One Second After

Reviews

1. 

   Fredrick P. Wilson – August 9, 2024

   Permanent Civilization Killer
   This is an important book to read and understand. as well as a vital subject for the continuation of Western Civilization. Bold statements. This is not for survivalists, this is for national defense and civil preparedness. This is to keep 280 million Americans from being killed. This is to stop the single largest genocide in human history – us. This is also about kicks and grins for the liberals that think this is about conservative politics, rather than their survival, for they will be the first ones to disappear from America after a successful EMP attack. This tome is a fictional attempt to describe the horrors of an EMP attack on the USA, for a real attack has not occurred (yet), and there will, almost certainly, be no one left that will either be able to write such history, or that will be an American that will mourn our passing. As a fictional account it is far too optimistic, but still a compelling story. It is written in a colloquial manner, almost as if it was dictated into a recorder. That type of writing apparently doesn’t appeal to a variety of readers, but I believe most of them are opposed to Newt Gingrich and conservative politics, and can’t see past their politics to see the appropriateness, and beauty, of this type of writing. Not every book can be written within the rules of incomprehensible dribble, such as Orientalism (by Edward Said) and Profits Over People (by Noam Chomsky) are. The story is that an EMP attack occurs, although that is not known immediately, and the protagonist, a college professor with a military background in a small college town in the Appalachian foothills, bands together with his family and town leaders to survive the crisis. Various horrid effects of an EMP attack are evidenced both personally and societally, with some violence included. Overall, I believe this is an irrationally positive story of the aftermath of such an EMP attack, but the author had to put together a story that covered the basics, and allowed someone to survive to be the protagonist. The United States House of Representatives Anti-Terrorism Caucus, approximately 122 members, including 40 Democrats, understands that an EMP attack on the USA is a clear and present threat once Iran acquires nuclear weapons: that a false flag attack, such as one by China disguised to be one from Iran, is also possible with a probably higher than one. If indeed this is a silly conservative political book, than there are lot of serious Democrats that understand the mortal danger the USA is in. There will be no electricity for many years. No electronics. No Computers. No internet. No phones or cell phones. No TV. No Post Office. No telegraph. No airplanes or airlines. No trains. No busses or trucks or cars unless they are old (pre 1975) points ignition cars or old diesels. No gasoline. No water. No medicine. No hospitals. No food. No heat. Modern water supply is via big pumps and purification plants that run off of electricity. After an EMP, the only water will come from rivers, lakes, and shallow, manually powered wells. If you live far from a river, and many stories up in a major city, life will become impossible in less than one week. For safe water, boiling is the only option. No refrigeration, so no food storage. Grocery stores only have about one day of food in them. No transportation of food. No production of food, other than gardens and small farms that have real, horse pie producing, horse power available. Starvation will start within a couple of weeks. How far can you walk each day for water and food, and return to your shelter (house, apartment), without having anyone else steel whatever you have? If you have a generator, how much fuel do you have? There won’t be any more fuel for many years. Everyone of your neighbors will know you have a generator, and you will have more friends that you ever imagined, until the hospitality and the generator run out of fuel. No heat in winter, unless you have a wood stove/heater, and the wood (and tools – no chain saws) to keep it stocked through winter. No medicine, as there is no refrigeration, which many anti-biotics need, and there will be no new production or transportation. Hospitals will shut down as their generators run out of fuel. No operating rooms or fancy equipment. A small cut, with no treatment (no water for cleaning or ointment) may kill you. First responders will be in deep trouble just like everyone else, for their equipment won’t work either, and their families will be in deep trouble as will everyone else. The military used to be hardened against EMP effects back in the cold war days. No more, as most new equipment is no longer hardened, for, obviously, after the end of the cold war there are no nuclear problems, or threats, anywhere else in the world. Right! As civilisation starts breaking down, each family will be on its own, and violence will break out as everyone fights over the few remaining resources. Whether there will be some small towns that hang together as this book states is highly unlikely. The House of Representatives estimates that nine out of 10 of us will die within the first year due to thirst, starvation, exposure, disease, and violence. That is the death of 280 million Americans within the first year. No country in the world has any significant capability to come to our aid. They don’t have the airplanes, helicopters, supplies in storage, or ships. They don’t have the military capability. Europe, Canada, Russia, China, South America, will all be unable to provide anything more than token assistance that will save a few thousands, but not even one million. It will be the single largest genocide in human history, by a landslide. Per the House of Representatives Anti-Terrorism Caucus, Iran has