86 of 97 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Will Bore Even Bush Haters, May 13, 2008
As I wrote on my blog ([...]), what the publisher's blurb doesn't tell you is that this isn't so much a novel as it is a pastiche of left-wing. nut-job conspiracy theories that might easily have been ripped from Daily Kos diary pages.
Put another way, Rubicon is a thinly fictionalized version of Bush Derangement Syndrome wish fulfillment, the gist of which is that an unnamed vice president (obviously Cheney from the descriptions) creates an intelligence network to provide data supporting whatever the Administration wants and then hatches a plot to maintain the unnamed president (equally obviously Bush) in office indefinitely.
Even my more liberal readers probably won't like it. There's zero suspense, as you can figure out where the plot's going (in broad scope) by the end of the second chapter. The writing and plotting are subordinated to making every possible political point in the left's indictment of President Bush.
As one of my readers in fact commented:
"Rubicon, Hart remembers, is the river Caesar crossed with his army when he decided to seize power in Rome. For Caesar it meant that there was no turning back for a republic on its way to becoming an empire. But crossing the Rubicon meant the beginning of an era in Rome. Could it mean the end of something else today?"
This is just painfully bad writing. If you think your readers are too uneducated to appreciate the historical origin and meaning of the phrase "crossing the Rubicon" then avoid using it.
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Everyone who votes should read this, January 21, 2009
I just finished Rubicon and it is one of the best books I have read. I had to keep reminding myself it was fiction, and yet while reading it, I had to see some similarities in the last eight years of our political times. It was fiction yet I think all people need to read it and truly think how fear based politics could lead to a government controlled society. The book deserves a place in debating and discussing it. It also will probably give a people a lot to think about when they vote in the future.
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Enjoyable Political Thriller, September 3, 2008
Since they are writing fiction, novelists have the option of choosing any setting they wish. The White House is a frequent location (Remember the novels of Eleanor Roosevelt and Margaret Truman, for example?), and the Bush-Cheney preoccupation with secrecy makes their White House a natural for a thriller. And it is a fact that Bush-Cheney have pushed executive privilege very far. With that said, Lawrence Alexander has written a fascinating story of an attempt by the occupants of the White House to take over the government. His protagonists are Democratic Senator Robert Hart of California and Republican Senator Charles Ryan of Michigan. Hart learns of Rubicon, code name for a secret plan that turns out to involve murder of presidential candidates just before the election in order to postpone it indefinitely. The bad guys play for keeps, and a string of murders follow and lead to a thriller of a climax. This is a nice, topical novel and is certainly enjoyable.
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