The Wastelanders by Tim Hemlin

Blurb:

America is controlled by a corporate oligarchy known as the Water Cartel and warrior-priest Joey Hawke finds himself trapped between a mysterious geneticist amassing a clone army and a group of political fanatics convinced that a dead president will rise from his tomb to lead them to salvation. Caught outside his spiritual haven when the Cartel moves against the Wastelanders, Joey is aided by Bear, an enigmatic weapons runner, Moon, a lovesick Scrapwoman, and Bernie Hawke, his estranged father. But against the Cartel's military strength, led by the power hungry Rex Fielder, Joey's only hope may be Si-Ting, a young woman with prescient abilities--a woman who not only holds the key to his heart but also to an American conspiracy to crown its future with the withered laurels of the past.


Here is what reviewer Peaceseeker said about The Wastelanders:

'The Wastelanders' paints a disturbing picture of a dystopian society in America in 2116. The character development is layered and skilful and I was reminded very much of George Orwell's '1984': the ubiquity of the spy network, the menace and the mercilessness, the corruption and amorality: the totality of control in what is left of a clapped-out world destroyed by the senseless greed and paranoia of those in power. And yet beyond the totalitarian bubble - along its rim, and in the Wasteland beyond, populated by the banished - against apparently impossible odds comes the hint of a savior.
When we get into the Wasteland we find the anarchy that pervades 'Mad Max'. This is an allegorical journey through a futuristic hell on earth, which I will not describe because you need to make your own ËœPilgrim's Progress" through it. Suffice it to say that while it is a harrowing journey, it is one well worth making. Power brokers have initiated their own equivalent of the burning of the Reichstag Building in order to justify a kind of genocide presided over by the looming absence of a Fuehrer with a plan to live a thousand years. By the 21st century, cloning has reached a whole new level.
Tim Hemlin is a poet, and more than anything else his poet's perception enriches this book. Bone meal breaks beneath the brittle sun. Light deliquesces into darkness. There is an ellipsis of rooks. Coils of contempt tighten upon a face. He's a dab hand at telling similes: The long shadow of the late Leonard Malcolm Litz darkened the room like the stubble on Dick Nixon's face. The sun, like a flaming ball of barbed wire, scarred the sky. Expect strong metaphors as well, of course: the grin was a cheap coat against hard rain, the place had the stability of a home-made bomb; it was a toilet bowl waiting to be flushed. Light the color of bad teeth began its daily infection, gradually eating away at the meat of darkness.
Do not expect to be able to suspend your disbelief; but instead accept it as apocalyptic allegory, luxuriate in its language and give due consideration to its message: this is a state of affairs we seriously need to avoid, and the time to act is now.

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