The Last President

Daybreak #3

by John Barnes

An author who “excels at combining the tension of the chase with the elements of science fiction,”* John Barnes delivered a fascinating and frightening scenario about the collapse of America’s political and social infrastructure following the destruction of modern technology. Now, the author of Directive 51 and Daybreak Zero continues his story of the wild postapocalyptic frontier—and humanity’s last desperate attempt to re-civilize their world…

For more than a year, Heather O’Grainne and her small band of heroes, operating out of Pueblo, Colorado, have struggled to pull the United States back together after it shattered under the impact of the event known as Daybreak. Now they are poised to bring the three or four biggest remaining pieces together, with a real President and Congress, under the full Constitution again. Heather is very close to fulfilling her oath, creating a safe haven for civilization to be reborn.

But other forces are rising too.

Some people like the new life better...

In a devastated, splintered, postapocalyptic United States, with technology thrown back to biplanes, black powder, and steam trains, a tiny band of visionaries struggles to re-create Constitutional government and civilization itself, as a new dark age takes shape around them.


*Rocky Mountain News

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Post Apocalyptic, Thriller, Apocalyptic, Science Fiction Fantasy, Politics

400 pages, Hardcover

First published April 6, 2012

About the author

John Barnes (born 1957) is an American science fiction author, whose stories often explore questions of individual moral responsibility within a larger social context. Social criticism is woven throughout his plots. The four novels in his Thousand Cultures series pose serious questions about the effects of globalization on isolated societies. Barnes holds a doctorate in theatre and for several years taught in Colorado, where he still lives.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bar...

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

I lost interest in this, the third book in a series which had an interesting premise. Too many characters who did not stand out and too much jumping around. I lost interest and skimmed to the end, which was interesting. Perhaps I'm a little too harsh to give this 2 stars. It's more like 2.5.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoying this series. Things are looking pretty bleak for civilization this time around and the United States is on the ropes. But there are still good people out there, doing what needs to be done. Plus, a glimpse at the likely-extraterrestrial nature of Daybreak itself--has this happened to other civilizations on other planets before? Keep writing 'em, Mr. Barnes, and I'll keep reading...

[Papaphilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful ending to a great series. The Last President is the final installment of the Daybreak series and it goes with a bang. Full of action, but a deeply philosophical novel, John Barnes provides an intense read. This is both for the adrenaline junkie and the philosophical guru. Nobody is safe in the new world and heroes die. This is a world of white hats, but not really black, but grey hats. This is an intellectual read and not an easy one to follow, but well worth the travel.

The Last President asks the probing question, if the world falls, what takes its place politically? John Barnes studies three systems of government and shows the failure of each, but also the strengths. His preference is obvious, yet he does not shortchange the other two. Hard times call for hard measures and harder men and values fall to the reality of the situation. Yet, keep up the good fight because it is what you do. This has a large cast of characters with few true heroes, but lots of average rising to meet the challenge.

The Last President is a hard book full of pain and death, yet it is also optimistic on the world. Take the time and read all three books especially if you like well written deep reads with action.

[Forrest · Rating 1 out of 5]

[THERE ARE SPOILERS DISCUSSED BELOW.]

Ok. (rubs face) Ok. So. I'm just going to say it. This book was so bad, I don't even know where to begin. However, I WILL say this up front: the entire book's plot can be summed up in one sentence. Here it is: The good guys established in Books 1 and 2 lose and most die violently, the United States dies, the bad guys completely and irreversibly win and desperate for a way to end the story, the author blames it on aliens. That's a wrap.

That's it. That's literally this entire book. I have read many, many books in the post-apoc genre and I usually enjoy these books even if they are somewhat amateurishly written. This book however, was just unenjoyable because there are several key issues. Let's go into them.

1. All the characters are STILL written as though it's one person talking to themselves, which means that ultimately not one of the characters are memorable. Motivations for actions are slim, and the characters all speak in the same "tone". This is compounded by the fact that the author apparently thought he was able to do what, say, George RR Martin or Peter Hamilton can do. He can't. Those authors can write huge casts of characters, each with their own voice, each fully fleshed out, and the reader is able to follow along with all of these characters because they are memorable and unique. For example, there is literally no difference between Heather O'Grainne, Bambi Castro (one of the dumbest character names in recent memory), Allison Sok Banh, or Captain Highbotham. Same tone, same diction, same point of view, every one. Terrible, terrible writing.

