[Subjectivist]

This has to be one of the most realistic doomer books I have ever read. The author worked for years in the Pentagon and has real knowledge of what our own military thinks will happen, and he knows how to tell a story based on that knowledge of the physics and the psychology of o lose technology.

[Lore]

This book was a big dissapointment for me. A nice Sci-Fi story line screwed up with a political conservative, Jesus joker sub plot. Amazing how a bunch of wet nosed religious school kids were changed into militant natural born killers overnight.

The authors forward by Newt Gingrich should give you a hint of where the ideology for this crazy story comes from.

[Subjectivist]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJlPCHynEZQ&sns=em

Hour long radio interview with the author, very interesting.

[Lore]

I use to live in Charlotte, NC and travelled the Asheville area extensively on business. I'm very familiar with the people and country in which the plot takes place. The author goes on to take great pains in making this storyline look like a real world possibility by giving it this folksy guns, beans and Jesus actual place on the map. Which I'm sure has helped his book sales. However, there are so many plot holes in the story you could drive a truck through them.

He often pushes the idea that the scary guys ready to do this EMP strike are part of the axis of evil Iran and North Korea. Both of which can barely launch a rocket beyond their borders. Let alone make at least three simultaneous launches of extremely sophisticated and powerful weaponry, even for the US, detonating them at precisely the right trajectory and altitude. This book was written by a neocon to be just another scary story about those countries and a reason to fear them.

[WildRose]

Any other good doomer novels out there? Recommendation? I am through the first two W.R. Flynn books. Are there others I should know about? Threads here at PO.com on the subject?

How about the Margaret Atwood books? Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood,[i] and [i]Maddaddam.

Dystopian trilogy.

[Lore]

Lore, I am as liberal/progressive as the next Humboldt dope grower/yoga queen but I refuse to allow my political agenda to get in the way of a good doomer novel. The book is realistic.

The BM25 Musudan is a North Korean designed intermediate-range ballistic missile with range capabilities of up to 1,550 miles (2,490 km), and could carry a nuclear warhead. . . With the development of the Taepodong-2 missile, with an expected range of 5,000–6,000 km, North Korea could hypothetically deliver a warhead to almost all countries in Southeast Asia, as well as the western side of North America.

Any other good doomer novels out there? Recommendation? I am through the first two W.R. Flynn books. Are there others I should know about? Threads here at PO.com on the subject?

Like I originally stated, this would have been a good scenario had the author not accompanied it with a rather transparent agenda. The story would have been more plausible and just as effective had the author used a Solar EMP burst rather then that of a military one.

Among Gingrich’s Passions, a Doomsday Vision

Newt Gingrich, the Republican presidential hopeful, wants you to know that as commander in chief he is ready to confront one of the most nightmarish of doomsday scenarios: a nuclear blast high above the United States that would instantly throw the nation into a dark age.

In debates and speeches, interviews and a popular book, he is ringing alarm bells over what experts call the electromagnetic pulse, or EMP — a poorly understood phenomenon of the nuclear age.

The idea is that if a nuclear weapon, lofted by a missile, were detonated in outer space high above the American heartland, it would set off a huge and crippling shockwave of electricity. Mr. Gingrich warns that it would fry electrical circuits from coast to coast, knocking out computers, electrical power and cellphones. Everything from cars to hospitals would be knocked out.

“Millions would die in the first week alone,” he wrote in the foreword to a science-fiction thriller published in 2009 that describes an imaginary EMP attack on the United States. A number of scientists say they consider Mr. Gingrich’s alarms far-fetched.

As Mr. Gingrich starts to surge in Republican primary states, voters are likely to get to know some of his many passions. He is an outspoken advocate for zoos. He has suggested overhauling child labor laws so that students can take jobs and learn good work habits. He also has a long interest in the space program, which Mitt Romney all but mocked at the Republican debate in Iowa on Saturday night.

Challenged to say where he and Mr. Gingrich differed, Mr. Romney replied, “We could start with his idea to have a lunar colony that would mine minerals from the moon.”

But it is to the risk of an EMP attack that Mr. Gingrich has repeatedly returned. And while the message may play well to hawkish audiences, who might warm to the candidate’s suggestion that the United States engage in pre-emptive military strikes against Iran and North Korea, many nuclear experts dismiss the threat. America’s current missile defense system would thwart such an attack, these experts say, and the nations in question are at the kindergarten stage of developing nuclear arms.

The Missile Defense Agency, an arm of the Pentagon that maintains an arsenal of ground-based interceptors ready to fly into space and smash enemy warheads, says that defeating such an attack would be as straightforward as any other defense of the continental United States.

“It doesn’t matter if the target is Chicago or 100 miles over Nebraska,” said Richard Lehner, an agency spokesman. “For the interceptor, it’s the same thing.” He called the potential damage from a nuclear electromagnetic pulse attack “pretty theoretical.”

