fuck you very much, newt gingrich
So, while traveling back from a wedding this weekend I picked up a book at an airport, as I normally do. It seemed like an interesting apocalyptic sort of book called One Second After by William R. Forstchen.
So basically I was mildly traumatized.
The premise of this book is that an EMP device wipes out most of the technology in America, cutting off telephones, cars, and medical equipment to name a few things.
It started out engaging and then became traumatizing, because there is an element of ROCKS FALL EVERYBODY DIES in this book. Normally I don't mind that, but it was fairly graphic.
Plus, the book started out as a frighteningly realistic apocalypse. I think I like my apocalypses a little less realistic. More zombies and CGI and less EMPs.
And then it got kind of stupid. I think you could make a drinking game out of how many times this author used the word "America" or "we're Americans" and you'd be blitzed by the end of it. It just got stupidly chest thumpingly patriotic at points. And then I just felt like the quality of the writing decreased and there was a lot of telling and not showing toward the end. Plus there wasn't much resolution. And I could see hints of the author's politics, which I disagreed with.
On the upside, I think my eyerolling in the last half of the book prevented any lasting trauma from the death and angst.
But honestly, I should have known there was something wrong with this book. The foreward was written by Newt Gingrich, and any book endorsed by Newt Gingrich is bound to be horrifying.
So basically I was mildly traumatized.
The premise of this book is that an EMP device wipes out most of the technology in America, cutting off telephones, cars, and medical equipment to name a few things.
It started out engaging and then became traumatizing, because there is an element of ROCKS FALL EVERYBODY DIES in this book. Normally I don't mind that, but it was fairly graphic.
Plus, the book started out as a frighteningly realistic apocalypse. I think I like my apocalypses a little less realistic. More zombies and CGI and less EMPs.
And then it got kind of stupid. I think you could make a drinking game out of how many times this author used the word "America" or "we're Americans" and you'd be blitzed by the end of it. It just got stupidly chest thumpingly patriotic at points. And then I just felt like the quality of the writing decreased and there was a lot of telling and not showing toward the end. Plus there wasn't much resolution. And I could see hints of the author's politics, which I disagreed with.
On the upside, I think my eyerolling in the last half of the book prevented any lasting trauma from the death and angst.
But honestly, I should have known there was something wrong with this book. The foreward was written by Newt Gingrich, and any book endorsed by Newt Gingrich is bound to be horrifying.