Helpful Score: 6
This is a very thought provoking book. The end of the world (the United States, anyway) from an entirely different perspective. Not by a nuclear blast, but by stopping every single piece of electronics, as well as all computers. It was stunning to see just how much of our day to day life now depends on tiny computer chips. I liked that the book focused on one isolated small town and its efforts to survive. This story would make a great book club discussion. Good book.
Helpful Score: 5
This book is a public service announcement about the danger of an EMP device to America in the form of fiction. The most successful element going for the book is the convincing case it presents for an EMP attack being an imminent threat to America. Life as we know it in America would be shot back into the dark ages if one of our enemies was successful in detonating a nuke 25 miles above the ground. Apparently when a nuclear device is blown up at the right height it generates a pulse that fries virtually all electronics. Cars, cell phones, electricity, running water, and many other conveniences would stop functioning. The story revolves around this doomsday concept.
It is not especially gripping or skillfully written. As people start dying it had little pull on my heartstrings because I was not connected to the characters. Basically, you think about what would happen to your loved ones if all resources were used up and new resources (food, medicine) could not be shipped in. So Ill save you some time; buy canned foods, guns, bullets, medical supplies, etc if you are worried about a disaster situation so you can have some peace of mind for you and your loved ones.
It is not especially gripping or skillfully written. As people start dying it had little pull on my heartstrings because I was not connected to the characters. Basically, you think about what would happen to your loved ones if all resources were used up and new resources (food, medicine) could not be shipped in. So Ill save you some time; buy canned foods, guns, bullets, medical supplies, etc if you are worried about a disaster situation so you can have some peace of mind for you and your loved ones.
Helpful Score: 2
A bit tedious. The point of the book: To provide a fictitious story that would inform the reader about the dangers of an EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) attack on the US. An EMP would overload all electronic circuitry in cars, phones, etc....
It should have been a hint the story would be in great parts exposition when we learn the main character is a college professor. Pages upon pages feature the professor talking about the post-EMP problem in town meetings, at the office, at home, at the Quicky Mart, and everywhere more than two people might gather.
His small town bands together, in no small part, to the professor's sense of the events. The rest of the world goes chaos where life is nasty, brutish and short. I think he could have conveyed the same message in a shorter novel. I also felt 2-3 weeks was too short of time for people to go malnourished.
The beginning of the Tom Cruise movie 'War of the Worlds' has an EMP attack. Author appears to have taken some inspiration from this film, the parts without aliens. Expect some subtle politics, like, liberal Dems who quickly succumb when they can't feed off the government. Newt Gingrich writes the introduction.
It should have been a hint the story would be in great parts exposition when we learn the main character is a college professor. Pages upon pages feature the professor talking about the post-EMP problem in town meetings, at the office, at home, at the Quicky Mart, and everywhere more than two people might gather.
His small town bands together, in no small part, to the professor's sense of the events. The rest of the world goes chaos where life is nasty, brutish and short. I think he could have conveyed the same message in a shorter novel. I also felt 2-3 weeks was too short of time for people to go malnourished.
The beginning of the Tom Cruise movie 'War of the Worlds' has an EMP attack. Author appears to have taken some inspiration from this film, the parts without aliens. Expect some subtle politics, like, liberal Dems who quickly succumb when they can't feed off the government. Newt Gingrich writes the introduction.
Helpful Score: 1
A heart wrenching story of a potential disaster that will leave everyone alive -- but without much of our modern tools. This is far from a 'cozy catastrophe'. I really felt the struggle of the characters and the extreme efforts they made to survive.
