Eric's Reviews > The Day of the Rope: Book One

Withholding a rating for now, since I'm not sure exactly how to categorize this book. It's both a fiction book and something else. If you're looking to buy this book just for that "something else," then it's easy to recommend, so I'll continue the review with just comments about how it works as a fiction book.

The Day of the Rope is a present-day historical fiction type of story, yet with quite a bit of the text dedicated to world-building. The world-building is not the same kind as in sci-fi or fantasy, where the nuances of the other-worldliness need to be explained to set the stage. It's more like world-lens-building; taking the current state of the United States and explaining it through the interpretation of multiple characters.

The book goes through a theoretical scenario where political and social tensions in the US reach a breaking point, and this first book ends on what looks to be the start of a civil war. While the plot lines and characters are a bit over-the-top, the plausibility of the scenario that plays out is not inconceivable.

Although the writing style leaves a little to be desired, Stack keeps the tension up throughout the entire book, making it a story that's easy to finish in a reading session or two. It's a pretty good effort for a first-time fiction writer, and the plot is compelling enough that I will definitely be picking up the next installment to see where Stack goes from here.