launched advanced scuds straight up for 30 miles, from barges off their coast. Why would they do that, other than to practice for an EMP attack? EMP effects were discovered after some US atmospheric nuclear tests in the early `60s wiped out half of Hawaii’s electrical grid. An EMP attack requires a nuclear fission bomb, like the Hiroshima bomb. A hydrogen bomb will not produce an EMP effect other than locally. The bomb must go off between 30 miles up and 100 miles up in order to interact with the earth’s magnetic field. So that the Compton effect will occur, which means the effects of the bomb will be magnified and focused back towards the earth. Because no one dies immediately and there is no significant radiation effect, it is easy for those with little knowledge and less sense to deride this type of attack. The science behind an EMP attack is sound. It has been verified by experimentation. It is not a theory, it is a scientific fact. Iran has said that one nuclear bomb would destroy Israel, but that no retaliatory attack could kill most Iranians, so that see no problem with such an exchange. “Moderate” President Rafsanjani said that in 2001. We, the USA, are the Great Satan, is the mantra of the late, unlamented, Ayatollah Khomeini. President Ahmadinejad has stated on numerous occasions that he imagines a world without the USA with pleasure. He doesn’t say anything major such as that without the approval and concurrence of Ayatollah Khamenei and the Revolutionary Council. It would be simple to eliminate the USA, via an EMP attack, and then the Little Satan, Israel, could be dealt with easily.. MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction, as Ayatollah Rafsanjani stated above, will not deter these religious fanatics. So what if we turn Iran into a radioactive glassine parking lot? 280 million of us will still die. Revenge is worthless if the USA no longer exists. Enough Hezbollah and Shia Islamists will still exist, along with Sunni Islamists, to applaud our eradication, although, officially, numerous crocodile tears will be wept. Forstchen, in this novel, promotes the type of attack that is the most likely, and the safest from a retaliatory attack. Three container ships, one each off the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts, outside of USA territorial waters, all open up one special container lid. One advanced scud with a Hiroshima style and size nuke warhead, is launched straight up from each ship. Thirty seconds after launch, 30 miles up, the warheads explode, and America goes dark. Forstchen has all three ships immolate themselves in their own nuclear explosions so that there is no evidence left behind as to whom launched the attack. We retaliate and wipe Iran and North Korea off of the map. And 280 million Americans die. A possible scenario is three nukes launched by submarines. We are rapidly losing our anti-submarine capabilities that we developed so highly during the cold war, such that this will become more likely as time goes by. Iran has launched satellites into orbit. They can launch one with a nuke on it, . brake it such that it re-enters over St. Louis, and explode it 100 miles up. 280 million Americans die. A conventional ICBM attack with the missile and warhead exploding over St. Louis, 100 miles up, can’t happen until Iran has ICBM’s capable of doing that. If we are still around in 4 or 5 years, they will have them, as will North Korea. As do Russia and China. In a military scenario, which this is, one has to protect against what can happen, not what one thinks will happen, for as soon as one does that, the enemy will do something different, and you are dead. Sun Tsu taught this over 2,000 years ago. We have no defenses against an EMP attack. We need a perfect missile defense system that can react to anything within a few seconds so that a scud launch off our coast can be intercepted and destroyed before it reaches 30 miles up and explodes, ie within 30 seconds.. We have no missile defense against an ICBM. The technology works. We can not only hit a bullet (missile) with a bullet (missile), we can hit a spot on that bullet (missile). We need the anti-satellite capability. The technology exists, but we haven’t built or deployed it. Obama cut the missile defense system that was to be deployed in Eastern Europe. Russia laughed and screwed us. Obama has cut missile defense funding and projects. Obama and Hillary believe a couple of short range Aegis anti-ballistic missile cruisers off of the coast of Iran can protect us. Dumbest, most ignorant statement, and policy, I have ever heard. Obama has stated that he will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. When Pakistan notified the world that they had nukes, they exploded 6 of them in one day in May, 1998. No one knew anything before then about Pakistan. At lease, we know Iran is working on nuclear weapons. Iran will do something similar to Pakistan, and I believe the Israelis, who have far better intelligence capabilities in the Middle East than we do, that Iran will have nuclear weapons and capabilities before the end of 2012, plus that their weapons and capabilities will be buried so deep even we won’t be able to do anything. Israel doesn’t have the military capability unless they use their own nukes. Sanctions are not working, and will never work. Anybody that believes Obama will do anything to stop Iran should bid on the slightly used US embassy available in Tehran. I have put together over 380 pages of documentation to substantiate what is stated herein, spent over 100 hours studying this threat, and spoken with members of Congress. This is a vital book, I am glad Forstchen wrote it, and there should be more, more realistic, novels written on this subject. Remember, your life, and the lives of 279, 999,999 other Americans depend on your beliefs and actions.

