Two Postapocalyptic Classics

I've been on vacation this week, out west. It's been a welcome relief from work, and has allowed me to catch up on some reading.

Two highly recommended books. First up is Walter M. Miller, Jr.'s A Canticle for Leibowitz.



Unlike a lot of postapocalyptic novels, this one takes place well in the future, after a nuclear war has wiped out most of humanity. The Catholic Church has survived, and one of its saints, a pre-war scientist named Leibowitz, established a monastic order devoted to preserving books to help mankind recover. The book discusses, in several short novellas that take place in the millenium after the war, man's eventual recovery of civilization and science. The book is darkly humorous, and yet also touches on very serious questions of theology, ethics, and the nature of science. It is a very thoughtful reflection on human scoiety, and in my mind, ranks right after Earth Abides in the survivalist canon.

The second book is William R. Forstchen's One Second After. The apocalyptic trigger in this book is a high altitude ElectroMagnetic Pulse (EMP) that wipes out the electrical grid of the United States. A retired Army colonel, teaching history in a small college in North Carolina, becomes a leader in his town, reacting to the aftermath and to life without electricity. The situations his town faces range from epidemics to starvation to roving biker gangs, and the town has to face some very hard decisions in order to survive. The book is somewhat similar to Alas, Babylon, but in many ways, I think it is actually better. The problem in an EMP scenario is grim due to the sheer mass of population that has to survive in a world reduced to 1860s technology. A serious book, and very well done.