2. The author clearly lost the plot. There's a very clear feeling in the book about halfway through where it is glaringly obvious that Barnes was like "Ok, I have no real idea where to go from here, so time to burn it all down". So, essentially 98% of the main characters get slaughtered, the bad guys steamroll the whole thing, the country splits apart completely, and the few remaining "good guys" retreat to a faraway place (California) to live out their lives, and at the very end....well, that's number 3.

3. Ok, so the entire premise from the first page of book one was that "Daybreak" was some sort of mass movement by a bunch of Americans who hated the entire concept of modern day civilization and thus perpetrated a bunch of different actions which completely took the entire world back to a turn-of-the-19th-century steam-engine age where cloth-winged biplanes are a thing and so on. No electricity, no plastic, no advanced technology of any kind thanks to the release of bioengineered nanobots and bacteria that eats plastic and destroys any sort of electrical componentry. In addition, there's a "moon gun", a giant gun emplacement on the moon that shoots giant fusion bombs into the upper atmosphere anytime the use of radios (the most advanced form of communication now) is detected. Many, many cities and areas of the country are completely destroyed. The first two books are primarily the political infighting between the two different factions of the remnants of the American Government who both believe they're the legitimate authority and the other is a fake. So, there we are. That was the entire plot of the first two books, where the main characters were trying to pull together a country that was suddenly and violently split apart in the ensuing chaos and destruction. Well, this entire time, the concept of "Daybreak" was that it was a mass "movement" by these hippies. In the second book, the concept was evolved to be some sort of mass hysteria mind-control deal because people would be captured, and if you made them say "Daybreak isn't real", they would collapse into violent seizures. And "Daybreak agents" were essentially embedding themselves into the personal space of all of the few major leader characters. Well, in THIS book, at the end, it is revealed that "Daybreak" is some sort of extraterrestrial insidious form of mental suggestion where all the people were convinced completely without their conscious understanding by space aliens to create these various things that would completely destroy the advanced technological civilization of Earth and kill 90% of the people on the planet. Yes, this is a thing that happened, all in the like, last ten pages of the book.

There are more, but I'm going to stop here, because it just irritates me thinking about how I bought all three books in this trilogy and wish I had read some reviews before doing so. Oh well, take my advice, save the $23 or so, and don't bother with these books, they're terrible.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is possible that some people will read this book without having read the previous books in the series. They will find themselves trying hard to figure out what was and is going on. I have read the previous books and had trouble remembering the back story.

I don't think that many people will be satisfied with the conclusion of the story and the fates of the characters. I can think of at least two major characters that are not given any kind of conclusion. I found that very unappealing, others might not.

[Gar · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Last President is the third book in the "Daybreak" immediately-post-apocalyptic series. It's not very good but I keep reading it anyways. It's the kind of Schrodinger's Not Very Good that has a wave superposition state between Not-Very-Good-But-Enjoyable and Simply-Not-Very-Good.

The apocalypse in this case being the deliberate crashing of global civilization by way of releases of genetically engineered bacteria that ate most processed oils and plastics, and nanotech doohickeys that ate most circuitry. Also buried hydrogen superbombs in several key locations. Also--I'm not making this up--a moon base that automatically fires more nukes tuned to deliver powerful EMP bursts over any radio signals that manage to stick around too long. Basically, Daybreak is a boot stamping on the face of technology, forever. (Also, readers will have "an atomic moon gun? Seriously?" in the backs of their heads forever.

The first book was primarily concerned with making the actual business of the collapse of civilization and deaths of billions of people as boring as possible by instead concentrating on the moral that ensuring a continuity of federal government in an a sudden and ongoing global technological apocalypse is sort of complicated and difficult when most of the government has also just been killed. Which, granted, it no doubt would be, but the focus on constitutional minutiae is an odd choice. Incipient schisms form, different proto-nations forming each claiming they have the true government, from what'll be a christian theocracy to an obviously doomed-from-the-start attempt to just keep things steady state up in the northwest, to weirdo libertarian-prepper-neofeudalism wet dreams waking up presumably sticky and satisfied in their goldbug compounds in California (they're the ones who invent biodiesel airplanes that can still work despite the 'nanoswarm', natch).

The second book had the 'tribals' followers of the Daybreak mind virus organizing up and beginning to raid, and got deeper into that Daybreak itself was a self-organizing mind virus that took people over. Some people are immune to it, or make it mutate; one of those sets himself up as a new feudal lord leading 'True Daybreak' which doesn't want to make humanity extinct, he just wants to be a warlord living in relative top-of-the-pyramid. Continuing "continental government with barely any technology is hard, guys!" Black powder and axe work. Assassinations further fucking up continuity of federal government. More moon gun. Readers continue to think "okay, but an atomic moon gun in 2020-something?"

