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Book Review of One Second After (John Matherson, Bk 1)

One Second After (John Matherson, Bk 1)
Gandalara avatar reviewed Eh - I've read better on + 23 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 11


First time I read anything by this author.

Basically one big cautionary tale with the foreword (Newt Gingrinch), the novel itself, and the afterword (Capt. Bill Sanders) about the possibility of EMP catastrophe and its effects on a North Carolina college town and its residents.

As a (very) long time reader of SF and post-apocalytic tales, I saw lots of cliches. Lots of characters with no common sense or survival sense. I really don't understand why it got so many 5 star reviews on Amazon - there are so many more better written books out there. I should have paid more attention to the review that said, "It read like a novelization of a Lifetime Television disaster-movie-of-the-week."

I would suggest that readers new to this type of books read "Lucifer's Hammer" by Niven and Pournelle, or "The Postman" by Brin, or "Emergence" by Palmer, or even "The Stand" by King.