2. 

   Eugenio F. Pokluda – August 9, 2024

   Fast read, frightening scenario but lacks depth
   Matherson definitely did his research on this book and I am glad I read it. That said, the character development is shallow at best and save by the storyline. This book, with better character development could easily have been twice as long. It is a quick read but I will probably skip the other two books in the trilogy.

3. 

   Anna H. – August 9, 2024

   One of the best
   This book can really get you prepared for the bad times. It’s written as a story to me, and I love it that way. I decided to order all of his books which are connected to this subject. The seller is amazing too, I received my book earlier, and we’ll packed.

4. 

   zee9 – August 9, 2024

   Hard to decide on this one
   One of the genres I enjoy reading is post-apocalyptic stories. One Second After is one such book, this one in particular deals with the aftermath of an EMP detonation. Without electricity, issues such as clean water, food, medicine, sanitation, disease, and crime become very critical. This story examines one town’s struggle for survival.This story differs from a lot of other stories I’ve read in this genre. Most stories I’ve read fall into one of two categories. In the first, people scatter and take on a ‘fend for yourself’ mentality. The other usually depicts a dystopian culture, one that is often on the brink of (or beyond) collapse. This story falls into neither category completely, though there are moments where it leans towards one or the other. The town of Black Mountain, NC comes together under the guidance of its leaders and officials in order to help and protect each other, even when things go from bad to worse.I felt that this story offered a striking amount of realism, especially as the story progressed and the town’s situation continued to deteriorate. The town’s leaders were faced with difficult decisions in order to prolong and ensure the survival of the residents, even acknowledging that they’d have to chose who would live and who were liabilities. When food and medicine fall into short supply, they must decide who eats, who gets medical attention, and who doesn’t. This is a very bleak story – there is no sugar coated ‘everything will be okay’ ending. It is all about the struggle to survive.That being said, there isn’t a whole lot of detail about what the characters are doing to survive, how they are adapting to a way of life without modern conveniences. There is a lot of talk about how reliant America is as a nation on the system of commerce and how this dependence has crippled people’s ability to survive without it. But this story doesn’t really talk about how the people are changing their habits after the EMP attack. Such as growing food, obtaining resources, restructuring and redeveloping technology. Brief mentions of these things but no real depth.Although I found the concept of the story to be interesting, I found that the characters were not. The main protagonist is Colonel/Dr. John Matherson, retired military, college professor of history, widower, and father of two teenage girls, the younger of which is type 1 diabetic. John struck me as filling the stereotype of a walking encyclopedia of war and battle history, almost a know-it-all. The town leaders constantly looked to him for advice and leadership, as if they didn’t have the ability to think things out for themselves. John’s daughters are flat and one dimensional, have no character development, and seem to serve only as plot devices for John’s actions. The reader