Fiction Addict

Genre: Apocalyptic

Publisher: Forge Books

Publication Date: March 17, 2009

Reviewed by Jeremy Taylor

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.