Directive 51
Daybreak, Book 1
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Narrated by:
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Susan Ericksen
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By:
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John Barnes
About this listen
It is known as National Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51. Signed in 2007, it claims specific Federal powers in the event of a “catastrophic emergency”…
Heather O’Grainne is the assistant secretary in the Office of Future Threat Assessment, investigating rumors surrounding something called “Daybreak.” Part philosophic discussion, part international terrorist faction, and part artists’ movement, it’s a group of diverse people with radical ideas who have only one thing in common — their hatred for the Big System and their desire to take it down. Until Heather can determine whether these people are all talk and no action, she wants to keep this information from going public.
But Daybreak is about to become a lot less secret. Seemingly random events in a recycling facility in Wyoming, on an island off the coast of California, and in Jayapura, Indonesia — where the plane carrying the Vice President has suddenly vanished — are in fact connected as part of a plan to destroy modern civilization.
America is at the dawn of a new primitive age — an age that will eliminate the country’s top government personnel, leaving the nation no choice but to implement its emergency contingency program: Directive 51.
©2010 John Barnes (P)2010 Brilliance Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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- By M. Stephenson on 11-20-09
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Empire: The Empire Duet, Part 1
- By: Orson Scott Card
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Orson Scott Card is a master storyteller, who has earned millions of fans and reams of praise for his previous science-fiction and fantasy works. Now he steps a little closer to the present day with this chilling look at a near-future scenario: a new American Civil War. The American Empire has grown too fast, the fault lines at home are stressed to the breaking point, and the war of words between Right and Left has collapsed into a shooting war.
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Good pace, weak premise
- By Andrea on 01-01-07
By: Orson Scott Card
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Brother, Frankenstein
- By: Michael Bunker
- Narrated by: Andrew McFerrin
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Dr. Chris Alexander, a borderline sociopath and technological genius, has designed an advanced cybernetic life form from prototype decommissioned military drones and top-secret experimental DARPA technology. The HADroid was supposed to be a military grade robot with the transplanted heart and brain of a human donor that would transform it into a devastating state-of-the-art war machine when activated by its onboard human operator.
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There is plenty of hard science to entertain
- By Midwestbonsai on 07-13-15
By: Michael Bunker
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The Power of the Dog
- By: Don Winslow
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 20 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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This explosive novel of the drug trade takes you deep inside a world riddled with corruption, betrayal, and bloody revenge. From the streets of New York City to Mexico City and Tijuana to the jungles of Central America, this is the war on drugs like you've never seen it.
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Gripping Drama
- By Deborah on 01-06-11
By: Don Winslow
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The Deep Blue Good-By
- A Travis McGee Novel, Book 1
- By: John D. MacDonald
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 6 hrs
- Unabridged
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He's a self-described beach bum who won his houseboat in a card game. He's also a knight errant who's wary of credit cards, retirement benefits, political parties, mortgages, and television. He only works when his cash runs out, and his rule is simple: he'll help you find whatever was taken from you, as long as he can keep half.
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Before the A-Team, there was Travis McGee
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 11-12-16
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Black Fridays
- By: Michael Sears
- Narrated by: Erik Bergmann
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Sometimes a man can be redeemed. But not in the way he expects. Jason Stafford is a former Wall Street hotshot who made some bad moves, paid the price with two years in prison, and is now trying to put his life back together. He’s unemployable, until an investment firm asks him to look into possible problems left by a junior trader who died recently in an accident. What he discovers is big - there are problems, all right, the kind that get you killed. But it’s not his only concern. Stafford has another quest as well: to reclaim his five-year-old son, "the Kid", from his unstable ex-wife, and then learn just what it means to make a life with him.
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I enjoyed it. I loved the end!
- By John on 05-16-14
By: Michael Sears
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Under a Graveyard Sky
- Black Tide Rising, Book 1
- By: John Ringo
- Narrated by: Tristan Morris
- Length: 13 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Zombies are real. And we made them. Are you prepared for the zombie apocalypse? The Smith family is, with the help of a few marines. When an airborne "zombie" plague is released, bringing civilization to a grinding halt, the Smith family, Steven, Stacey, Sophia, and Faith, take to the Atlantic to avoid the chaos. The plan is to find a safe haven from the anarchy of infected humanity. What they discover, instead, is a sea composed of the tears of survivors and a passion for bringing hope.
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Sorry to say....not so good. :(
- By Chris on 03-07-14
By: John Ringo
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The Year's Top Short SF Novels 5
- By: Cory Doctorow, Ken Liu, John P Murphy, and others
- Narrated by: Tom Dheere, Nancy Linari
- Length: 15 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Short novels are movie-length narratives that may well be the perfect length for science fiction stories. This audio collection presents the best-of-the-best short science fiction novels published in 2014 by current and emerging masters of this vibrant form of storytelling.
