Rating: Summary: alternate history as liberal parable Review: The escalation of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis into a brief, one-sided nuclear war is the founding premise of this noirish alternate-history, which adopts elements of both Philip K. Dick's "The Man in the High Castle" and Whitley Streiber's "Warday" into its own slightly-weird liberal parable. The ghoulish entertainment includes an unguided tour of a radiated Manhattan ghost town (inhabited by subterranean Democrats) as well as glimpses of a stagnant post-war milieu governed by the fussy military censors of a thinly-disguised Gen. Curtis LeMay.
Rating: Summary: Sheer genius! Unadulterated reading pleasure.A must read!! Review: I've been mesmerized by ,"Seven Days In May ", "The Wind Chill Factor", and "Red Storm Rising "...this novel was BETTER. When you pick this book up be sure you've given yourself enough time to finish it in one reading , because it is impossible to put down . The author takes the simplest of premises --What would have happened if the missiles had been launched in October of 1962 ?--and gives a complex ,thought provoking , and spellbinding answer. As one of the baby boomers who can still remember air raid drills as a schoolboy in Queens, New York City I found the passages about the Battle of New York , the "lost"children in the schoolbuilding basements , and P.S.19 both plausible and probable . Living in an age when its become cynically fashionable by the historical revisionists to sneer at the idealism of the Kennedy Era I found this story of Grand Tragedy and Heroism to be compulsive reading. The style with which the alternative history of this tale is deftly told puts this book at the head of its class. Great adventure, mystery, history, and storytelling all roled into one----H.G. Wells and Jules Verne would tip their hats to the author. BRAVO !BRAVO !---If you are looking for that perfect book to curl up with and forget about everything else in your world for a night or weekend -this is it !!
Rating: Summary: AWESOME! This book gets 5 STARS! Review: Resurrection Day is one of those books that you can't put down once you've started in on it. I read it in 3 sittings, and it's 400 pages long. So interesting, that it gets you thinking, "indeed.....what if?" You actually feel as though you are part of the story. This book is amazing......by far, the best i've read to date!
Rating: Summary: Interesting Premise, Predictable Plot Review: This novel is an interesting concept, but is done in by a completely predictable climax that you can smell before the book is barely a third over because once again, JFK hagiography must ultimately rule the day. All one has to do is substitute the name of Curtis LeMay for the novel's "Ramsay Curtis" and you know right away how things have to turn out. I have seen this cliche hashed out time and again in other alternate history novels like "Promises Kept" in which no one can ever point to any flaw in the leadership of JFK, or that he would have been the savior of America and never done any wrong, and the end result is still utterly banal and predictable.
Rating: Summary: Enjoyed it Review: Not going to win any pulitzer prizes for fiction or anything, but I really enjoyed this novel. Started out kind of slow, but turned into a good story with a satisfying, unexpected and touching ending. I usually judge writing on whether or not a book keeps drawing me back to finish it, and this one passes the test with flying colors. Makes me want to try Harry Turtledove, if I could only get past those goofball covers. Bad points: Seemed like the author couldn't make up his mind whether to have the American characters talk with British accents or not. A newspaper photographer named "The Beast". (shades of Lou Grant, but luckily a very minor character). There are 5 great lakes, not 6.
Rating: Summary: What IS it with these boomer types? Review: Brendan DuBois certainly had an opportunity to create a gripping AND original piece. While he did admirably enough on the former, he failed miserably on the latter. Yes, "Resurrection Day" is an engrossing read, a thriller, that takes an alternate view of what could have happened in world history in 1962. As such, it is deserving of 3 stars (tho' DuBois could have been a little more careful on some of his facts, but then again, it is fiction). However, and this is SO typical of SO many baby-boomer types, writers or not, the almost unnatural affection for anything and everything Kennedy was palpable. Gee, Brendan, what an original concept; a Kennedy as a national (indeed, world) savior, one who could have done SO much, if only the evil military and Republicans hadn't ruined it all for all of us. How trite. And not to ruin the story for anyone, but it CERTAINLY stretches credulity to find that it is the Republican candidate for President (in this case, Rockefeller) who is in thrall to those who wish to subjugate US autonomy, and deny individual rights, and it is that brave defender of freedom and limited government, George McGovern, who would be the savior of the Republic. So very trite. this novel was a wonderful concept, Brendan- next time, try to make it a little more realistic, by leaving your politics aside. The 60's,and the "New Frontier" are long gone- get over it.
