Customer Reviews

Directive 51 (A Novel of Daybreak)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

WARNING: Mild spoilers ahead

I was really looking forward to reading Directive 51 after it was mentioned in the Atlantic's article re: cyberwarfare. I'm a sucker for end-of-the-world scenarios and I'm usually profoundly disappointed with their execution (2012, I'm looking at you). This book, sad to say, was no different.

The premise is interesting and had real potential for making a gripping novel about the end of the modern era and how people would cope with a disaster that wiped out everything we relied upon for the functioning of our society. Unfortunately, the characters you have access to are emerge relatively unscathed from the disaster and you are therefore not really exposed to the breadth and depth of the horror.

The book focuses almost exclusively on the members of the federal government charged with forecasting future threats, who then become the heads of state when the disaster takes hold. As such, they aren't really affected by the loss of power, of food, of clean water, of all modern conveniences. The book references entire cities burning to the ground, millions dying of starvation during the winter, thousands freezing to death while fleeing cities... but those events are presented when the main characters present "reports from the field" to other members of the government. You get no on-the-ground experiences of what it's like for people actually living through the event. The members of the government are cloistered in protected compounds with supplies of power, food and water. You're totally detached from the "reality" of the situation for 99.999% of the Earth's population and, as such, it's snooze-ville for disaster enthusiasts.

In addition, the plot itself suffers from a lot of weak spots. The connection between the main saboteurs and the Islamic terrorists is weakly explained and eventually just left for dead. The ability of hobby enthusiasts to resurrect dead trades and get museum-piece locomotives working seemed a bit too convenient and easy. And then, just when you think it can't get more implausible, the author throws in EMP bombs assembled by self-assembled robots on the moon and launched back to Earth... out of the blue, without much explanation at all of how they got there in the first place, who was involved with that segment of the conspiracy or really any explanation. It was the last straw for me.

To add insult to injury, the author falls back upon just about every tired end-of-the-world trope in this book. Sure, the main characters are an overweight redhead and a disabled man, instead of the usual pretty people that populate these books, but the author still gives us the same old romance between the two protagonists.

My verdict: Give it a miss, or wait for the inevitably bad movie.

John Barnes' novels have a tendency to tackle big ideas. It's hard enough to tackle one big idea in a novel (e.g., Vernor Vinge's "zones of thought" in A Fire Upon The Deep, or the nature of reality in Greg Egan's "Permutation City"), but Directive 51 takes on three: how the Internet can amplify emergent behavior to a level never before seen in civilization, even developing self-reinforcing mechanisms (this is a variant of the Meme War idea in some of his earlier books); a new take on the perils of technology (there are some very scary "what ifs" here); and an interesting take on continuity of American government and the fragility (or ultimate stability) of our Constitution. He does a fine job in teeing up these ideas and exploring them, but it seems almost too much for a single book, with the result (as other reviewers have noticed) that the characters lose out. I found that there were only a few whom I actually cared about (hint: they were not the Daybreakers), yet they got insufficient page count to really flesh them out. If this book is the first of several, then it may come off better as an introduction to the subsequent novels than standalone.

Despite the flaws, I found it an enjoyable (albeit scary) read precisely because of the ideas.

In Directive 51, the author raises some really interesting ideas but they're buried in a bog of uninteresting and redundant back-and-forth about constitutional and line-of-succession questions. There's a lot of what feels like filler here- perhaps that's because this is apparently the first installment in a trilogy. The reader is left feeling at a curious distance from the action; yes, tens of millions of people die, but it mostly happens "off-screen" and the whole catastrophe seems rather clinical. As I said, John Barnes does get at some provocative issues, such as the possibility that our line-of-succession process could leave us with an incompetent, elderly senator as our President. There are hints that the Daybreak event may have been engineered by forces not of this Earth- guess we'll have to wait for the sequel to see if that's the case. Would I buy Book 2 in hardback ? Nope- not unless Barnes avails himself of the services of an excellent editor first.

