A Book You’ll Never Forget

I’ve never read a book quite like this one, and I’ll never forget it. To say it’s riveting doesn’t do it justice. One Second After by William R. Forstchen is a white knuckle ride through what life in America could be, should the US be hit by several EMP weapons (Electromagnetic Pulse) with no defensive plan in place or prophylactic accommodations to protect the nation from the devastating effects of such an attack, and maintain the integrity of our countrywide electrical grid. Should there be no prepared defense, and such an attack occurs, all power extinguished, no heat requiring electricity, no air conditioning, disabled vehicles, no refrigeration, no cellphones, no communication infrastructure, etc, it would effectively push our current society back into the 1800s. This book depicts a very credible scenario for what life would be like the first year following a countrywide EMP attack. Every American should read this book. 

Captain Bill Sanders, U.S. Navy sums it up perfectly in the book’s Afterward, “I wish my imagination would have allowed me to just sit back and enjoy my friend Bill Forstchen’s novel One Second After as another science fiction story, but I could not. It was an emotional and gut-wrenching read—because it could actually happen. An Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) explosion over the continental United States would have devastating consequences for our country.” The action takes place in Black Mountain, NC and the general vicinity. The community has a religious based college, a widowed Army Colonel turned professor, his two daughters, his mother in law, an attractive RN he meets the day of the EMP event, and a handful of other leaders who all work together to strategize, mobilize, and manage logistics in anticipation of the area’s immediate survival, safety, and medical needs. It’s a gripping story. 

In his Acknowledgements author William Forstchen writes, “ The moment of a fall from greatness often comes just when a people and a nation feel most secure. The cry ‘the barbarians are at the gates’ too often comes as a terrifying bolt out of the blue, which is often the last cry ever heard. There are those in this world today who do wish this upon us and will strive to achieve it. As was said by Thomas Jefferson, ‘the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.’ I pray that years from now, as time winds down for me, critics will say this was nothing more than a work of folly … and I will be content … for the vigil was kept and thus my daughter and those I love will never know this world I write of.”