The Living will Envy the Dead in the Next Day of Infamy
Imagine waking up on what you think will be a normal day except when you turn on the TV or radio to catch the news – nothing. You get ready for work only to find that your car will not start. You grab your cell phone – nothing…..not a single electronic in your house works. After checking with a neighbor you find the same scenario. This is starting to feel very uncomfortable …neighbors gather in the street feeling frightened and confused. What has just happened, only nobody realizes it yet, is that one of our enemies has detonated a nuclear bomb two hundred miles up, directly over America, and while it doesn’t hurt the people …yet… it emits gamma and x-rays that create an electrical disturbance known as EMP or Electro Magnetic Pulse that strikes wires, metal, antennas, power lines – anything electronic will be destroyed in its powerful path. In one second, the entire power grid, communications network and transportation system of the United States will come to a grinding halt.
One Second After (TOR/Forge Books), while written as fiction, is based on cold, solid facts. This is the story of what might transpire in the year after an EMP attack – an attack (according to one Congressional study) that could leave upwards of ninety percent of the American population dead from disease, starvation and civil break down. Dr. William R. Forstchen is the masterful author of One Second After. Devoting years of research to this topic, and drawing data from Congressional and Pentagon studies resulted in his book being cited before the House Armed Services Committee as a grim but realistic look at the outcome after an attack by EMP weapons.
One Second After is the story of Professor John Matherson; ex-military; single parent of two young daughters and a history professor at a small college in the mountains of western North Carolina when the attack occurs. With his military background, he knows immediately what has happened while his neighbors believe it is just another power failure. In the days to come, grim reality sets in as refugees from nearby cities flock to the country. There is still no form of communication; pharmacies, hospitals and nursing homes run out of supplies; supermarket shelves are bare, and law and order heads towards complete collapse as thousands die and survivors scramble to stay alive. When members of his small town band together under his leadership they are not sure how long they can hold out without supplies or against the armed gangs who are pouring out of ravaged cities, ready to loot and kill all in their path. With only a few short months of insulin left for his youngest daughter – for John and his family it becomes a descent into hell!
Dr. Forstchen, author of several NY Times best-sellers, was inspired to write this book after conversations with long-time friend and former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, who later introduced him to Congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R.,MD), head of the Congressional Investigative Committee on EMP and whose 2004 report declared an EMP attack presented the single biggest threat to America. Before the House Armed Services Committee, the Congressman endorsed Fortstchen’s book in hopes that its searing, emotional story will arouse the American public to action before time runs out.
As an editor with Aviation Week and Space Technology declared “it is not a question of if…it is only a question of when.” Check out this brilliant author and his action-packed thriller at www.onesecondafter.com.
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TIP SHEET:
Stephen Coonts, author of The Assassin, says about the book: “Civilization slides into the abyss of a new dark age in his horrifying apocalyptic novel. Forstchen has put Bin Laden’s wet dream on paper and, in the process, taken civilization straight to the rack.”
Joel Rosenberg, author of The Sleeping Dragon, says: “Forstchen’s work has flair and power.”
David Hagberg, author of Dance with the Dragon, sums it up with: “Good storytelling consists very simply of creating characters so believable that the reader forms a deep bond. Forstchen did such a damned fine job with One Second After that shortly after the first page, I had been reeled in
hook, line and sinker.”
Whitney Scott (Booklist) writes: “In a Norman Rockwell town in North Carolina ….ex-servicemen recall “Korea in ‘51” as military action by unlikely people becomes the norm in Forstchen’s sad, riveting, cautionary tale; the premise of which Newt Gingrich’s foreword says is completely possible.”
W.E.B. Griffin and Wm. E. Butterworth, IV add: “The only thing more terrifying than this masterfully crafted story is the possibility of it actually happening – and not a damn thing being done to protect us.”
