You put your left leg in, you put your left leg out...

Yes, it's the 'knee jerk' genre again. I just finished reading 'One Second After' by William Forstchen and it certainly falls into the current US paranoia of the terrorist and anti-American sneak attack. it's also a 'but for the grace of God' book that warns us (or at least the USA) that they must plan for the worst now or face the terrible consequences. It's interesting how different authors contemplate the end of the World. In 'Dies The Fire', we see the story from the survivors view of forming new groupings and new societies. In 'The Earth Abides' (I'm reading that now), it's a view from a quite detached observer. The Forstchen tale describes the slow collapse of society after a devastating EMP attack on the US and other allied countries. It definitely gives you a rather scary and almost gruesome idea of the frailty of our so-called civilization. It's actually quite a good book and moves along very nicely. It reminds me a bit of John Birmingham's ' Without Warning'. Of course, the point of the book is to scare people into writing to their congressman to get him (or her) to protect them from this dreadful fate. I don't know why we seem to have a 'thing' for the end of the World as we know it stories. Hollywood has certainly made a lots of money from these ideas - the soon to be released '2012' seem to be just one more; albeit with lots of noise, explosions and ordinary people in peril. The visuals do look good and it may be worth wasting an hour or two on.

If you need a good laugh, I recommend this short film. It's very well done and very clever:

Comments

[fallen earth chips]

It definitely gives you a rather scary and almost gruesome idea of the frailty of our so-called civilization.

[Christy]

Loved the short film. So charming!