So I’ve finished The Last President, the (for now) final Daybreak Volume. It suffers a bit from a split personality because the narrative is much more expansive, brings in a lot of secondary characters but, it turns out, that’s what John Barnes wanted all along, the publisher just wanted his scope to be narrower and they have now parted ways on this series. Anyway armed with that knowledge I can see how it could have benefited the other two books (Barnes states he wants to rewrite the first two, not take anything out but add).
Anyhoo, things seem to be going well, TOO WELL in the first half of the book and sure enough we get sucker punched as to how well Daybreak has played us, turned us against ourselves and in the matter of a week, reduced most of the main players to husks of themselves. A lot of characters are killed, good, bad, and very very grey. (There’s one guy who’s a brilliant tactician and could restore the country if oh he hadn’t killed a rival in cold blood and is increasingly violent in bed, too bad he’s needed).
Some of the mystery of Daybreak is revealed and makes it a little less scary but no less menacing.
There’s a little hope left at the end, but nothing as to what the other two books were trying to bring back.