Keith M. Donaldson

I liked the way the short, snappy chapters of this book unfolded the story of a nuclear attack on America and the aftermath and actions by the president and other ruling members of the country as well as delving further into the who, hows and whys of such an attack. President Macdonald is the first president from the Centrist Party and within hours of taking the oath of office comes face to face with what can acknowledged as the biggest crisis in America since 9/11. Though new to the office, he is a very smart man and politician and knows how to take charge of things to get to a successful conclusion. This story is his story, while, at the same time, presents a very realistic picture of life within the White House and Congress during an extremely difficult time. It is also the story of President Macdonald and his life during this span of time. The setting for the story is well done, as are the characters. The scenario of a Centrist Party President who rises to the challenge of leading the country through everyone’s worst nightmare is almost too realistic to fathom, and the author definitely does this justice. I have not read any other books by this author, but will seek them out after reading this one. If you enjoy reading the political intrigue that Tom Clancy is so famous for, you will enjoy reading this novel, for it is equally as good as Clancy’s novels. I received this from NetGalley to read and review.… (plus d'informations)

The Tom-Clancy-style military-tinged political thriller is a genre that is surprisingly difficult to get right, which is why there are so few Tom-Clancy-style crossover hits out there; so when it's done wrong, like in Keith M. Donaldson's Rude Awakenings, the results can often be insufferable, a reading experience that literally makes you think a little worser of the world by the time you're finished. Chock-full of some very basic mistakes -- including entire pages of exposition that read like Wikipedia entries, an over-reliance on acronyms within spoken dialogue, and even master plates that look like they were outputted on a dot-matrix printer -- Donaldson here makes the bad mistake of confusing an interesting premise (Detroit destroyed in a nuclear explosion on a new President's inauguration day) for an actual plot, giving us for at least the first hundred pages not a three-act story based on this development, but literally a blow-by-blow transcript of how a President might respond to such a development over the first week of its occurrence; plus I have to confess, I was intensely turned off by Donaldson's cheerleading of a thinly-veiled Tea Party as the book's heroes, here referred to as the "Centrist" party and led by a man who seems like a rose-tinted version of the batsh-t crazy Rand Paul, an exercise in demon rationalization that had left a bad taste in my mouth by the time I finally gave up on this nearly unreadable manuscript. (And of course, it doesn't help when Donaldson has one of his heroes refer to Barack Obama literally on page 14 as "a weak leader who almost compromised us into oblivion," an early indication of this novel's agenda that will make most non-"Birthers" want to toss the book right there and then.) It does not come recommended today, even to existing fans of right-wing political thrillers.

Out of 10: 1.3… (plus d'informations)