Already cited on the floor of Congress and discussed in the corridors of the Pentagon as a book all Americans should read, One Second After is the story of a war scenario that could become all too terrifyingly real. Based upon a real weapon - the Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) - which may already be in the hands of our enemies, it is a truly realistic look at the awesome power of a weapon that can destroy the entire United States, literally within one second.

This book, set in a typical American town, is a dire warning of what might be our future and our end.

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Listening Length	13 hours and 17 minutes
Author	William R. Forstchen
Narrator	Joe Barrett
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com Release Date	March 17, 2009
Publisher	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B001WYVAJ8
Best Sellers Rank	#1,009 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #5 in Technothrillers (Audible Books & Originals) #12 in Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction (Audible Books & Originals) #37 in Technothrillers (Books)

Customer reviews

5 star		74%
4 star		15%
3 star		5%
2 star		2%
1 star		3%

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Top reviews from the United States

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KD Wilcox

Read it!!

Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2018

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*sigh*
wow
Having learned that Congress considers this a book all Americans should read, I bought it. I've had a mind toward prepping ever since I read Lucifer's Hammer, probably 25 years ago. This book takes you a step further into the psyche of survival. I marvelled at the ill-prepared, was impressed by unique ideas, and was numbed by the vast destruction.
My biggest disappointment is that Congress and the Pentagon have discussed this book, consider it a "must read" even. Yet, I just heard about it this week, roughly 10 years later. Have they acted? No. Have they encouraged the American ppl to prepare? No.
The average American lives 3 days to hunger. What would you do to protect your family from those who would kill them to feed their own family?
Most people say "Anything!!"
But they won't store rice, beans, oats....they don't own a water filter or know how to build one.
You'd steal and kill ... but you won't prepare.

And I'm the weird one.
READ THIS BOOK.
Then read Lucifer's Hammer.

Then DO SOMETHING!

247 people found this helpful

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Hawkscry

Poorly written, biased, fearmongering book

Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2018

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I made it all the way through this book. It wasn't easy as the writing is as times stilted or tell versus show. Sometimes the author repeats the same piece of information, and foreshadowing is obvious. In addition, the premise is flawed. There is no military presence in the area the book is set in, but in "real life" the military or national guard would be a presence, and much earlier than it mentions in the book. Most people who have half a brain also have enough non perishable food on hand to last at least a month, so the complete breakdown of society as shown in the book would happen much slower, if at all. The military is overly lauded in the book, likely due to the authors implicit bias towards military service. "Liberal" characters, the few who are shown, are one dimensional, poorly written foils for the "good guys". A decent try if this book had been a college freshman term paper, but not really worth the read otherwise. This man has a PhD?

183 people found this helpful

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Steven Miller

A tortures read!

Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2019

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WOW. Do not read.

I love apocalyptic fiction stories which are also known as Social science fiction. In part because of the rich setting(s) that can be created to explore people, their interactions, and how they may react to the setting or apocalyptic event. So I bought this novel since it had been on the New York best seller list and it had over 8,000 reviews on amazon and averaged 4.5 starts.

I am amazed that this novel was rated so high. It is absolutely terrible and is a 1.5 star at best.

The author is wholly out of touch with reality, society, and people so he weaves a tale with what seems like a 15 year olds understanding of society and people, immature and unbelievable. This is surprising since the author is a professor of history in North Carolina. He should have read history and how people reacted to devastating events. We can only guess that this professor is teaching a false version of history.

The author has some noble idea that Americans are not really people and tells a tail that holds Americanism above all else. So the average American would never steal or kill for food when their children that are starving to death. But will band together to share. Only the people who were criminals before the event do anything ‘bad’.

The characters are flat and with very little to no development. The only development for the main character is to show that he is not knowledgeable at all. We are lead to believe early on that he knows all about the effects of an EMP event from his past experience with the US Army. Further as soon as the event happens he knows what the problem is and sets out to educate the area officials. But he fails short from providing for his family as he is too bent on saving the society. But then again everyone shares and those that don’t are criminals.