Rating: Summary: Good beach book; when's the HBO movie coming out? Review: This book was a fun read that moved along briskly. I was one of millions of very scared pre-adolescents during the Cuban missle crisis. Much of the well researched "alternative history" seemed all too plausible back then, especially to folks such as myself who lived near ground zero of a major SAC base.True, the plot of the book (and ultimate conclusion) was a bit predictable, and some of the characterizations were extremely one dimensional - but for light summer reading, you can't beat this novel. And here's the best endorsement I can give "Resurrection Day": I look forward to the author's next effort.
Rating: Summary: "Resurrection Day" is an eye-opener to history's "what if's" Review: This book by DuBois is a "must read". It captures all of the realism, all of the personality, all of the feeling that you are actually living in this alternate history after the Cuban Missile crisis led to WWIII. Except for a few parts, Resurrection Day always focused on the main character and went in depth to his experience of WWIII in such a way as if you were getting to know him for the first time, learning bits and pieces here and there. It also threw in notable figures of "our" history in situations they could have possibly been involved if this war had actually occured. I recommend highly that you read this book. I plan on reading it again sometime.
Rating: Summary: A fascinating journey through what might have been Review: If you enjoyed the alternate history novel Fatherland, which imagined a world 20 years after a victorious Nazi Germany in Europe and was made into a good HBO film starring Rutger Hauer, you'll love this book, because it almost actually happened. It is set in 1972 mainly in Boston, 10 years after the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis turned into a short-lived nuclear war that left the United States badly wounded but victorious over a Soviet Union that was completely obliterated back to the Middle Ages and spared most of the world. Washington D.C., San Diego, Omaha, and Miami were destroyed by Soviet missiles, and Manhattan abandoned after suffering a near miss from Soviet long-range bombers crossing over the Artic, which managed to hit Queens and New Jersey with nuclear bombs on October 30, 1962. The United States, now just a Second World country still suffering from gas and food shortages alleviated by aid from the United Kingdom, is still under martial law, controlled by the military and with newspapers under heavy censorship, its capital now in Philadelphia. NATO had disintegrated after the war and the European powers, spared from the nuclear destruction, are plotting to become superpowers again with the UK against the increasingly powerful French-German alliance. While thought to have died in the destruction of Washington, D.C., there are those dissidents who still believe that JFK managed to escape and is still in hiding, his memory maligned as a coward and the greatest mass murderer in history, his aides hunted down and imprisoned or killed by those who wish to rewrite history. In this story, a newspaper reporter from the Boston Globe, investigating the murder of a veteran from the Cuban War with the help of a beautiful reporter from the London Times, uncovers a fiendish plan that will take away what status the United States has left as a sovereign nation and will reveal the truth behind how the Cuban Missile Crisis turned into the Third World War and JFK's fate on October 30, 1962. Needless to say, it is a good, suspenseful tale that blends what is now known about the Cuban Missile Crisis from declassified documents, the White House decisions that averted a nuclear showdown with the USSR, and the state of the world at the time with what might have been had the U.S. gone to war against the Soviet Union instead. Read it and be thankful it did not happen!
Rating: Summary: Excellent Book, very gripping story Review: A very scary what if scenario. The characters are very well developed and the descriptions are awesome. I'm very glad that the Cuban Missle Crisis ended the way it really did and not the way described in this book.
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