One Second After
by William R. Forstchen
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Book Reviews of One Second After
Book Review: Almost made it to 5 stars
Summary: 4 Stars
I found this to be an excellent read and could not put it down.I really enjoyed the characters,the premise and the story itself.I knew a little about E.M.P. but had know idea of the ease with which it could be deployed or how widespread the damage would be from just one or two bombs.We live near Dover Air Force Base;home of the mighty C-5's which would almost certainly be a target.As I said I really enjoyed this book but but there were a couple of things I had a problem with which kept it from a 5 star rating.The first thing is;The author should have had some farmers proof read it.(VERY MINOR SPOILER ALERT)The people in the story end up eating all the livestock and a farmer could have told the author that the first thing to be done would be to impregnate any and all female stock and by the time they were reduced to thinking about eating them all there would have been more to eat and also that no farmer worth his salt would ever let them kill and eat every single animal.That would be compleatly senseless.If you don't keep some breeding stock you are just delaying the inevitable-starvation.My other problem is one I have with virtually every post-apocalyptic fiction book I read and that is the premise that only "evil" people would resort to cannabalism. Even a quick skim through recorded history would show this to be untrue. Virtually all people through out the ages and of every race and creed have indeed turned to cannabilism in times of extreme starvation. Now before you think to yourself "not me,no way,no how " go take a look at your kids and imagine them literaly starving to death in front of you. While I know I and most other moral people would probably not start saying "hey theres a stranger,lets run him down,kill and eat him" I do know that if someone in the group dies,eating them to save the group is going to happen if there is nothing else left.Now hopefully the very thought of being reduced to that will spur you to do what my entire extended family has done;have a years supply of food on hand. No it's not impossible,the Mormans (Latter Day Saints)have been doing it for years.This can "save" you in a whole lot of situations like unemployment,unexpected illness or accident,divore or breakup,etc. .Just think if you were laid off tommorow how much better you would feel if you could go to your basement or pantry and look at food for your family for a long time of hard times! So in closing I repeat this is a great book,buy it,read it,share and reccomend it.Then start preparing your family for all possible futures :-)Book Review: New take on an old theme
Summary: 4 Stars
In this timely, well-written, and extremely frightening book about the effect of an electromagnetic pulse bomb (EMP) on American society, Forstchen uses fiction to bring to light a very real threat. What would happen if, in the blink of an eye, all electronic devices, systems, and infrastructure ceased to function? How would our comfortable lives change if, with no warning, we no longer had electrical power, functioning automobiles, medicine and food delivery, computers, or a hundred other things that we take for granted and have come to depend on?
One Second After is a new take on what has become a classic theme--survival in the aftermath of complete societal destruction. Drawing heavily on books like Alas Babylon and Lucifer's Hammer, as well as movies such as On the Beach and TV's Jericho, the book somehow presents a fresh portrait of life after the end of civilization as we know it. It is the story of how a small-town university professor, his two daughters, and their formerly cozy North Carolina community deal with the end of the world.
Forstchen does a good job of creating sympathetic characters and, through them, exploring the increasingly disconcerting realities of everyday life in a post-apocalyptic world. The characters wrestle first with relatively simple inconveniences like the lack of running water and no Internet. But with no medicine or transportation, they soon face increasing hunger, illness, a rapidly growing body count, and violence. Through the characters' and the town's experiences, the reader gets a glimpse of the harshness of the reality that we have managed to mostly cover up with our technological advancements.
The story is interesting and well-paced and almost completely apolitical, though it succeeds in provoking the reader to wonder what could be done today politically to prevent such a thing from occurring tomorrow. Objectionable material is minimal, though the realistic nature of the threat and its disturbing implications make the book difficult to get through at times.
Through it all, the truly frightening thing is not so much that a weapon exists that could wreak the kind of havoc described in the book but that our seemingly civilized culture could so rapidly disintegrate under those circumstances. Sobering, compelling, and at times heartbreaking, One Second After is well worth reading for anyone who has ever thought life was difficult when Facebook was down for a few hours.
Book Review: Great story, frighteningly possible
Summary: 4 Stars
Growing up as a teenager during the Cold War I read dozens of post-apocalyptic fiction novels, and I've never tired of them - be they about nuclear wars, man-made viruses, killer zombies... it doesn't matter. The fascination of how society survives, or doesn't, is the draw.
This one was fascinating to me. Despite all the end of the world books I've read, I've never believed in a prophecy of when the world will end, or stocked up a bunker just in case. I have, however, been concerned at our increasing dependence on computers and all things digital. When we lose power, we seem lose everything - TV, phones, cell phones; all outside communication. After 2 weeks of such loss in 2003 and a week in 2008, I did get to wondering, what would we do if a terrorist found a way to knock this all out? How would be cope?