The main character goes off on these ridicules speeches, both in his head and to someone or a group of people. The speeches are little more than the ravings of someone not in touch and off in a fantasy land all while waving the flag. Some do not fit the scene since the author rambles on and on.

By the middle of the third chapter in the book, the story become completely predictable and expected. With the flat characters or lack of character development, the story is at best boring and at times it is tortures read.

117 people found this helpful

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adams

SOOO much like Alas, Babylon

Reviewed in the United States on September 13, 2018

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first, let me say that this is a fairly good book. i read all the time and having not read ALAS, BABYLON, i probably would give this a 4 or 5 star rating. however, it contains nearly all the same plot twists--single man, love interest, a diabetic major character, the main character growing harder than he thought he could, home invasion, a mini-war, and eventual redemption by the U.S. government. aside from the reason for the national disaster, the heirs of Pat Frank could probably take the author to court. the only difference that i see is that they (spoiler alert) eat the freaking house dogs. so i cannot get 'on board' with this as an excellent book. i think that if you want to read something about a potential national disaster and you have not read ALAS, BABYLON, this would probably be okay for you. but for my time and money, i would rather re-read ALAS BABYLON (for about the tenth time) and leave this obvious poser in the dust.

105 people found this helpful

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lmmr

Like the old saying goes

Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2017

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Let me just start by saying I've read thousands of books in my lifetime. I was that little kid carting out as many books from the library as my arms could carry, and not much has changed over the years. I've read all sorts of books that I have found to be insightful/helpful, but I can count on one hand the books that truly, fundamentally changed the way I view the world. This book is one of them, and frankly, the others don't come close. This is a dark, dark topic...science fiction...for now. Nonetheless, I feel lucky to have read it. Like the old saying goes, "Knowledge is power." Naïve no longer.

157 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Amazon Customer

I loved Stephen King's 'The Stand'

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 2, 2017

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I loved Stephen King's 'The Stand'... I loved Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road'... I loved Justin Cronin's The Passage... Naturally, my next course of action was to google 'top apocalypse fiction and unfortunately, this lead me to this book. Honestly, 'abysmal' doesn't even come close.

You know how sometimes you stumble across a book which you can't put down and every spare moment you have you just have to dip back in? Well this was like that for me in that it is so laughably bad, I just had to keep on reading. It's sort of like when you drive past a car accident or something and can't help but rubberneck.

Alarm Bells should have been ringing when I saw there was a foreword from Newt Gingrich, but still I downloaded the preview and got stuck in. The concept was appealing enough to buy the whole thing, and the author clearly knows his stuff when it comes to EMP and such matter, but holy hell, 3 or 4 chapters in and it's abundantly clear how bad this Author's grasp of humanity really is. Basically, unless you're unlucky enough to be some yeeeehaw gun-toting, republican, jingoistic, flag-waving, 5th amendment touting fool, you're going to despise this book. It really is that bad. There are times when I actually laughed out loud at the main characters choice of actions. I don't want to give out spoilers though, so I'll leave that to you, the reader, to discover on your own.

I would be lying though if I said this book didn't move me in ways I've never been moved before by a book before. Such as the two, yes TWO, occasions where the fictional public in the book burst into a soaring rendition of the star spangled banner. Seriously, I've never laughed so much before at a book.

I actually feel a bit sorry for the author to be honest. You will see that this 'John' character is such an obvious projection of how the author wishes he was in real life, but why anyone would strive to be like this I'm unsure. Clearly Mr. Forstchen does, which is unfortunate, but each to their own, I suppose.

Honestly, steer clear. It's awful. Just awful

30 people found this helpful

Armchair Critical

Pedestrian prose, unoriginal plot, and boring characters. Don't bother with this one.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 21, 2017

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One Second After is the story of a small town in the mountains of North Carolina in the aftermath on a high altitude nuclear EMP (electromagnetic pulse). The narrative is focused around the actions of military history professor John Masterson in his efforts to help his family and community to survive. There are descriptions of the initial uncertainty followed by panic, looting etc and the town administrators actions to maintain order and promote survival.