Book 3 starts with the Restored Republic Coalition--the non-theocratic "can we concentrate on rebuilding, you goddamn assholes?" schism of the nation--looking to have finally pulled its shit together. A big coalition army is prepared to defeat the massed Daybreak tribals once and for all, and things are afoot to reunite the various schisms of governance across the continent with that pesky problem out of the way. There's still the moon gun (an atomic moon gun?!) but it's in the realm of predictable weather events at this point, so everyone knows to put all radio equipment in safe shielding when the EMP's due, knows what the safe-to-risky windows of use are, etc.

Of course things go pear-shaped, that big army gets its ass handed to it, the last great general is killed. The Duchess of California fucks back off that way after murdering the RRC general who didn't let her die in a last stand with the Duke against the barbarian hordes. Plus he had the gall to think he could confiscate her biodiesel airplane, proving that governmental authority ultimately is always from the barrel of a gun WAKE UP SHEEPLE. Luckily, the barbarian hordes are forcibly converted en masse to True Daybreak, so they start fucking off back to grand high warlord's castle so he can live in power and comfort relative to dirt-scrabbling serfs. The titular last president throws up her hands and packs in the towel, and the USA as such closes up shop. Meanwhile, side characters have emerged from the wings to reveal that, yeah, okay, moon gun. It's aliens and we knew it was aliens. Also the alien influence has been around for decades and were behind a lot of the explosive technological growth, solely to give them all the hooks they needed to crash it hard.

There'll probably be more books, and I'll read those too.

[Sarah]

Just did not care. Too many characters in the first 40 pages and i couldnt remember whatnhappened earlier.

[Vivek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Compelled to read it because I read the previous two. Not particularly impressed by it, however.

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

I struggled to get through this series but I was determined to finish them.
I thought for a while near the end that it may not be so bad of a book but I was wrong. It really was a lame ending :(

[Tim Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full disclosure, I read the second book in the series, _Daybreak Zero_, back in November 2013 and though I didn’t hate it, I only gave it a two-star rating. I had a lot of problems with the book, the series, the setting, the writing, so I shelved the series until May of 2022, in the midst of deciding I wanted to finish series I had started previously. I also read reviews, spoilers and all, of this last book in the trilogy and knew I think what to expect. Some reviews are glowing, but some were very disappointed and it was those latter reviews I read closely and as result, almost passed on this book.

I have to say the book was better than I expected and I liked it more than the second instalment in the series. It still has problems but it is a better book overall. It has a number of positives, from finishing off most of the storylines and character arcs in the series to some actually really good pacing to some exciting action scenes to getting credit from me for some really strong women characters, most notably Bambi Castro (or Bambi Castro Larsen, still a ridiculous name), Jenny Whilmire Grayson, and Heather O’Grainne, with indeed arguably the most important characts in the book, at least among the good guys, all women. Also, all three women do have growth not only in the series as a whole but also within _The Last President_. The gruesome torture scenes in _Daybreak Zero_ are absent and for the most part the bad guys – the tribals and most especially Lord Robert – are well established and no longer need an introduction. With the lack of any technology more recent than say the 1920s and often maybe the 1880s and all the fighting in Indiana and the Midwest it felt more like an interesting alternate history fiction than anything post-apocalyptic and that was neat. There are a lot of players and names geopolitically – the Christian States of America, Manbrookstat, Texas, Temporary National Government (TNG), Provisional Constitutional Government (PCG) – but I never really felt confused about who was who or what their goals were. The author doesn’t forget the story is science fiction and there is indeed science fiction in the novel, namely about the origins of the Moon Gun and of Daybreak itself. All of these are good things.

However, there is still bad. Many of the characters do act and talk and joke alike. Even characters that are fairly distinct have similar speech patterns and senses of humor as each other. Several reviews I read noted this and I decided going into the book to pay less attention to who was saying what and instead look at how the dialogue furthered the action in the book rather than deepened the characters or furthered their individual character arcs and this helped. Though some characters were distinct – Lord Robert, Heather, and Bambi notably – many to me did blend together (though some characters, though important, don’t get many scenes at all, notably several of the people who might be the next president of the United States, who, spoiler alert, would also end potentially up being the last president of the United States).

