COG

by Troy Grice

A lunatic president.A ten-trillion-dollar bunker. The nuclear football. And a salacious sex video. With his office infiltrated by a traitor and hobbled by incompetence, an increasingly unstable POTUS attempts a 'Hail Mary' that might just save the office of the president... even if it destroys the world in the process.

Genres: Science Fiction, Humor, Fiction

251 pages, Paperback

First published November 5, 2019

Reviews

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up to 4
Very entertaining and fun to read.

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this book in a goodreads drawing.

The President of the United States has a stroke on the eve of nuclear war, and is inside an underground bunker.

It's all very strange.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I want to start by saying that COG was very different from my normal read. I’m trying to branch out a bit and try new genres. That said, I found it an easy read that kept my interest. It was humorous and eerily similar to current situations. Though characters and events are highly exaggerated, it’s easy to “read between the lines.”

Thanks to the author and Goodreads Giveaways for my copy of COG.

[E · Rating 4 out of 5]

COG (Continuity of Government) was certainly a surprise read. What was frightening about the story is its relevance to current events. What makes this a must read is the great storytelling and imagination that went into creating believable characters in possible real life scenarios. Hopefully we will never find ourselves in the same situation. Politics at all cost plays a major roll. Whatever it takes to keep the current governing body in power will be done no matter the consequences, no matter the fate of humanity, no matter what personal sacrifices need to be made. Be warned some of the dialogue can be offensive to some, but don’t let that stop you from reading. There are plenty of twist and turns to keep you turning the pages. The majority of the story takes place in a super bunker “where the world’s elite gather to ride out an apocalypse designed to cull the human herd of useless eaters.” One of my favorite quotes from this book is “Live in your hopes, not your fears,” something to keep in mind. I recommend this book to anyone interested in political theater, hope for humanity, and being entertained.

I won this e-book on Goodreads.com

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to author Troy Grice for this free Kindle version of COG. Thanks also to Goodreads for hosting the opportunity.

I liked it. Needs some editing work, but a somewhat humorous look into the human foible of ego, and everything that goes with it. An uncanny resemblance to the reality of how the world is run.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

won from goodreads. thought i'd try something different and won this one. will read more by this author.

[Lisa Horsch · Rating 3 out of 5]

GoodReads Giveaway: I haven’t read a book quite like this since reading Catch-22 decades ago. It makes you laugh, cringe and shake your head. The awful president is a democrat rather than a republican, but there are strong, sad similarities to today’s events. The author evenly makes fun of every group.
-The brown house is renamed the earth house when it bring to mind poop, but gets changed back when people protest that the change was racist.
-Our nation has existed for a quarter of a thousand years.
-BNN calls the presidential race when the current presidents only wins Connecticut and the challenger says he may want a recount there, but it is only a simulated race in the bunker because they think they may have destroyed the world above with nuclear bombs.
-Get on the phone and make sure that Broward County finds some missing ballots. -The serving class in the bunker is called the Greys and the elites can’t understand why the Greys are not more grateful for being spared the nuclear holocaust. -Champions don’t make excuses. One time, we got down by 21 points to Denver due to some really gad calls and a bunch of guys on I.R., but we sucked it up and won. -Should we cancel or reschedule the Save the Earth Gala due to the nuclear Armageddon?
-The treasury department hasn’t used real data in years—everything is simulation based.
-Who is going to be left out and what would it take to buy their complicity?
-when you work for the Pentagon, the solution to every problem ends up looking like a missile.
-Choices when deciding to use nuclear weapons - Good, Better and Best. Best will annihilate your enemies, but end the world as we know it. However, the odds of preserving continuity of government so we can save democracy is 99%.
-COG=continuity of government
Hilarious!

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay nerdlings, I'm stumped to hell on how to rate this book. COG is about the arrival of WW3 and the provisions put into place to make sure the human race survives a nuclear war. The POTUS is very literally like a certain former president we had, but on crack. Racist, rude, power-hungry, and certifiably insane. This book was written in 2019 so I'm pretty sure I can say that's where his inspiration hit. Pretty damn sure. There were a lot of editing mistakes but past that fact, it was very well thought out and written. I'm really torn, it was interesting but also gave me crazy anxiety lmao. I think I would recommend this to anyone who would be interested in political intrigue or borderline thriller. I will say, I loved the conclusion, the wrap up was VERY nicely done. See why I'm so torn on how to rate?!

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Held my interest throughout

[Candra Hodge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Threat of nuclear war

What if the world was on the brink of nuclear war? How would humanity be preserved? The answer is A superbunker. But who gets to be in it? Read this book to find out more about humanity and its flaws.
I won this book thru a goodreads.com giveaway

[Ann Keeran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious tale of what could go wrong in Washington DC. A must read for anyone interested in politics. Think of it as a how-not-to!