Overall this novel is readable, the characters are plausible despite being rather cartoonishly stereotyped, and the plot is fairly typical for the genre. But there is nothing particularly interesting, engaging, enlightening, or otherwise worthy of recommendation. If you're likely to be annoyed by overtly political writing then you will hate this book (given that a forward is provided by republican Newt Gingrich you'd be silly to read this novel and not expect it to have a political slant). Similarly the characters and the narrative carry some fairly outdated/borderline misogynistic view points, so if that is likely to put you off then this book is certainly not for you. Ultimately though, the main reason not to read this book is that it lacks any compelling narrative and/or plot elements and the characters are boring. Given that the main action concerns a band of cannibal looters, you could read the same basic story a hundred other places.

22 people found this helpful

A Reader

Nothing new...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 18, 2020

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I have a weakness for post-apocalypse / dystopian fiction, and I have read enough to know that with a few notable exceptions - McCarthy, Butler etc., - to not expect literary writing, and to be fair, most authors in the genre are not aiming for that either, so I'm trying to be fair in this review and start on a positive: given how many books in the genre are self-published, it was a pleasant surprise that this novel does seem to have been properly edited, and was not littered with the typos and malapropisms that normally plague the genre. It's also interesting to have a scenario focused on one very limited location, and, as a twist, the implication that it's only the US, and not the entire planet, suffering the effects of said EMP.

The writing, however, as others have pointed out, was dull - often bordering on turgid - and the characters rather ridiculous stereotypes. I've lost count of the stoic, manly widowers with a military background, with only their beautiful, virginal daughters by their side, facing the end of the world; fortunately, the end of the word also seems to be full of beautiful, smart-but-not-smarter-than-the-protagonist women who just happen to be both ten to fifteen years younger than the stoic ex-military types *and* attracted to older men.

That treatment of women reflects the overall problem of the book - and much of the genre, unfortunately. As others have noted, the main protagonist is clearly an idealised version of the author, and the various scenarios he faces in the novel are just a chance to expound on right-wing theories of patriotism, manliness and American Exceptionalism. All of which one could overlook if the novel were better written, or had a more exciting plot, but unfortunately it doesn't, so in the end, unless one agrees with the authors worldview, it becomes very tedious.

Are there any post-apocalypse / dystopian fiction writers not coming from a right-wing, 'it was all better in my day' perspective ? Or that doesn't resort to lazy stereotypes about all politicians being useless, and fetishise the military ? Recommendations would be much appreciated ...

5 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Set fire to your money and warm your hands, instead of buying this trash.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 10, 2017

Verified Purchase

I am embarrassed to admit that I actually spent money on this truly awful book. I love post-apocalyptic novels and the premise of this one was promising (western societies cannot function without computers) but the writing is excruciatingly dire. Banal set-pieces, endless back stories of people (and animals!) you really don't care about, dialogues written by 10th graders. Pathetic.

14 people found this helpful

Walbs

Good read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 26, 2018

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This is a good read and connection is built to characters. It generally holds true for what could come about after such an attack on the western world. The drive through the story certainly kept the book constantly in my hand. I wanted to progress through the story to see how the characters developed and the sacrifices they had to make. Triage is by far the cruelest decisions that any civilisation ever has to step down to make. With limited resources the survival of community has to come first over the individual. Our food processing and just in time replenishment is really shown to have serious flaws. Communication is the big factor in keeping civilisation going. I found some deaths by starvation a little overstated as not being able to function / live on around 1000 calories a day, every day in the initial part of the story. Two areas that certainly came over was the levels of fatalities caused be lack of drugs and disease affected by malnutrition in a close environment.

3 people found this helpful

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