And here it is.... EMP's. Electro-magnetic pulses caused by nuclear warheads deployed above the earth's atmosphere & destroying all things electronic, including modern cars. The US is hit & how does society cope? Pretty much the same as all disasters: we're no longer trained to work the soil, to transport goods by horse & cart; to build form scratch & cope without medical supplies and our freezers. The storyline in this was, in my opinion, excellent. Well thought out with society & structure collapsing, trying to find ways to rebuild - as individuals and as a community, facing starvation as well as threats from outside. I've no doubt the author feels very strongly about this story & the possibility of this really happening, just as the authors of the Cold War era wanted to make us fear the worst. Unlike the man-made viruses and killer zombies, this is something that makes many of us sit up and think "Wow! Could this happen? When? What would I do?"
Where it falls short of being a great novel is in the writing. The characters are rather one dimensional and stereotypical, and the grammar starts to grate on one's nerves after the first 1/3 of the book. Yes, as others have said "would of" and "could of" became unbearable - and it wasn't just in speech but also in narration. How can an editor let that slide? William R. Forstchen: Fire your editor! It might seem petty but a great novel should flow, not be interrupted by such basic mistakes that pull you out of the story when you want to be thoroughly absorbed. For that, it loses a star. But for the story itself, it's great!
Book Review: Thanks for the nightmares, Mr. Forstchen!
Summary: 5 Stars
Before I get into a review, I have to start by saying: this book scared me to death. Thanks, Mr. Forstchen, for giving me something else to worry about late at night.
One Second After is a work of fiction, but the introduction by Newt Gingrich lends a somber air of credibility to the story. This could really happen, folks. And from page 1, the author tries to beat that truth home without dramatics, and with a good, healthy dose of survivalist know-how.
The story chronicles one community's struggle to survive the aftermath of an electromagnetic pulse -- a nuclear bomb detonated high over the US soil that renders all modern technology useless in one second. The anonymous foe that provided the first strike is never really identified, adding credence to the atmosphere of not knowing that causes panic nationwide when cell phones, TV, radio, the Internet and all other communication devices are silenced forever.
The narrator, John, is a likeable guy and provides a great perspective of the events. He is a former Army officer, current military history professor, widower and father of two teenage girls. As a parent, his obvious priority is protecting his children, finding them food, securing their home and -- most dread-inducing -- going to whatever lengths necessary to try to keep his 12-year-old diabetic child alive without a reliable supply of insulin and refrigeration.
The book follows the events of the first year after the EMP, as people pull together to plant Victory Gardens to feed the town, fight bands of cannibalistic gangs bent on taking over the community and struggling in the daily fight to stay alive. It is a chilling view of how much we take for granted every single day.
This book made a huge impression on me. I actually had to take a few days to process the story before I could think about starting another story -- that doesn't happen often. Forstchen does a wonderful job of creating characters that the reader will care about, conceiving a surreal natinoal crisis that is all-too-real, and drawing attention to a threat to all of us that is almost to horrible to think about.
As a final note, I hope that this book doesn't fall into terrorist hands. That sounds melodramatic, but seriously. I think that people that hate our nation would read this book cackling with glee and chomping at the bit. (insert shiver here)
Book Review: One of the very best post-apocalypse books ever written
Summary: 5 Stars
The quality of a post-apocalyptic story is largely based on two criteria, the quality of the writing and the plausibility of the event triggering the apocalypse. Circumstances after the trigger event(s) tend to be similar in post-apocalyptic stories, people band together in isolated communities trying to survive and there are wild criminal gangs that rape, pillage, burn and often eat other people. Cults rise up, led by a person with a vision, a message or some promise of survival. Those circumstances are in this book, and Forstchen describes things in excellent detail and with sufficient drama and accuracy.
The main character is a retired Colonel that is now teaching history at a small college in Western North Carolina. His sense of history as expressed by Forstchen lends a great deal of accuracy to the story, as many of the events are taken from history, such as the siege of Leningrad in World War II. Despite the enormous difficulties and slow starvation, the people generally retain their civilized nature as leaders emerge and civil society manages to survive in their community even as the people are dying.
The characteristic that makes this one of the better post-apocalyptic stories is that the trigger event is plausible. Container ships off the coasts of the United States fire nuclear weapons that generate enhanced electromagnetic pulses (EMPs). When the three nuclear weapons detonate high above the surface of the Earth, the powerful pulses do not injure people, yet the pulses fry all but the most hardened of electronic devices, paralyzing the nation. Once the weapons are fired, the ships explode, leaving no trace as to their origin. While there is room for debate as to how vulnerable the United States is to an EMP attack, there is no question that the consequences would be catastrophic. Certainly, any enemy nation plotting such an action or nation harboring the terrorists capable of doing such a thing would do everything they could to make sure that that there is no possibility of tracing the weapons back.
The classic book "Alas Babylon" was required reading in my ninth grade English class, and it is a book that kept me thinking for some time. In one sense, this book was better, I found myself becoming emotionally fatigued after reading for awhile, so I read it in short installments rather than in lengthy sessions. It is an emotionally powerful book.