The arrests this week of four Georgia men on charges of conspiring to attack government buildings and employees while seeking out a ricin recipe -- has drawn attention to the online novel "Absolved" by Mike Vanderboegh. Authorities say it was a case of life imitating art, as the men drew inspiration from Vanderboegh's musing about folks battling government oppression -- sort of the anti-Occupy movement, with ammo.
According to the Associated Press, court documents accused the men of trying to obtain an explosive device for the attacks, and of seeking out a formula for the highly lethal toxin ricin.
Vanderboegh told AP his novel was a "useful dire warning" about what could happen if the federal government encroaches too far on the rights of armed citizens. On the Sipsey Street Irregulars blog, he offered a more detailed disavowal: "My as-yet-unpublished novel Absolved, for the uninitiated, begins with the premise that the ATF, for political agenda reasons of their own, has staged a deadly raid on the wrong Alabama good old boy from Winston County and what happens in the unintended consequences of that stupidity. There is nothing in there about ricin, or terrorist attacks on civilians (unless you count the forces of the federal government) or deliberate targeting of innocents. ... Absolved is fiction. I hope it is a "useful dire warning." However, I am as much to blame for the Georgia Geriatric Terrorist Gang as Tom Clancy is for Nine Eleven."
For a closer look at Absolved, you can check out the chapters gathered at the Gun Rights Examiner website.