I read two post-apocalyptic novels recently during a somewhat rainy summer, promising myself that I would continue the streak from my post-apocalyptic Amazon Wish List. These are the books One Second After and Orphan Flu.

“Orphan Flu,” by A.D. Bolivar, is an outbreak novel – an unknown form of flu has evolved and started killing everything human that moves and moves, and the story takes us to the house of young Sara, whose father is a survivalist geek who prepared his kids for the worst. And here they are – the apocalypse is here, and they are ready! As the flu gets stronger, people are getting more aggressive, and there is no mercy for anyone – violence is omnipresent. Sara and her sister Eve head to their father’s friend’s house in Denver (and from Philadelphia), where their adventure begins…Which I rated 3/5 🙂

Fun for the summer but not good enough to pull you by the sleeve and tell you that you must read it. You don’t have to, but it will entertain you if you want to.

“One Second After” seems much more severe to me. Maybe because it was written by New York Times best-selling author William R. Forstchen, who specializes in military history and the history of technology, and who also wrote some Star Trek. More severe and tense than Orphan, this is the story of an EMP attack on the USA. In a second, all electronic devices stop working, and the small town in North Carolina (where the author lives) is left in the dark and wondering what happened. A retired colonel, today a professor at a nearby university, John Matherson, has an inkling of what it is all about. Things are quickly moving toward a post-apocalyptic scenario…”One Second After” deserves a rating higher than Orphan and a definite recommendation.

I’m currently reading Farnham’s “Farnham’s Freehold” by Robert A. Heinlein, whose main character is Hugh Farnham, who built a nuclear shelter, which no one thought he would need, but then…you won’t believe what happened 🙂 Nuclear attack! I mostly got to some parts after the attack, and I can’t say that there is anything that particularly attracts me back to this book, but the final impression when I finish.

Update: I gave up on Heinlen; he’s boring.