Preview of The Western Lands Summary:

In The Western Lands, Burroughs moves beyond devastating descriptions of worlds in chaos and collapse (as in the plague-ridden planet of Cities of the Red Night, 1981) to prescribe a remedy for the social ills he has been challenging. The core idea of repressive force wielded by people or organizations bent (often blindly) on annihilation of the species recurs as a continuing motif, but instead of challenging destructive force with its lethal counterpart, Burroughs offers a means to escape from this doom-driven arrangement. In accordance with his previously introduced theme that an alteration in consciousness is necessary for any significant transformation, Burroughs argues that if a sufficient number of people are made aware of the conditions of imprisonment and shown an alternative mode of behavior, a community may be born in which the so-far "always imaginary — world in which I would like to live" might become a reality...