Post by chyrondave on Apr 23, 2011 18:03:23 GMT -5
This semi-futuristic political thriller begins with a basic premise: What happens to the world when all oil based products are destroyed. The author attempts to look at what happens to the U.S. when an eco-terrorist movement calling itself Daybreak releases a nanotech plague which attacks petroleum based products (oil, gas, plastics, etc). Throw into this chaotic mix the assassination of the Vice President, and the United States is thrown into chaos (the title of the book refers to an actual directive on the succession of power).
Both the concept of the aftermath of such a catastrophic attack, and the idea of who will lead the country are both intriguing. The only problem is that the author really fails to gel the story together. It takes far too long to get to the actual "Daybreak" event, with the focus of the story shifting too much between all the elements of "Daybreak" and the people who are trying to prevent it from happening.
Almost to make up for the prolonged set-up for Daybreak, the author glances over other aspects of the story, some of which had the potential for being a really good story. It is as if the author was not exactly sure where his focus should lie when he decided to write this story and put too much into it. Considering that this is a planned trilogy (Book 2, Daybreak Zero, was just released in hardcover as of this writing), it would have served the story better to have built on a lot of the ideas covered here in the next volumes.
Both the concept of the aftermath of such a catastrophic attack, and the idea of who will lead the country are both intriguing. The only problem is that the author really fails to gel the story together. It takes far too long to get to the actual "Daybreak" event, with the focus of the story shifting too much between all the elements of "Daybreak" and the people who are trying to prevent it from happening.
Almost to make up for the prolonged set-up for Daybreak, the author glances over other aspects of the story, some of which had the potential for being a really good story. It is as if the author was not exactly sure where his focus should lie when he decided to write this story and put too much into it. Considering that this is a planned trilogy (Book 2, Daybreak Zero, was just released in hardcover as of this writing), it would have served the story better to have built on a lot of the ideas covered here in the next volumes.
