Daybreak Zero

By: John Barnes

Narrated by: Susan Ericksen

Length: 16 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's Summary

In late 2024, Daybreak, a movement of post-apocalyptic eco-saboteurs, smashed modern civilization to its knees. In the losing, hopeless struggle against Daybreak, Heather O'Grainne played a major role. That story was told in Directive 51. Now Heather's story continues in Daybreak Zero. In the summer of 2025, she leads a tiny organization of scientists, spies, scouts, entrepreneurs, engineers, dreamers, and daredevils based in Pueblo, Colorado. Both of the almost-warring governments of the United States have charged them with an all but impossible mission: find a way to put the world back together. But Daybreak's triumph has flung the world back centuries in technology, politics, and culture.

Pro-Daybreak Tribals openly celebrate ending the world as we know it. Army regiments have to fight their way in and out of Pennsylvania.

The Earth's environment is saturated with plastic-devouring biotes and electronics-corroding nanoswarm. A leftover Daybreak device drops atom bombs from the moon on any outpost of the old civilization it can spot. Confined to her base in Pueblo to give birth to her first child, Heather recruits and monitors a coterie of tech wizards, tough guys, and modern-day frontier scouts: a handful of heroes to patrol a continent. All the news is bad: Tribals have overrun Indiana and Illinois; the last working aircraft carrier sits helplessly out in the Indian Ocean, not daring to come closer to land; the crash of one of the last working airplanes kills a vital industrialist; Tribals try to force appeasement on the Provi government while the Temper government faces a rebellion of religious fanatics; seventeen states are lost to the Tribals as California drifts into secession and hereditary monarchy, and everywhere, Provis and Tempers lurch toward civil war. Her agents have exceptional courage, initiative, skill, intelligence, and daring, but can they be enough? For the sake of everything from her newborn son to her dying nation, can she forge them into a the weapon that can at last win the world back from the overwhelming, malevolent force of Daybreak? Her success or failure may change everything for the next thousand years, beginning from Daybreak Zero.

©2011 John Barnes (P)2011 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Enjoyed reading!

I really enjoyed this book. Found it to be very entertaining. Should be rated at least 4.5 stars!

lack luster narrator

I'm sure the narrator is a pro and had been doing this for a while but frankly I feel like she's reading to a 3rd grade class. Her tone is high and her cadence slow with limited variation of character voices. Solid story. Grating narration.

Twist on post apocalyptic Amrerica

What did you like best about Daybreak Zero? What did you like least?

Daybreak was a new twist on an old story line and I enjoyed the overall story but there were so many different story lines and date shifts that it made the story difficult to follow at times. Susan Ericksen made listening to the audiobook difficult at best and this may have detracted from the overall story.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Susan Ericksen?

Definitely Scott Brick or Stefan Rudnicki

Did Daybreak Zero inspire you to do anything?

While the narration was difficult to listen to and detracted from the story I will still be listening to the final book in the series for the conclusion.