has almost no emotional attachment to the main characters throughout the bulk of the story.I had some issues with the way some moments or situations in the book were described. Whatever the current situation was, it was always likened to some other event (Leningrad was used a lot), a painting or photo of a historic event, or a movie/documentary of some sort. After so much of this, I realized that the author was incapable of depicting a situation – the emotions, the actions, etc. – in his own words and had to rely on some outside source in order to convey what he wanted the reader to understand. I was terribly disappointed by this.A lot of other reviewers have brought up the grammar issue. Most mistakes are easily ignored; if a story is compelling enough, mistakes can be forgiven. But repeated botchery of grammar becomes quite distracting. And in this story, it is most evident with the “could of, would of, should of, might of” repetition. “Could have, would have, should have, might have” is correct. Though I only noticed that this error was used during speech, it still remains quite distracting. I can’t believe that every character would speak with the same incorrect grammar.The final problem I had with this story is that it was very frequently difficult to follow who was speaking. More than two people in a conversation, but no identifiers to indicate who was speaking each line. Adding to the confusion, a character may speak one sentence and then there would be a paragraph break but the same person would pick up the dialogue. But the reader wouldn’t get that until nearing the end of the second piece of the dialogue, forcing him or her to reread the passage in order to reestablish the flow of the conversation. If a character is going to speak more than one sentence without an interruption, then there is no need to start a new paragraph after one sentence. Considering that this story is very dialogue heavy, I think it’s crucial to make sure the reader can follow along with who is speaking.Despite the issues I had with this book, I thought it was okay. The author put a lot of thought into the struggles people would have to cope with if they were suddenly thrust into a situation where they were cut off from the rest of the country. I felt that the suffering and sacrifices that such a situation would bring about was described very realistically. Most books just gloss over these harsh topics, always happening to someone else.Would I recommend this book? I suppose so. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t a mind blower either. I don’t think it deserves the almost 5 star rating. But it was still entertaining enough and it was fairly cheap. If you want to read something that is a little bit different than most stories of this genre, then this one might be worth investing your time in.

5. 

   Juan E. Sandoval – August 9, 2024

   Buen libro, no es un nobel de literatura, peron os muestra como puede ser fatal la dependencia que tenemos sde los microchips y microcircuitos. Muy interesante, rápida, algo predecible, pero entretenido.

6. 

   Kindle Customer – August 9, 2024

   Our whole world revolves around electricity. Without it, the world would grind to a halt. I thought it was bad enough when the world shut down during Covid. But, that’s nothing compared to what could happen with an EMP. This book paints a disturbing picture of our very vulnerable world if everything powered by electricity is suddenly rendered useless. This is a sobering read and one that should challenge our complacency. Highly recommended.

7. 

