Barnes wrote some moderately entertaining space opera books back in the day, but this is book two in a post-apocalyptic series. I bought the two first books in 2012, but I only read the first, and I wasn’t quite sure why.
But reading this now, it’s kinda coming back to me: The book is competently written, with dozens of characters we flit between, and it mostly keeps things moving along. Politically, it’s somewhat grating (Barnes apparently took a right wing turn at some point?), but it’s not too bad.
The main problem is that the characters have no character. Or rather, they’re the exact same character with dozens of names, so it’s a bit of a chore to remember who’s supposed to be who. And the longer “philosophical” discussions about what’s going on are tedious.
So I ditched it after 55 pages. I did slightly wonder where all this was going, and whether the solution to the mystery of what’s behind the apocalypse was the one that I thought was obvious from the start… and it turns out that it is, but is apparently only revealed during the last ten pages of the next (and final) book. And Barnes planned on doing many more books in the series, but his publisher, Ace, thought they sucked (I’m reading between the pixels), so there weren’t.
Oh, and Barnes hasn’t published anything after that book?
Daybreak Zero (2011) by John Barnes (buy used, 3.59 on Goodreads)