Yousaf M. Butt, a consultant with Federation of American Scientists, who last year did a lengthy analysis of EMP for The Space Review, a weekly online journal, said, “If terrorists want to do something serious, they’ll use a weapon of mass destruction — not mass disruption.” He said, “They don’t want to depend on complicated secondary effects in which the physics is not very clear.”

He also referred to the apocalyptic novel “One Second After,” written by a friend and co-author of his historical novels, William R. Forstchen. The book describes an electromagnetic pulse attack on America, conjuring a world in which cars, airplanes, cellphones and refrigerators all die, and gangs of barbarians spring to life.

In the book’s foreword, Mr. Gingrich calls the grim scenario a potential “future history” that should be “terrifying for all of us.” He says he knows its frightening plausibility from decades of personal study.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/us/po ... ted=1&_r=0

My personnel favorite is "Lucifer's Hammer".
http://www.amazon.com/Lucifers-Hammer-L ... 27s+hammer

[Tanada]

Lore, I am as liberal/progressive as the next Humboldt dope grower/yoga queen but I refuse to allow my political agenda to get in the way of a good doomer novel. The book is realistic.

The BM25 Musudan is a North Korean designed intermediate-range ballistic missile with range capabilities of up to 1,550 miles (2,490 km), and could carry a nuclear warhead. . . With the development of the Taepodong-2 missile, with an expected range of 5,000–6,000 km, North Korea could hypothetically deliver a warhead to almost all countries in Southeast Asia, as well as the western side of North America.

Any other good doomer novels out there? Recommendation? I am through the first two W.R. Flynn books. Are there others I should know about? Threads here at PO.com on the subject?

Never let Politics get in the way of a good story. Lucifers Hammer is a good post apocalyptic novel but is becoming a bit dated, it is set in the mid to late 1970's. Another one I really enjoyed is The Postman by Brin, not the movie adaptation by Kevin Costner which is only loosely based on the book. I just started reading Blink of an Eye by William S. Cohen today, seems pretty good but a little heavy on the politics and religion bashing.

[Loki]

"One Second After" was a good read, but I don't think the scenario was all that plausible, which is fine, I don't mind fantasy. Getting poorer slowly is boring, doesn't make for a punchy TEOTWAWKI novel.

The author was clearly coming from a conservative political position, though not too overbearing. Not a Great American Novel, of course, but the writing was clear and the narrative held my attention. I enjoyed it. Been at least a year since I read it, so I'm going from memory. I'll probably read it again in a few years.

Pstarr, you might also check out "Lucifer's Hammer." Similar "sudden catastrophic collapse" scenario, also written from a conservative perspective. Been a few years since I've read it, but I plan on rereading it one of these days.

Edward Abbey also wrote a post-collapse novel, "Good News," not one of his best, but readable. I prefer his non-fiction.

How about "Ecotopia"? Not really "doom porn," but it does have lots of dirty hippie sex

[Quinny]

Last light - set in UK, but best I've read so far!

Lore, I am as liberal/progressive as the next Humboldt dope grower/yoga queen but I refuse to allow my political agenda to get in the way of a good doomer novel. The book is realistic.

The BM25 Musudan is a North Korean designed intermediate-range ballistic missile with range capabilities of up to 1,550 miles (2,490 km), and could carry a nuclear warhead. . . With the development of the Taepodong-2 missile, with an expected range of 5,000–6,000 km, North Korea could hypothetically deliver a warhead to almost all countries in Southeast Asia, as well as the western side of North America.

Any other good doomer novels out there? Recommendation? I am through the first two W.R. Flynn books. Are there others I should know about? Threads here at PO.com on the subject?

[Tanada]

The Valley West Side War by Harry Turtledove is set 100 years after a full on MAD war between the USA-USSR in 1967ish. The two main characters are a teen girl from an advanced Earth sent to the world that was devastated to spy on them and figure out what caused the war, the other is a local teen man in the army fighting the war who has the hots for the spy. Short novel, easy read, and fun to see how California might look 100 years post peak. I think you would enjoy it.

[Quinny]

Don't recall Birmingham, - London Manchester and Motorway services, interesting story I thought. Don't want to spoil it, but I thought it covered quite a lot of bases. The author used to post here.

Quinny, I read that the story takes place in a Birmingham suburb and the inner-city hordes didn't eat everybody? Can't be too realistic without a little cannibalism, right? Maybe a foot or something.

[AirlinePilot]

Anyone here who thinks that an EMP strike is something difficult or requires high levels of competency or tech to pull off hasn't done their homework.

I found the book to be entertaining and at the same time very sobering. I thought it was a very plausible scenario and one we have little chance of defeating if it ever gets tried. Great insight into our thin veneer of civilization and how it melts away when the things we take for granted are removed.