Resurrection Day

Rating:
Summary: A Noble Effort
Review: Brendan Dubois's novel takes place in an alternate universe, one where the Cuban Missle Crisis erupted into World War III. The story picks up in 1972, a decade later. The United States has been decimated by a nuclear holocaust and is now entirely dependent on its European allies for survival. There are national food and energy shortages. The country is under a totalitarian-like state of martial law and the media is strictly censored by the Army. On the other side of the globe, the Soviet Union and most of the Asian continent have been obliterated from the face of the Earth. The story revolves around two reporters - one from Boston, the other from London - who together indirectly end up pursuing information that leads to revealing the truth about how President Kennedy lost control of the Cuban Missle Crisis, plunging the U.S. into third world war. I had loved the novel "Fatherland" and I was attracted to "Resurrection Day" because of the similarities pointed out by professional reviewers. Alternate history is a fascinating genre, because I guess from time to time we all think - if perhaps narcissistically - about how our own lives would've been affected had we ourselves taken a turn in the road different from the one we ultimately chose. Though "Fatherland" isn't perfect, I think it's a stronger book and more plausible in its concept than the scenario DuBois creates in "Resurrection Day." It takes about 20 or so plus depressing chapters for DuBois to build the foundation of this nightmarish world before anything of great importance really occurs in the novel. Then when it does, he takes us into the bowels of New York City (literally) on an odyssey that seems to be a little too bizarre and a little too fantastic for me to believe could've happened in such an alternate universe. I also felt a few of the main characters - most notably the military personnel depicted - lacked any real depth. Much of the dialogue at times also seemed weak, as if it were borrowed from a Steven Seagal film, though there are a few great lines uttered by the protagonist from time to time. One other thing that troubled me about the story: I couldn't figure out how the rest of the world had survived World War III so well. I had been taught as far back as grade school that even a limited nuclear exchange by the U.S. and Russia (even in 1962) would've led to nuclear winter. But yet we learn that ten years after the fact, the British are thriving, the Germans and French are building a space station in orbit, and the Japanese are on their way to becoming the economic giant they were apparently destined to be in both histories. What about all the dirt and dust kicked up into the atmosphere? What about all that lethal radiation? Wouldn't a poisonous radioactive cloud have been carried by the jet stream to rain down on Europe's cities and farmlands; contaminating their water, their crops, and their livestock too? Wouldn't they be in just as bad shape as the U.S.? Despite the faults I found with the book, I certainly have to admit that DuBois's tale of nuclear horror made me think. He's also the first author ever to give me nightmares, which I guess means he made his point. I would recommend this book to friends with my above concerns stated, because I think alternate history is a helluva hard genre to write for and I respect him for doing it as well as he did. In my opinion, it's not as good as "Fatherland," but it is a noble effort.

Rating:
Summary: Good Genre Mix
Review: This was a good mix of genres. You have the political adventure that you might find in a Clancy novel and the alternate history of Harry Turtledove with a small amount of romance thrown in. It isn't a great read, but it does an excellent job of provoking thought and reading it is time well spent.

Rating:
Summary: "He Lives!"
Review: This was a GREAT book! I typically am not a fan of alternate history (AH) but I could not put this book down what with the plot twists and a great surprise ending.

Buy this book!

Rating:
Summary: Fun read, but a bit lightweight
Review: For AH fans, this makes for a good quick read that you shouldn't think too much about. A number of glaring improbabilities, some gaps in logic, and characters that are a bit cardboard. But nonetheless it's fun and the setting is pretty well conceived. It held my interest throughout, and the ending was reasonably satisfying (though not much of a surprise). I would have given it 3 stars, but decent AH is hard to find.

Rating:
Summary: You will not be able to put this book down!
Review: I just picked it up and started reading and could not put it down, my wife was so upset with me, and every time she turned around I was reading this stunning work of AH. Within the first ten pages this book has you and will not let you go, you must find out what's going on, and you have to know if "He Lives" Ten years after the Cuban Missile Crisis became the Cuban War, we still don't know the whole truth, and the government and everything else is controlled by the military. The rights and freedoms of America are gone along with the truth until one night a vet steps out of the darkness and hands a reporter a slip of paper that will lead him to the truth. From that point on, look forward to a whirl wind ride through America ten years after Nuclear War. Ten years leading to one moment - Resurrection Day.