The ideas that produced this book really are fascinating, and clearly Mr. Barnes knows what he's talking about in regards to the math and semiotics in the plot. I always enjoy reading about technology that a writer can really dive into and explain, my inner geek sings with it. I did learn some things and tech that I hadn't considered/explored before, and I ALWAYS love a good end-of-civilization story. So I have to say I enjoyed the story, certainly.
Some logistical and political views became (almost painfully) skewed as the book progressed. While I've never thought myself cold-hearted, I couldn't help but to find the decision of a main character to become romantically involved with a man whose survival depended on a "plaztatic" series of artificial organs when all plastic materials are rotting to be a little too... romantically suicidal? Willfully, ludicrously self destructive emotionally? Hang yourself on a cross-y, perhaps? Sorry, please forgive invented adjectives.
The biggest issue though, by far, is the liberal-bashing screaming across the pages like a racist relative during a holiday meal. This novel being published in America, there is a certain irony that the author would insult and degrade half of the potential paying customers that might buy the next book in this series. A personal favorite moment of mine was the moment when a crazed, illegally deputized goon under a (even stupider, meaner) Democratic "fake" president grabs a gun and shoots an unarmed civilian to death while screaming "You f'ing REPUBLICAN, it's not your f'ing constitution!". Forgive me, but... hahaha. Really. To be clear, I am not a granola (evil) hippie on a commune. I'd be considered quite moderate by anyone's standards, in fact. I was still taken aback and insulted by several scenes in the book along these lines.
So to conclude, and perhaps other people have said this more succinctly than I, while I enjoyed the story and plot, the politics do get in the way (it is Washington, after all:-)). It is a decent read, absolutely; I'll probably even read the next book! I just won't pay money for it, to be honest. Library maybe, or borrowed from someone. Thank you for reading, hope this helped.

This book started out all over the place with pov's (points of view) but when John Barnes brings them together - look out! It goes fast from there. The idea is pheonominal - I throughly enjoyed this book and have already purchased the followup to review. You root for the good guy characters and see alot of the same old negative politicians, who you definately root against. Although it is set in the future of 2024, the politics are being played the same - as we see they are today. The ending was a bit rushed, but it couldn't have been done any other way. I look forward to reading the sequel.

I found the first half of this book witty and insightful. Unfortunately, the book seemed to lose focus post-Daybreak. Perhaps the author was bound by his title to deal with the implementation of Directive 51, but for me this was of little interest. What is more interesting is how a society adapts to a major disaster, and this is poorly developed in this book.

Stories about the end of the world are real popular right now, especially if they involve a devastating disease, zombies, vampires, or perhaps somehow all of the above. John Barnes' Directive 51 is about the end of the world - or at least the end of the United States - but doesn't involve any of these elements; people cause the end of the world. The key to Directive 51 is that nothing is predictable and you have no clue what's going to happen next.

In this world everything ends subtly and quietly at first. Heather O'Grainne is the Assistant Secretary for the Office of Future Threat Assessment, and with a truly crack team, has spent her time studying a strange group known as "Daybreak," only she is unable to trace it to any specific people. The deeper she gets, the more it seems like Daybreak may not in fact be tied to any specific group, but is instead a developing movement with members numbering in the thousands or possibly tens of thousands throughout the world. Then a number of strange incidents begin to take place: the kidnapping of the vice president who was on a secret mission no one knew about; the failure of various types of machinery throughout the country; the "melting" of any products made from gasoline in select locations that is quickly spreading. The problem is the Office of Future Threat Assessment seems to be at least a couple steps behind these Daybreakers, and before they know it, it seems there's no way to stop what's happening.

The events of the book are seen through characters in the government, who invoke Directive 51 (which does actually exist) to maintain the governing and ruling of the country in the event of a truly catastrophic event. Interesting and diverse characters are developed at first, but as the book progresses a number of them get pushed by the wayside, as the story grows and at times becomes overbearing. Nevertheless, by the end readers will be wondering what is to happen to this very changed place that was once the United States.

Originally written on June 7, 2011 ©Alex C. Telander.

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This was more along the lines of speculative political fiction, than speculative end of the world fiction.

spoiler alert -do not read below

While this book had a very orginial premise for the cause of the "armageddon", it glosses over some aspects that make for compelling speculative fiction/end-of-the-world type reading - that is, the author's take on how modern people will cope with things they have not had to deal with in their lifetime - e.g, getting adequate food, avoiding being killed by ravening hordes, rampant violent crime due to desperation/frustration, micro-social warfare within cities or neighborhoods. Instead, he has us believe that some restaurants are functioning well into the time-frame that it is obvious there will be food shortages and that some folks are trading away food for newspapers (for which there seems to be an abundant, extant supply of newsprint even though the author points out that the newspaper trade is dead?!) While too much focus on the riot/food shortage aspect would make for a hackneyed armageddon novel, you need some of it for setting up the protagonist and to make his or her survival at least superficially questionable. Instead, the food issue is resolved or ignored after the first 1/3 of the book.

Furthermore, a hyper-focus on political protocol emerged, diluting the more exciting aspects of the concepts. There were also what seemed to be convenient/unexplained backstory elements such as the existance of a "castle-culture" and self-reliant robots on the moon.

Once again, the kernal of the idea was awesome, some plot twists were compelling, but they got lost in the perpetual attempt at turning it into a primarily political novel.

