Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
Okay, finished “One Second After” this morning.
My impression is that its a grittier, darker version of “Alas, Babylon” with a bunch of “Lucifer’s Hammer” thrown in.
Did I find it entertaining? Yeah, I find these sorts of books entertaining most of the time.
Without being too spoilerish, its a book about a crippling EMP incident. I think that the infrastructure failure shown throughout the book is probably pretty accurate, although I am not sure I agree on the level and timeframe of .gov response to it.
A couple things I disagreed on were the timeframe in which things go severely downhill. Im the first to acknowledge that most Americans don’t have more than a weeks worth of food in their house at any given moment, but at the two-month mark in this book theres some pretty severe starvation going on. I think just by virture of Americans being overweight that the decreased rations situation wouldnt drop them into children-with-swollen-bellies that fast.
One thing I found incredibly annoying in this book is the constant and unremitting ignorance (or lack of editting) displayed by the frequent use of “of” in place of “have”. For example, if you said “We would’ve starved” that is the same as “We would have straved”, correct? Yet throughout the book characters use the form “We would of starved”, or “He should of stayed home” or similar grammatical abortions.I found it distracting and rather irritating.
Someone in earlier comments said this book was compared to ,Rawles’ book. I suppose it compares in that both are post-apocalyptic but thats about the extent of it. ,Rawles’ book is his idea of how to survive the end of the world, presented in novel narrative….sort of an infomercial. This book is less a how-to and more of a cautionary tale. Its preface and introduction (as well as a short speech by the main character) lament that the .gov doesnt take the threat of EMP warfare seriously and that this could be the result. In that way its a ‘call to arms’ much the way ‘Alas Babylon’ was written to urge more emphasis on Civil Defense. (Its author, ‘Pat Frank’, was a big proponent of a strong Civil Defense program.)
So, lets cut to the chase….is it worth reading? I say yes. Is it entertaining? Yes. Realistic? I suppose…Im no expert on EMP but the infrastructure failure consequences portrayed in the book seem logical and believable. Is the book as enormously hopeless and depressing as “The Road”? Meh. Its got some depressing moments, to be sure, but if you look at the timeline that the story covers probably everyone reading this post would be just fine. I doubt anyone here doesn’t have enough food to get them through six months or so of empty grocery shelves. There are some interesting topics brought up in the book..one notable one is that the increased population density of the eastern US results in a lower food:person ratio than in the less populous western states. Theres almost no mention of how the western half of the US fares in this book but I’d bet money that in the western states things weren’t nearly as bad and Utah probably didnt have problems at all.
For me, the hallmark of good survivalist fiction is whether or not the book motivates me or otherwise affects my behavior in regards to being prepared. Using that as a barometer, then, yes, this book is a good read. When it was done I felt like hitting the WalMart and stocking up on more of everything.
As a side note, the book mentions, very briefly, ‘local survivalists’ that the townies think about taking/requisitioning supplies from. The idea is dismissed because the concern is that the family, the Franklins, would put up a rather costly firefigh, although it is also mentioned that the Franklins might prove useful for their knowledge and skills. Later in the book it mentions that the Franklins come down from the hills and help the townies with their improvised munitions that they are assembling to defend the town. Nice to know my collection of Ragnar Bensen books might come in handy some day.