Rating:
Summary: An Adequate Story Dwarfed by Unfulfilled Potential
Review: I found it ironic that this book dealt with a scenario which "might have been", because that was exactly my feeling when I finished the book. While I didn't detest Resurrection Day, I was left disappointed that the book's potential that was never realized.

This unfulfilled feeling extended to all parts of the book. The characters, while adequate, were never developed to the point of being memorable. The dialogue, while not entirely detracting from the book, also didn't give the reader anything worth remembering. Finally, the narrative itself suffered from that most dreaded of maladies: the tidy ending. For instance, the "Resurrection Day" of the story got a great deal of buildup, but then was barely mentioned at the end. I had imagined a lot of possibilities for that aspect of the story. Instead, it got just a few sentences in the last chapter. Other facets of the story suffered a similar fate. A more thorough development of the narrative would have resulted in a more memorable book.

Some of the hype would have one believe that Resurrection Day is as good as Fatherland by Robert Harris. I'd actually put it on a level with Harris' Archangel. Both are stories that have great premises, but are not developed to a level that sufficiently explores those premises. As with Archangel, Resurrection Day is not a bad book. However, the promise does not equal the actual product. Consequently, the result is a book that is instantly forgettable after one finishes it.

Rating:
Summary: One of the better AH books
Review: This is one of the better books of Alternate History. It kept you guessing to the end. It reads like a John Grisham novel. The only flaw I found it doesn't go into what the rest of nation is like only breif glimpases, what about states that weren't touched by the bomb such as Ohio or Iowa??

Rating:
Summary: One of the better alternate history books
Review: What would America be like if the Cuban Missile Crisis had heated up? Brendan DuBois asks this question in Resurrection Day and the answers are frightening. The protagonist is Carl Landry, an Army vet who now works as a reporter for the Boston Globe. Like many other people in this post apocalyptic America Landry just goes through the motions of living, marching on as his life descends into a grey twilight in an American police state. It is only after a military censor spikes one of his stories, a seemingly innocuous one about the murder of a fellow veteran, that Landry begins to ask questions. Who was Merl Sawson? What was the significance of the list of names that he gave Landry in an earlier meeting and why is the military so concerned with his death? Landry begins to ask these questions and the answers lead him to bombed out Manhattan, the remains of Hyannisport, destroyed by anti-Kennedy mobs and into a liaason with a reporter from the London Times who is not all that she seems.

All in all this is an excellent book, more plausible than Robert Harris's Fatherland as this really could have happened and almost did.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting and entertaining thriller for AH-addicts
Review: Having just read "Resurrection Day", I thought i'd share briefly my opinions, which are mostly favorable. On the whole it makes for an entertaining book, using a a cross-pollenation of genres and sub-genres, beginning as murder myster set in an America 10 years after the Cubam Missle Crisis became a nuclear Cuban War, which crippled the US and annhilated the USSR. It then procedes to turn into a political thriller, as our hero, Boston Globe reporter Carl Landry, delved deeper into the murdered vet and finds all manner of intrigue and danger involving the US and UK governments, military personel, and the truth about what happened in 1962. Elements of post-apocalypse sc-fi also are present in visits to a bombed Manahattan populated by gangs and people fighting for survival. And there is even the dystopic element, represented by a US under ten years of marshal law.

Carl Landry makes for an interesting and mostly sympathetic hero, and the world Brendan DuBois has created is on the whole plausible. Certainly, it does become predictable about page 300; I had pretty well figured out the whole murder mystery by then. And there is a certain whistful nostalgia about the nobility of JFK, and a very cynical view of Curits LeMay (renamed here as Ramsey Curtis) which seem a little simplistic, but it makes for overall an entertaining yarn, particularly for AH-addicts who might need a quick fix.

Rating:
Summary: Great might-have-been
Review: I just finished Resurrection Day, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Anyone who is a history buff will; being a teacher, the part about the NYC ophans and how their teachers spent the hours of a nuclear attack really got to me. Some of the other reviews here ranted about the military caricatures, but if you really know your history, the hawks were really there. It seems improbable now, but times were different then. Don't listen to all the critics, get and read this book. it's excellent!