Some of the humor, a lot of it really, is cornball and eyerolling. Nothing really cringey that I can recall, but just…not good. Maybe not as bad as the second book and I can believe people would talk this way, but I would rather not have had it.

There is a lot of death in the book, though I am unsure if I would put this in the good or the bad columns. Many named characters die. I might even say most of them. Some felt like they were killed off to tidy up the things thematically or wrap up the series or just to get to the point where indeed, we do in fact have a last president of the United States.

It’s a dark book and this too I am unsure if I classify this as a good or a bad thing. The good guys don’t do well. Though there were definitely individual and family happy endings in the book, not to spoil things, but the bad guys win. Even knowing this going into the book thanks to the reviews, it kind of surprised me. Though there are possible avenues where the good guys might one day win, it won’t be anytime soon when the book ends.

I do think the questions about the Moon Gun and Daybreak are answered as well as can ever be answered given the nature of the series. I get reviewers who say it was perfunctory or came really late in the book, but given the nature of the answers and the state of the world, personally I don’t see how it could have been more than that.

Lord Robert could have been given more page count or “screen time” and I still felt the bad guys could have more characters on their side to get invested in, but unavoidable I think given the nature of Daybreak. There were also some bad guys in Manbrookstat but they were even less developed and advanced than the tribals.

All in all not a bad book. Less political and personal intrigue than the first book and I liked that, there was a major twist with one of the characters from earlier in the series that was good though I think didn’t quite have the payoff I would have liked, as I said pacing was good and there was some good action scenes. It does feel like the author left themselves an avenue to advance the setting and possibly at least some of the characters.

[Jim Twombly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Other than messing with the basics of the Constitution and the order of succession it continues the Daybreak saga in thrilling fashion.

[Shannon Miller · Rating 1 out of 5]

Impossible to get into. So bored and I don't care about any of the characters.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The entire Daybreak trilogy was "don't want to put down" good, but this one was the best of the three, in my opinion. I'm amazed at Barnes' thorough and thoughtful handling of the story arc and the fictional world he created as a result. Several somewhat extreme and stereotypical characters, perhaps, especially the rapture-focused Christians, but overall they were mostly complex and interesting. Their misplaced and motivationally questionable heroism, especially.

There was no sweet, "Independence Day" kind of ending, for which I had frankly been rooting. And the closing scenes contained easily as much mystery as those in the beginning.

But I do hope that he'll write more - some sort of a follow-up, so earthers finally get some satisfactory retribution. If this quote is any indication, maybe that will happen:

“But whatever it (Daybreak) was,” Jamayu Rollings said, “it has just kicked our butt, and it is fairly likely that sometime not far in the future it will come back to do it again."

[Courtney La cava · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though this was the least enjoyable books, and the twist at the end is interesting but slightly disappointing, if no other reason that I would have loved to see the enemy actually confronted. This trilogy could use a fourth book, the way it all wraps up leaves room for more.

I agree with whoever in the book said the war against the tribals was pointless. There was a lot of great action but the reasoning why the war was pointless wasn’t the same as mine. I just thought it slogged down the first half of the book. In reality it was because tolerance instead of war would have been smartest. And the theory proffered makes so much sense. But I get why they fought, too.

Good book on the whole, only gets low marks for ending the series on let’s be honest, a pretty bummer ending for the fate of the United States.

[Emily]

I'm... not sure how I feel about this yet. If the first book was sci-fi and the second was political thriller, this book is a war novel. The second one kinda worked for me more, to be honest. This whole series is very much about a Plot, with interesting characters thrown in to complicate it a bit - if that isn't your thing you won't like this series. I had fun correctly interpreting a bunch of foreshadowing in this one, only to get completely blindsided at the end...

((spoilers follow))

Really, honestly, I was fine with an ambiguous ending where the United States is no more. BUT COULDN'T ROBERT AT LEAST HAVE BEEN MURDERED. PREFERABLY BY A LADY.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

These three books by John Barnes, Directive 51, Daybreak Zero and The Last President are a must read. They provide a chilling reason for why SETI may be a bad idea. The writing is excellent. Set in the near future, people all over Earth start working to reverse progress and take us back to the technology level of the early 1800's. The reason why this is so can't really be seen until the last book.

I bought the first book based on the cover and the description of the story on the back of the book. Three days later I bought the final two books.

I strongly reccomend these books.

[Dominic · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was not bad. I wanted to finish it to finish the trilogy. It was tough to get though but that might be because I read it during the Caronapocalypse 2020. The ending might have been rushed but I think we all feel story endings are rushed. It's still an entertaining read.