[Karen Dandurant · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this book is hilarious and terrifying. It is hilarious because it is entertaining, and terrifying in its obvious association to current events. While I doubt something this awful will happen...it could.

[David Bryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The trouble is that it actually makes some sense.

As I prodded along with this story it finally came to me. This novel read like a mixture of President Bush, President Trump and "Catch 22" by Joseph Heller. In some ways of was like reading the current newspapers and trying to determine the legal battles and antics of our previous president and his loss of reality. ?

[Tracy · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Won this book on Goodreads). Futuristic story of a time where the end of days were expected to hit at any moment. An underground bunker is filled with residents who can afford to buy their ticket to stay alive and the "greys", who were there to be the worker bees. Whatever is not in the bunker is at risk of dying from nuclear war. The U.S. President is a narcissistic sociopath with a winning at any cost mentality. As the threat of destruction looms there are people trying to stop it as soon as possible. Fast read with slight twists and turns.

[DCL · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway.

When I got to the end, I realized I liked this book more than I thought I had. It took me longer than it should have to realize that it was satire - not sure if that was me (I confess to erring on the side of taking things too literally), the fact that the caricatures hit a little *too* close to home, or that the writing needed to be tightened up a bit - but once I did, I settled in and enjoyed the ride - and very much enjoyed the ending.

Some reviews have found POTUS' nicknames/etc. insulting, but that's...kind of the point. I have no problem with a flawed protagonist. However, I did find it jarring that the Chinese president was the only character whose speech was written to emphasize the accent. If the point is to write in the tone of the POTUS and exaggerate the "otherness" of the "enemy", then it seems to me like the Russian president (and, later, the Texan candidate) should have been written in dialect, as well. Or else draw less jarring attention to it by writing it fairly normally, and commenting (or having the POTUS comment) on the heavy accent.

[Joyce Cole · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great read! The characters resemble some political officials that are now in office. It is scary to know that an unhinged person has his finger on Armageddon and doesn’t what to believe the truth.

[Sherrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well that's different: a mediocre book with a good ending.

This political farce is, for much of its duration, uncomfortably close to current national and global affairs. World leaders, each a caricature, are motivated more by their own arrogance than by the interests of their citizens. Technology has been exploited to outfit a subterranean bunker-based continuity of government (COG) enterprise that is in many ways a miniaturization of the above-ground world. Catering to the worst qualities of the elite, the COG environment behaves like an exclusive resort while the heads of state are revealed to be more and more corrupt, ruthless and childish.

I thank the author and Goodreads for the giveaway that obliged me to read this book. I kept going out of obligation, and found a satisfying conclusion as a result.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this entertaining satire on political leaders (of all nationalities and persuasions technology and societal elitism. I thought it was an easy and fast paced read with lots of humor and imagination; it also generated a bit of uneasiness that maybe it hit a bit too close to home in today's increasingly surreal world.
I won a copy of this book in a Goodreads giveaway for this honest review.

[Fuuma · Rating 2 out of 5]

I made it just over 30%. This was supposed to be a fun, ridiculous ride with humor and intrigue, but I am not the intended audience. None of the humor is working for me, I find I don't care where this story is going, and I'm really sad about it but I've gotta get off the ride.

I get the distinct feeling that this author wants to be doing movies, or comics, or any visual medium of story telling. I think they should go for it. A lot of these scenes would work better in a different medium.

I think I did understand what point the author was trying to make with their humorous tangents, but it just made me sad. The book was making me sad.

So that's that.

[Laura G · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received an advance copy of this kindle book. Wonderful solution to rid government of megalomaniacs, but many parts were cringeworthy. I understand the racism of the characters, but sometimes the narration also included it which made it awkward to read. Was the accent that kept disappearing deliberate to show it was false, or was it just inconsistent writing? Could have been much better than just another screed about politicians--we all already know how awful they are.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Imaginative but marred

By dozens of typos and homonym errors as well as grammatical liberties.
You deserve a good editor, as you are a good writer.

[Zenaida Odom · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed the Epilogue.

[Angela Randall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book

[Lorrie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Awful, thinly veiled racism, nonsensical. Couldn’t finish it and didn’t care to.

[Shayna Fenstermaker · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting read to say the least but it was hard to keep my attention. It seems a bit like this truly could happen and I do feel like this would make a great movie.

[Whitney · Rating 1 out of 5]

Painfully dull and boring