Atlas Shrugged (Book Review)

Let me start with the declaration that Ayn Rand is most definitely a philosopher who writes novels and not the contrary.
The purpose of the book is to condemn socialism. Ayn Rand was born in Russia, but lived most of her life in the United States. My assumption is that her parents had strong emotions against what was happening with Russia's government when they immigrated to the U.S. thereby instilling certain ideals in their astute daughter. Despite what may have inspired Ms. Rand's thinking, she was right and gave a very valid thousand page novel to defend her opinions. I must at this point admit that I did not read the novel, but listened to an abridged book on CD.
In the novel Rand has a definite line between good and evil. The bad guys, for lack of a better term, constantly assume someone else will take care of their problems. They very much live under the mantra "You are your brother's keeper." What I found to be interesting about this group of men is that they all seemed to be wealthy-they were a contradiction to their own belief of communal support. To exhibit one of their off-kilter schemes I'll relate an instance from the book: they decided to pass a law prohibiting any new books from being written so as to give old books and lesser known books a fair chance. How can you take pride in achievement if you didn't have to work for it? Furthermore, what are the writers of the world doing while they are not allowed to publish new works? It becomes a waste of talent and causes society to pick up the slack of this non-working portion of the population.
The good guys on the other hand were fighting for free enterprise. One by one the most powerful businessmen in America were vanishing. As it turns out, they were all living in the great state of Colorado in an Atlantis like city. They refuse to live in the destruction that was sure to take hold of America in such socialist conditions, so they created a society of their own.
Eventually, they bad guys have ruined America with their socialist leadership. No one takes pride in their jobs, people become mindless and expect everything to be given to them like caged rats at feeding time. And worst of all everyone expects someone else to fix the problem. Of coarse we find in the end socialism is a terrible idea with horrible repercussions.
Ayn Rand does a wonderful job conveying her ideals. A few things I didn't like include: the rigid nature of her characters. Either they were totally and completely good or totally and completely bad. There was no gray area or internal struggle, which takes out the human quality of characters. I also feel that the love triangle is very predictable and slightly corny. These facts aside, it's an excellent book that truly depicts a very real picture of socialism.