Series
Directive 51 / Daybreak
John Barnes · 3 novels · 2010–2013
Directive 51 opens John Barnes's near-future thriller trilogy with government analyst Heather O'Grainn as anti-technology extremists unleash a nanotech plague called Daybreak that destroys petroleum-based materials, rubber, and electrical systems worldwide. The resulting collapse triggers mass death, a crisis over presidential succession, and mysterious Moon-launched fusion strikes on Washington and Chicago, while a shadowy neofeudalist movement moves into the vacuum. Daybreak Zero and The Last President carry the same unraveling-civilization story through the rest of the trilogy.
Summary by Loreful, from public sources
Reading order
The order the books came out.
Best read in the order they were published.
Map
Directive 51 / Daybreak at the centre, its books fanned around what holds them. Pick anything for its details, and zoom out for similar series in orbit — the reading order above lists the same books as text.
Stats
By decade
- 2010s3
Shape
Mood
Grim and intense: 100% of this series' placed works, the catalog's 46%.
this series · the catalog · one dot = one book3 of 3 works carry a tone
Edges of the map
- Daybreak Zerodarkest · calmest
- Directive 51brightest · most intense