*** SPOILERS if you haven't finished the book Skip to next post*****
I kinda found the book a snore fest.
The Texas plot's too cliched for me. Not only does Birmingham set it in an area that's stereotyped as bigot land(now days), he makes the bigot a military man. The evil military man thing's used too much in my opinion. How many juntas have we had so far? Heck how many ex-generals of the U.S. army have we had as president? 2 I think.
The New York plot also left me disinterested. I could give a rat's ass about knocking the city flat. Yes losing sovereignty would be bad, but knocking the city flat, ho hum. This b.s. of NYC being the be all, end all of the U.S. annoys the heck out of me. What, the west, mid-west and south don't exist? Sheesh. Bomb it and move on.
The two from the yacht. Skimmed those chapters in the first book and thought we heard the last of them. Not much interested in them this time around either.
The ex-spy. Well thought she was interesting in the first book, but now that she's in from the cold, not so interesting. Her plot line seemed contrived to keep her in the story. Only interested me because she's based in England which got glossed over in the first book.
The jihad junior plot also left me yawning. Not sure his purpose in the first place anyway. He blowed up real good though.
As for Pres. Kipper, not used for effect this time. Nice tour of K.C. though. Not much going on with him that really caught my interest.
Things that should have been explored that might have been interesting:
The jewish jihad: I was disappointed that the aftermath of this never got explored beyond the guys behind the new "holy land" in NYC. Not sure what self-respecting Muslim would abandon the holy peninsula for NYC in the first place anyway.
The Indo-Pakistani nuke war. Got a throwaway line in the book, but I think the course of the war would have been interesting to explore.
The Russian nuke fest. Also got a throwaway line in the book, but again should have been explored. Who put the bug up Russia's ass enough to get them to lob some nukes at them? Heck what ex-ssr would even risk putting the Russian's back to the wall or annoy them enough to get a nuke thrown against them. Chechens maybe I guess.
The rise of the South American Federation. Another item just thrown out there to tantalize the imagination. How the heck did the new jefe throw that together in 3 years. Heck Chavez been trying to do that for a long time now and hasn't even gotten close. And getting Brazil to buy in? At first I thought Brazil was arming to protect itself from the SAF.
China. What's going on there other than food problems. No move toward Taiwan? Tempted to take out Korea? Tempted to head north and have a showdown with the CIS?
Japan. What about them? No temptations to grab back the Sakhalin islands. The Philippine islands just sitting there looking pretty. They're taunting you Japan. Korea needs to be put in its place too. Now that cat's gone, time to play with the mice.
Not sure really what went wrong in this book. Maybe too much character exploration and not enough sweeping events. I like the new Polish guy though.
Oh one last thing before my usual lurking. Why abandon D.C.? I mean if anything's symbolic of the U.S., the capital has to be it. I would think that rebuilding the capital would be a national focus beyond survival.
I probably would have sent troops there in the first few months after the wave left just to secure the cultural treasures there. Wouldn't the Pentagon have some top secret info that we might not want the world to get their hands on? Who knows, maybe the secret to the wave is buried in one of the sub-basements in the Pentagon.
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