[Liam Proven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can't lie, this wasn't the easiest novel... But it was worth pursuing. I've read a bunch of reviews by people who didn't get it at all, and it isn't easy, it's true, but it was worth it. The ending was pretty unexpected, and then more so, then even more so. It was worth sticking with.

[Dale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let's just say that I knew what the ending would be very early in the 2nd book of the trio, but it is still very well written.

[Sandra Hamilton · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dreadful.

[Brian · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. I could not wrap my mind around the futuristic setting. I’m not sure if I need to read the first 2 books to do that but I’m not going to try. Very violent to start off also.

[M Tat · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a lot going on.

Not only in this work, but in the world of this work.

Because there is so much going on, Barnes seems to strive to address the highlights and/or impressive moments in the wreck that is post-catastrophe-still-amid-catastrophe Earth.

Unfortunately, because there is so much going on, this entire series would have been _best_ served using Harry Turtledove's 'Darkness' series as a model: it may take seven volumes to tell this tale, but tell _the whole_ tale and not just the selected (read: 'I think they're the most important, because I'm the author and I did the timeline') moments. Barnes could still apply his concise approach, but he'd have the opportunity actually best demonstrate the duress of these survivors, the more robust accumulation of elements that contribute to complications, and perhaps stray from an otherwise very didactic story that is heavy on exposition rather than benefitting from greater application of inference, allusion, foreshadow, flashback, anticlimax, etc.

The writing is _not_ poor, it's just limited and too brief, while also feeling exhaustingly long. This refers to a sort of time-dilation. In The Last President, the reader is literally hopping all over the U.S. (and the western hemisphere, when it comes down to it), in a fit of semi-spastic moments that are _meant_ to construct a sense of 'how the U.S. looks & feels, as a whole, as we move forward chronologically'. This allows for introduction of new characters, as well as some more context on existing characters. However, the hopping around leaves the new characters' development malnourished and doesn't really -add- much (if any) to the _original_ characters. . .leaving the reader with some very cardboard characters (O'Grianne, for instance) because the author seems to assume that 'we know her enough already, so why devote any more attention to her because OH HEY LOOK OVER HERE there's a crashing airplane and someone burning alive).
While the moments feel spastic, the hopping between all these moments becomes somewhat tiresome (read: mentally exhausting) because we're never sat with a particular set long enough to relate to them. Because we're not getting more than a few seconds snatches or glimpses of their persons, it feels like we're reading headlines rather than pacing intentionally through their lives. It seems that Barnes _wants_ us to pace through their lives, and understand the intricacies and complications that continue to affect these stalwart survivors, however the way that he's addressing character development betrays that and wipes our long-term interest out. That psychic exhaustion sets in after about 120 pages, and it feels like it takes FOREVER to get to page 200.
To provide a concrete example, I'll use a main 'vehicle' in the book. The science/research vessel named Discovery and its crew: all I know about the particular science ship called Discovery is that it's captained by a woman, there are two key sailor-scholars, and these two sailor-scholars are under 18 years old and male. These two boys seem to manage themselves sufficiently well, at least one has a parent with a Star Trek fetish, and the other one is trying to change how well he speaks English. These two boys could have been replaced with completely nameless NPCs (non-player characters) and it wouldn't change the story at all, and this is already page 240 of the novel.

[Randall · Rating 2 out of 5]

A Daybreak Haiku

i keep on reading
each chapter worse than the last
daybreak controls me

[Leons1701 · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a downer really, not how I typically read Barnes. But it's really hard not to see the whole world as pretty much utterly screwed at the end of this book. Now of course, this isn't the last book in the series, this is clearly the setup for a whole raft of sequels. Would it kill authors to write series that actually end any more? Despite that complaint (and a few others), I'll be around for the sequels because Barnes hasn't done anything to justify knocking off the list of my favorite writers. But it almost seems like he's trying.

The biggest complaint of course is the main reason I've spoilered this review.

HUGE SPOILER

What the heck do you mean, aliens did it?!? Seriously? This is not the series I thought I was reading. Now I'm wiling to swallow that large a conceptual shift, but I'm betting a lot of readers won't be. It makes sense, at least so far, explains a few things (mostly the moon gun) and is an evil surprise twist to the story. I'm just not sure I like it.