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Narrator sounds like Tony Danza
- By Sean on 03-05-16
By: Cory Doctorow, and others
What listeners say about Directive 51
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- paul
- 09-27-10
needs a different voice (or ten)
this novel has an outlandish plot, 'developed' in a series of vignettes scattered across the globe, each containing multiple 'characters' (largely clichéd). This would be confusing in any audio production; this one, however, suffers additionally from the limited range of the narrator's voice. The reader's voice seemed an odd choice from the opening pages, having an annoying timbre best reserved for women's prison warden, though it softened up a bit after a while and wasn't too bad, though far too fast. What complicates matters, though, is the narrator's limited vocal range, making all the disparate characters sound very much alike, especially as she tends to begin a new bit of dialogue in an imitation of another voice, but rapidly slinks back to her own. Not a very good book to start with, combined with a discordant reading, it's no wonder so many hours cost so little.
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2 people found this helpful
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- CodingNerd
- 03-28-19
The Division
I heard that the game the division is loosely based off of this book, which led me to get it. I love it, it is a wonderful book. However, and I am sorry about this, but the narration is absolutely terrible. For me, the story is good enough that I am able to enjoy it regardless, but this narrator keeps me from doing so 100% of the time.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Kirk Austin
- 04-22-22
Wonderful beginning hope it gets even better
It took me a while to get into this story lots of characters lots of plots but just enough action to keep it moving forward a little muddled with the dates and times of things going on it wasn’t like I was trying to keep notes while reading or listening to this book but in the end I understood who the characters were and where the story was going and I also knew it was a three-part book story so it’ll be nice to understand and know the characters as I move to the next one thanks for reading my review I hope you enjoy this as much as I did!
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- Jill
- 09-13-17
Great book!
Very interesting story. You really get to know the characters without them being predictable. Highly recommend!
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2 people found this helpful
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- Wil Dobson
- 07-08-17
apocalyptic political sci-fi mystery who-done-it
I am frankly more interested on the technological process on how the modern world came to an end than the constitutionality of rebuilding a nation after no line of succession is left, but at least it is an apocalyptic political sci-fi mystery who-done-it.
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- James Jacobson
- 02-22-20
The end is nigh
Was a really strong start, and an interesting premise, but by the end I was more than ready for it to be over.
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- Karl Story
- 05-17-11
Unexpectedly Bad
I have greatly enjoyed past books by John Barnes, notably, "The Mother Of Storms" and "Finity" (both not on audio, sadly). This book was a complete mess and a true struggle to get all of the way through. It follows the standard End of the World/Civilisation is Shattered storyline but slaps you with a wildly implausible cause. The characters are two dimensional, cliche'd and at no point did I begin to identify or care about them. The story spirals into an overly political mish-mash which comes off as a whiney high school slap-fight. The author tries to take a middle of the road approach politically, but caracaturizes both liberal and conservative sides into fringe stereotypes of the worst kind. The narrator amplifies the stilted prose into grueling aural assault. I was excited at first to be able to listen to a book by an author I had liked so much in the past...now I am just sad.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Brian Redfern
- 01-26-15
The Narator make all the difference in some books.
What would have made Directive 51 better?
A more engaging narrator.
What could John Barnes have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?
Found a different narrator.
Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Susan Ericksen?
George Guidall or Scott Brick
Any additional comments?
I was very disappointed. The narrator actually put me to sleep with monotone dialog and no inflection of note when portraying the various characters.
I would compare her to the teacher from Ferris Buellers Day Off but he was actually engaging in comparison.
I read & listen to a large number of books, subsequently I did not get to this one in time to return it, but would have if I could. I essentially wasted my money in buying this one and will have to make note to not purchase any with this narrator in the future.
I have the hard cover and intent to read that.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-11-23
Did not finish
I enjoyed both "One for the Morning Glory" and "Kaleidoscope Century" and was very intrigued to see what John Barnes would do with a near-present day end of the world as we know it. I did not find any characters relatable. Everyone seems to be very simple and shallow; an Earth overrun by a Dunning-Kruger pandemic. Perhaps Mr. Barnes is relating his personal observations regarding interactions with people who make up our current American Society, reflecting that the true threat in our future comes from within each of us, rather than technological mechanisms in the hands of bad actors. But given that even the most rabbit-holed red-pilled people I know have greater self-reflection than the characters, the premise breaks down. Barnes created a compelling apocalypse, but one populated by people driven by contempt.
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- Robert Hinman
- 07-29-10
Very disappointing, don't waste your credit.
An increasingly common apocalyptic scenario which is poorly played out in the sappy relationships and even worse philosophical meanderings of the cut-out characters. Stilted, unrealistic dialogue, irrelevant plot lines and incredibly unexplained events abound. Spoiler alert: How do robots on the moon ever build fusion bombs to send to earth with technology just a few years in our future, and nobody in the top echelons of government knew about it? I also found myself irritated with the narrator who either over enunciated or tried to mimic voices she heard on cheap sit-coms.
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6 people found this helpful