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The Aftermath: A Novel of Survival [Hardcover]

Samuel C. Florman (Author)
1.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)


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Book Description

December 11, 2001
The year is 2010 and the world as we know it has come to an end. A huge comet has smashed into the earth off the coast of California, vaporizing and generating a fiery rain that engulfs the globe in a destructive holocaust. But at the opposite pole of the planet, there is a "safe zone" encompassing part of the southeast African shore and the southern tip of Madagascar where the damage is extensive but not total.

Spared from destruction is a luxury cruise ship, the Queen of Africa, which carries 600 of the world's leading engineers. These outstanding technologists, traveling with their immediate families, are engaged in a seminar dedicated to finding solutions to humanity's eternal needs-shelter, food, energy, environmental preservation, and the like. But when the impact of the comet sends shock waves around the world, the passengers' first priority is to abandon ship for terra firma. Thus they head for the South African coast to begin the task of "starting over."

In KwaZulu Natal the passengers find a surviving community of about 25,000, including many experienced agricultural and industrial workers. These people have been cast back, physically, to the Stone Age, but intellectually they are at the forefront of technological progress in the 21st century, and they have at their disposal the natural resources needed to embark on an industrial revolution. So begins an epic adventure of rebuilding the world from scratch, but in an unpredictable, and sometimes hostile, environment, survival itself may be the real challenge.

The Aftermath is a provocative adventure story that provides a scientifically sound blueprint for surviving Armageddon.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In his idea-filled, forward-looking first novel, noted essayist Florman (The Existential Pleasures of Engineering, etc.) shows only passing concern for the nitty-gritty of daily survival in a postapocalyptic world. The story opens with a cosmic "Bang!," when a comet crashes into the Pacific on Christmas Day, 2009. The few people who survive are those fortunate enough to be nearly on the opposite side of the earth. The most notable group consists of a collection of top engineers taking a seminar cruise in the Indian Ocean. Landing in South Africa, these optimistic "Can do!" types quickly cooperate with the mixed communities of so-called Inlanders, trading their knowledge for food and salvaged materials. Establishing "Engineering Village" as their home, they plan on making it the hub of a second Industrial (and later, electronic) Revolution. Much of the book is concerned with the planning needed to reconstitute the lost industries and social structures of the survivors' former lives. Even when the daily fish catch is stolen by the divinely mad pirate leader Queen Ranavolana, their first impulse is to put together a meeting with a "clear, focused agenda." Interleaving a recounting of the new colonists' struggles with selections from the journal of their recording secretary, Florman tries to personalize his story. But, lacking realistic conflict, his narrative remains only a blueprint of an upbeat vision rather than a solid foundation for this hopefulness.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

After a cataclysmic asteroid strike destroys most life on Earth, a cruise ship filled with vacationing engineers and a community of South African villagers sole survivors of the disaster struggle to recover what they can of the world they knew. The author of several paeans to the science of engineering (The Introspective Engineer), first novelist Florman puts his talent as a raconteur to good use in a tale reminiscent of the expository fiction of sf's early writers. Though characters frequently take a backseat to ideas, this story of survival and hope at the end of history belongs in large sf collections and is suitable for YA as well as adult readers.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; 1st edition (December 11, 2001)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0312266529
  • ISBN-13: 978-0312266523
  • Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 1.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #954,976 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

13 Reviews
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 (2)
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 (1)
2 star:
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1 star:
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Average Customer Review
1.9 out of 5 stars (13 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars A Great Cure For Insomnia, October 25, 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: The Aftermath: A Novel of Survival (Hardcover)
The premise is great: cruise ship passengers survive the end of the world and start anew.
The author is an engineer and this book is written as only an engineer can: dry and boring.
There is no life in the characters (at least in the first couple hundred pages which is as far as I got). It reads like a college textbook.
At one point, the survivors have a contest to name their new city. The author has them choose: "Engineering Village"...Geez, how creative!
I will give this book praise on one point: It cured my insomnia on two occasions. This is the absolute truth. Couldn't sleep, started reading and after about 3 pages I was out.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Nice try but no cigar, March 27, 2002
By 
This review is from: The Aftermath: A Novel of Survival (Hardcover)
Imagine a "Survivor" series, only this one is for life and half of the tribe members are engineers. Or "Gilligan's Island" but with a huge cruise ship instead of the SS Minnow. Or try this: Cross Disney's "Swiss Family Robinson" with the world's favorite PC game, Sim City. And launch any of these scenarios with an end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it event, only without the music from REM.

A cruise ship of esteemed engineers survives a Christmas Day comet that lands off America's Northwest coast and pulverizes, burns or floods almost the entire globe, leaving only a tiny safe zone off the east coast of South Africa. The climate for survival here is ideal, given the abundance of natural resources. Too bad the ship sinks, no surprise given that the charts are worthless after this world-rearranging event. After a brief introduction to the disaster, the book covers the first year of progress in this new world.

Florman knows his technical details. The driving point of the book is the idea that after the world having been subjected to the equivalent of "being bombed back to the Stone Age", how would life recover if the survisors were technical geniuses? Would the last two thousand years of the world's technical progress be replicated in a much shorter time frame, since we already know all the answers, we just don't have the tools, people or resources to be there?

But the people are boring and as colorless as the sterotypical engineers Florman apparently wants to humanize. Even the "artsy" few, like the dance instructor from the cruise, are cardboard characters. Florman attempts to inject drama with a multicultural pirate leader attempting to pillage the island. The dramatic effort fails just as the pillaging attempt does.

This might make a manual for post-Apocalyptic survival kit, if this is it, we're in for a long, tedious repopulation of the planet.

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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars When Bad Books Happen to Good Subjects, August 12, 2002
By 
Ian Abrams (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Aftermath: A Novel of Survival (Hardcover)
Florman has taken a great idea and drained every drop of interest out of it. Apparently, his subtext was, "What if the world was destroyed except for several thousand really boring wonks? What kind of committees would they form?" Okay, I'm glad that I now know about the preparation of and uses for potash, but a lot of what this book deals with-- the interlocking web of technologies-- is much more entertainingly dealt with in James Burke's "Connections." If you want a good end-of-the-world novel, reread "Alas, Babylon" and give this one a miss.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
When the comet struck, I was on a cruise with my father. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
pirate queen
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Captain Nordstrom, Planning Subcommittee, Wilson Hardy, Alf Richards, Engineering Village, South Africa, Queen of Africa, Queen Ranavolana, Wil Hardy, Coordinating Committee, Focus Group, Governing Council, General White, Tom Swift, United States, Anne Marie, Gordon Chan, Indian Ocean, Stone Age, Richards Bay, Jane Warner, Ulundi Indaba, Ichiro Nagasaka, Millie Fox, Peter Mavimbela
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