In an alternative timeline, the world teeters on the edge of complete world wide economic collapse. A terrorist attack wipes out the line of succession to the presidency except for the new Secretary of Education. She becomes president, totally unprepared and facing the most serious crisis in the history of the country. Read how Kathleen Lehrer discovers What the Future May Bring. Minimal sex will not appear until late in the story.
Size: 905 KB (164,511 words)
Genre: Fiction
Sex Contents: Minimal Sex
Tags: Ma/Fa, Consensual, Heterosexual, Slow, Violent
Review by richardshagrin [other reviews by richardshagrin]
Reviewed:
This is one of those stories that is intended, I think, to make the reader think. It's an alternate time line story where Iranian terrorists crash an airplane into the Capitol during the President's State of the Union speech. The President and everyone in line to take his place dies, except the heroine who is Secretary of Education and takes over as President. There are a series of knotty problems including a war that turns nuclear, severe economic and budget problems, and electing a new congress.
Most of the appeal is what happens next and how are they going to get out of this current disaster before the next one hits. The author does his best to make his characters real and gets closest with his heroine but for some characters the plastic around the edges shows. Maybe because politicians aren't really human, some of the characters seem to be there more to advance the plot than because someone real would be like that. There are a lot of characters. Particularly the foreign ones get introduced and then are killed.
I read this story because I got an email from the author asking for suggestions. I haven't been very helpful in this review because I am not sure how to make it better. Perhaps the romance between the heroine and the young doctor spending a year in Mexico City and getting in the middle of a revolution there doesn't ring true to life because of the age difference. Make him older or her younger is a possible approach. The white supremacist attack in the Northwest might be a little unrealistic. Calling them the ASSHOLES is creative but maybe a little too editorial.
I am not mentioning all the events that occur, the plot is full of twists with new disasters of a different challenging nature in almost every chapter. And there are a lot of chapters. Maybe concentrating on just the heroine and what happens in Washington would be a good way to condense the action and make it a tighter story. It's still a good read as it stands, but an awful lot happens and not all of it develops important characters or gets from the opening to the end of the story as smoothly as possible. Depends on what kind of story you want to write and read. Too much action can be as bad as not enough. This story can't be charged with not enough action.
I have talked myself into giving this a ten for Plot. There are some issues with Technical Quality. I'll give it an eight. Appeal is a seven. It's worth reading, it's light on sex but makes you think about what you would do about our country's problems if you were President. And thank God we don't have the problems this alternate USA has in this story.
