Review: Food for thought...
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 09 18, 2013
To start with, this is a very easy to believe story, with all the war and turmoil of the last 20 years. Keith M. Donaldson has done a good job with Rude Awakenings in making it easy to read. read. The draw-back is the almost inevitable comparison to Tom Clancy who has ruled this techno-political thriller genre for years, and remains my favourite.Although this novel is put together wonderfully, I would only give this book 3.5 stars just because it weighed in a bit heavy for me on the politics.  As I mentioned, I am a fan of Tom Clancy and military style novels,  so I guess I hoped for a novel closer to his style  - I simply enjoy more the action, intrigue and characters.While the story focuses very much on the topic of nuclear disaster, it centres as much on the main character in the story, President Macdonald. From his great oratory abilities in front of listeners, to his own personal dilemmas he has to face, he is a character I took too.  It's probably unfair to always compare thrillers from new novelists in this genre to Clancy, but he is the watermark I use to judge books in this area.