Perhaps the editor got to edit-happy and left a disproportionate amount of political conjecture while weeding out setting and backgroun details?

We, as human beings, share a certain inescapable curiosity when it comes to "end times" fiction, and I think this is largely because we've always shared the ability to ponder such a fundamentally simple premise as "What if ...?" We could be considering almost anything - much like George Bailey did when he wondered what life would've been like for others if he'd never been born in the movie, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE - and it's a universal experience to apply the same filter to our lives in times of stress and tumult.

John Barnes' novel, DIRECTIVE 51, probes the depths of the `what if' scenario as it applies to throwing civilization culturally and technologically back about 100 years in development. In short, Daybreakers - a kind of faceless cult born of zealots tired of civilization's progress - launch a series of world-wide terror attacks (airborne toxins that break down plastics and other materials) with hopes of throwing mankind back into the Stone Age. However, their game-plan gets notched up a few pegs on the terrorism headboard when real terrorists seize upon the opportunity to also detonate nuclear fusion bombs around the world, further exacerbating any government's ability to mount a suitable defense. Before you can say "Jack Bauer," America - the principle setting for DIRECTIVE 51 - is in chaos with Washington DC destroyed, citizens looting in the streets, and average folks fighting for their very survival against even the most basic elements of Mother Nature. Unable to fend for themselves, entire cities burn to the ground, police and tactical units fall into disarray, and the outlook is, indeed, nothing but grim.

And THAT's only the Daybreakers' first attack!

DIRECTIVE 51 is serious stuff, probably not intended for the lightweight or casual science fiction reader. It isn't about any type of Biblical prophecy coming to fruition so much as it is a parable for contemporary disenfranchisement with man's tremulous position within the world of technology overload ... or is that overkill? The "Directive 51" (referenced in the title) is the factual Presidential order that sets procedures in place for dealing with continuity-of-government at a time when the functioning `head' (so to speak) has been decapitated. That's where this novel works best ... not so much as a scientific thriller (though I've no doubt that Barnes knows his stuff so far as the technology presented here goes) but moreso as a political `what if' postulating how a nation state adjusts to circumstances further crippling the ability to maintain order. Some of these moments in political posturing perhaps don't play out as well as they could have, but such is the nature of events in a tightly constructed world of fiction; in DIRECTIVE 51, events spur folks to action - not such much their core values, which may need to be comprised for the greater good - and I found some of the developments little more than political posturing on the part of a non-politician. Doesn't mean they couldn't happen. Just didn't seem to mesh with what I particularly believe could've happened. It's a subtle difference, but it's one that impacted my ability to fully enjoy the tale.

Regardless of the meaty subject matter, I found entire sections of DIRECTIVE 51 difficult reading, but this was for all of the wrong reasons. Sadly, I failed to connect with most of these characters, and it seems like there are, literally, hundreds of them. Granted, some of them are more incidental and not necessarily tied to the main plot, but it quickly became a daunting challenge to keep all of them straight because, if anything, there's an overload of people, places, and things in DIRECTIVE but not very much characterization. A few of the players - politicians, mainly - appear little more than stereotypes, such as the government scientist with a "heart of gold" and the religion-pandering Presidential candidate who immediately succumbs to seizing "ultimate power," and, despite Barnes' best efforts, these people just don't seem to fit within the world of greater complexity the rest of the novel details. In my opinion, very few of these characters take the time to either (a) break down emotionally against the overwhelming odds or (b) depict the natural gamut of emotions one might expect to see in such a daunting set of circumstances. Very few of them seemed `real' to me - rather, they seemed much more like boats against the tide - and, as such, that challenged me greatly to accept some of the events Barnes punctuates their lives with. However, I'm willing to concede that some of that frustration might be because Barnes takes so much time to set up this world - I've no doubt it's very clear inside his head - and the natural consequence is that there's very little time and energy left for smaller moments that elevate people - instead of events - off the page. Doesn't make it a bad story. Only makes it one that another author may've told differently.

Don't despair because there's hope in the end. (After all, a sequel is already on the way.) Life will go on. People will unite. Undoubtedly, nations will rise again. It may not be for the immediate future, but methinks that's the point of DIRECTIVE 51. Nothing comes easy - except, perchance, man's ability to engineer his own swift demise.

Unnaturally deadly things, followed by fire, flood, famine... Industrial sabotage/ecoterrorism/'kill the Big System' is a really scary premise. The collapse of virtually all things technological drops the world back to the near-Dark Ages. Trying to maintain a Constitutional Government is what Directive 51 (a real thing) is about. No small thing in the absence of nationwide communication, a small group of people work to bring things back together from the brink of a second Civil War. Civilization itself is at stake.