altered by her policies. But the general public welcomes the dream of receiving their entire paycheck and paying their taxes as they spend their money and not worrying about April the 15th ever again.

Katherine Laforge’s platform stand of making American an energy self sufficient country pits her against those who need the status quo of our Middle East oil dependency to maintain their wealth and power. She finds herself attacked by members of both parties who have powerful backers demanding that their concerns be addressed and her policies buried. Her plan is an aggressive program that dwarfs even the II World War “Manhattan Project” created to produce the atomic bomb. She feels that it is necessary and correct to spend an amount equal to the current $300 billion annual expense that is earmarked in the defense budget to ensure the transport of oil from the Persian Gulf to our ports.

An infusion of money at this magnitude into the fuel producing technologies of today, the windmill farms, thermal depolymerization processes, solar energy sources, and hybrid cars would soon move our country to not being reliant on the whims of the oil barons, the sultans and dictators of foreign countries or terrorist who seek to destroy our economy and our country.

As her campaign evolves from an interesting by-line to front-page news and her supporters grow to a critical mass she finds herself targeted by yet another vocal group, women who believe only a man is qualified to be president. She finds herself ridiculed, venomously denounced as a freak of a woman and the love of her children and husband is questioned. She is picketed by women religious groups that heckle her as the rich man’s harlot and by celebrities as the most contemptuous presidential candidate that ever ran.

As her campaign progresses she finds a smaller and smaller group of close associates that she can trust and confide in. Her policies and ideas are polarizing the nation and she is drawn back to three of her old childhood friends that know the real Katherine Laforge and are not swayed by the caricature that the front-page pundits have portrayed her.

We hope, you will find this tale of political intrigue rich with detail, topical references, and interesting characters a story that will make you question your own beliefs and the strange world we live in.