Another serious complaint. What the heck happened to Jenny? Probably nothing good given that the Christian States of America seem to be a going concern at the end of the book, but the book just drops her completely in the middle of a confrontation with her father and never mentions her again in the last 100 or so pages. Everyone else gets their situation at least partly resolved, we know where they are, if they're alive or not, and what they plan to do next, but not one word on Jenny. Now she's hardly my favorite character, though not nearly as much a villain as she seemed at the end of Daybreak One, but she doesn't deserve that treatment and neither do the readers.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm conflicted about the entire Daybreak series. On the whole I generally like John Barnes as an author and think he does a good job of sketching out a scientifically plausible story arc.

The characters and the dynamics between characters strike my as largely realistic (there are some stereotypical trivializations at times but then again stereotypes take root because there are a nontrivial number of individuals who fulfill them). Traits and environments are usually developed in a gradual, well-grounded manner so that toward the end of both the book and the series there isn't a sense of "well that just sorta came out of nowhere for no good reason." I appreciate the fact that in this final novel the story goes where (I think) it should go as opposed to a more emotionally satisfying but less intellectually satisfying conclusion.

But the cast of characters is so immense that is sometimes difficult to keep track of all the relationships and I was constantly flipping back to previous pages (or previous books) to remember who someone was and why they were important. Along with the plot occasionally dragging, this book was at times simply difficult to enjoy because the threads went in different directions the further you read and at times it felt like work trying to keep track of things that might be significant.

I plan to start from the beginning with Directive 51 and see if rereading all three from start to finish in much quicker succession gives me a more satisfied feeling about the story. I really want to like this series a lot but at the moment I'm simply exhausted finishing the story and am satisfied that it wasn't a waste of time.

[Charles Temm · Rating 1 out of 5]

horrible book...boring and worse for an idea not heavily explored, predictable.

Enviros destroy much of civilization and the survivors band together to try and rebuild while fighting the ravening hordes of iron age enviro fanatics. Worse, the enviros have released viruses etc to destroy plastics and any modern coms/machines by breaking them done into useless slag.

The characters all sucked and were at best one dimensional. Modern day politics has the statist Dems as the driving force of what passes for civilization.

The personal loss of folks the central "heroes" knew was all it took to derail their war efforts. To hell w/the folks who are fighting BECAUSE these "brave leaders" have motivated them to do so, our lives are more important than yours...

Too bad, the idea of enviro whackos going bugshit on the world while not new, sure doesn't get as much attention as the evil business types doing bad things to Mother Nature. Anyway, do not waste your time-there is nothing in this poorly written book worth wasting one's free time on

[Joe Slavinsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to hand it to Mr. Barnes, he created an extremely realistic, IMHO, post-apocalyptic world, with very human characters, for this trilogy. I've liked his stuff for some time, and he really kicked some serious butt, with this set. An unusual, demonic enemy, some "good" folks trying to not only survive, but rebuild the country, fraught with betrayal, and the motives of the different political factions, each wanting the country rebuilt on their own terms. With so many factions, pulling in so many directions, it's no surprise, that the end result isn't very satisfying to any of them. Somewhat of a surprise, is the explanation, in the last chapter, of the origin of "Daybreak". Just when you think all the loose ends were, sort of, tied up, Barnes tosses a firecracker into the midst. If you're into post-apocalyptic stories, you really should check out this trilogy. It's one of the better ones.

[Jeanne Boyarsky · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got into this series by accident. I found the first one fair and the second one good. I'm back to fair for the last one. First, it has been too long since I read the previous book so I didn't remember who the characters are. More importantly, I no longer wanted to know what happened to them. I wound up skimming a lot so I could find out how it ended. Book two had covered how Daybreak works and the implications so this felt like just drawing it out.

I did like the speculation of ideas about where Daybreak ended at the end.

[Cathy Doyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

So this book hasn't been published yet, so I'm only going to talk about it in general terms. The novel picks up where the last left off, with our band of heroes trying to fight the Daybreak to regain control of the United States. The story is told in short chapters which switch rapidly between various viewpoint characters, both in the US and abroad. Barnes doesn't try to tie things up in a neat tidy bow by the end, but does come to a conclusion which makes sense.

My thanks to Ace for providing me an advanced reading copy of this novel, which I've been anticipating for some time.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm sorry to see it end. This is the sort of thing I could keep reading and reading and reading.

I'm going to turn on the spoiler alert for additional comments.

I told myself I'd be really disappointed if aliens became involved. Well, they did, but by that time it was really the only explanation, and the alien explanation is much broader than I would have anticipated. Because I love post-apoc/social breakdown plots, and because I'm deep into the characters and the story as a whole, I was willing to forgive the introduction of aliens.