   Hbsc Xris – August 9, 2024

   Excellente trilogie, “One second after”, “One year after”, “The final day”, sur les conséquences d’une EMP.Les explosions type EMP (Electro magnetic pulse) sont presque totalement inconnus du grand public en France et ignorés de nos politiciens, même si quelques militaires ont tiré la sonnette d’alarme, dans le désert.Pour résumer, un missile nucléaire tiré à une certaine altitude dans l’atmosphère, au dessus d’une zone donnée, qui peut-être de la taille d’un pays ou plusieurs, peut neutraliser l’ensemble du système électrique de la zone donnée. Concrètement, cela veut dire que physiquement nous ne percevrions pas grand chose, peut-être même pas l’explosion et au premier abord, il n’y aurait rien de visible au sol sauf des transformateurs et des lignes électriques fondues. Mais la totalité du réseau électrique s’arrêterait instantanément de fonctionner ainsi que la tous les véhicules ayant de l’électronique et bien sûr trains, avions, camions, etc.C’est à dire que seule la jeep de collection ou le tracteur de arrière grand papa pourrait continuer à rouler, plus des véhicules ou des installations spécialement protégées, mais il n’y en a quasiment pas en France. Toutes les communications téléphoniques et informatiques seraient suspendues. Le réseau et les appareils étant “fondus” (pour faire court), il faudrait des mois ou des années pour reconstruire le monde actuel, selon l’étendue de la zone ou des zones touchées.La trilogie de W. R. Forstchen raconte les conséquences d’une telle catastrophe survenant sur le continent US, vues depuis une petite ville des Blacks Montains en Virginie.W. R Forstchen est un historien, spécialiste des XVIIIème et XIXème siècle US d’où la crédibilité de son récit sociétal d’un “retour vers le passé”. Pour toutes les conséquences d’un EMP, il a travaillé en collaboration avec un de ses amis, spécialiste militaire car les Américains, “eux”, comme les Russes ou les Chinois ou les Israéliens travaillent sur le sujet.Le récit est extraordinaire de “réalisme”, assez dur parfois, mais parfaitement cohérent sur ce qui se passerait dans un monde privé de ravitaillement, de médicaments, de communications et correspond aux prévisions des experts sur le sujet.90% de la population mourrait en 1 an, dont la presque totalité des habitants des grandes villes.Les survivants appartiendraient à de petites communautés soudées, créant leur milice de défense et mettant en place une protection de leur zone contre les réfugiés. Eh oui, c’est terrible, mais quand il n’y a plus à manger pour tout le monde et presque plus de médicaments, on arrête d’accueillir toute la misère du monde, il faut choisir entre les siens et les autres et, parmi les autres, trier les savoirs utiles en revenant à ce qui est véritablement utile dans une société. Il en fut ainsi dans toutes les sociétés pendant des millénaires. C’est à dire plus de place, ni d’espoir pour le licencié en droit , sciences po, ou en lettres mais une petite place pour le chasseur, le mécanicien, l’infirmière, le forgeron, le collectionneur d’antiquités ou l’historien des techniques.Les interrogations humaines des survivants et du héros principal, ancien colonel de l’armée US, professeur d’histoire de l’université locale, leur souci de se raccrocher à des principes tirés de la constitution US, de l’histoire US, de la religion, les rend plus vrais et donne du corps au récit, rappelant qu’aucune société ne se construit ou ne se reconstruit sans un fondement idéologique.Ok, il y a quelques guerres, un peu à la John Wayne. Un commentateur a trouvé l’attaque d’une armée de voyous peu crédible. En ce qui me concerne, je la trouve non seulement hautement crédible car les voyous croulent déjà sous les armes en tout genre, mais serait également les 1ers a être organisés en bandes armées, en mesure de piller armureries et autres lieux de stockage d’armes en cas de catastrophe.Pire, la France n’est pas les USA ou la Suisse où tout citoyen a le droit de posséder une arme y compris de guerre.En France, des séries de lois, qui auront peut-être un jour des circonstances catastrophiques, ont privé les honnêtes citoyens de presque toutes leurs armes. Ce n’est pas les fusils des chasseurs “français” et leur médiocre provision de cartouches qui iraient loin face à des AK 47 ou des colt 45 qui sont monnaie courante dans certains lieux qu’on ne citera pas. C’est donc la quasi-totalité des citoyens honnêtes qui seraient incapables de se défendre si une guerre civile survenait, quelle que cause que ce soit.Effrayant de comprendre à quel point, on serait vulnérable dans notre pays car je n’ai pu m’empêcher de faire des parallèles entre ce qui serait possible dans une petite ville des USA et dans une petite ville de France. Ici, nous n’avons aucune chance.Serait à envoyer à tous nos candidats à la présidentielle pour qu’ils réfléchissent.