One Second After by William R. Forstchen
Posted by megmme on January 27, 2010
Overall Grade: A+
Synopsis: (via GoodReads)
New York Times best selling author William R. Forstchen now brings us a story which can be all too terrifyingly real…a story in which one man struggles to save his family and his small North Carolina town after America loses a war, in one second, a war that will send America back to the Dark Ages…A war based upon a weapon, an Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP). A weapon that may already be in the hands of our enemies.
Months before publication, One Second After has already been cited on the floor of Congress as a book all Americans should read, a book already being discussed in the corridors of the Pentagon as a truly realistic look at a weapon and its awesome power to destroy the entire United States, literally within one second. It is a weapon that the Wall Street Journal warns could shatter America. In the tradition of On the Beach, Fail Safe and Testament, this book, set in a typical American town, is a dire warning of what might be our future…and our end.
Review:
I read Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank years ago and count in among my favorite books. It was a fascinating look at how humanity can come together and adapt to a completely new world. However, I was a child during the bulk of the cold war; I barely remember the Berlin Wall falling and Russia has almost always been Russia–not the Soviet Union. Because I have never felt a real threat from nuclear weapons, Alas, Babylon didn’t frighten me as a realistic possibility.
One Second After is an entirely different read. I see myself and my family in the characters in the book and it is entirely real. Starvation, disease, clean water, and simple medicine are things we all take for granted and could be gone surprisingly quickly.
So, am I going to become a mountain survivalist? Most likely no…while I would love to have a farm and a large garden, I am a creature of the suburbs and have no illusions that I, and my family, would likely be among the first to die should the end come.
If there is one fault to the book, it is minor. The main character is a military historian and, with annoying frequency, compares the situation to “a movie he once saw” or “a famous painting of the Russian Revolution by…” or “a paper he once read while teaching at the military academy…” It isn’t a major distraction but it did get on my nerves near the end of the book.
So….go and read the book–I highly recommend it. But have something happy to read right after..you’ll need it because I will guarantee you’ll get choked up at one point or another.
Audiobook Details
Run time: 13 hours, 21 minutes.
I thought the reader, Joe Barrett, was excellent. He didn’t exactly “do the voices” but does somehow manage to instill a sense of personality into each character’s lines. I do feel for him–he did have the unfortunate job of having to narrate James Patterson’s The Murder of King Tut.
