"One Year After" more than a book review...

One of my earlier childhood memories was lying on the floor in front of the bookcase, running my fingers a long the beautiful bound pages and wondering what great adventure was inside.

I seem to remember pulling “Atlas Shrugged” off the shelf and trying to read the tome. I was probably about 5 or 6 and didn't get too far...

Needless to say, when I read a book I read from the first page to the last. That includes the forward, acknowledgments through the epilogue. Recently I re-read “One Second After” in preparation for the recent release of “One Year After”, by William R. Forstchen.

Sometimes in apocalyptic fiction you find books that are not well written and filled with pie in the sky prepped situations. Granted we are able to learn from most anything if we put our minds to it. These two books are well written, easy to read and extremely well thought out.
What sets these two books apart for me is first the characters were not prepared. For me, I think I learn more from fiction books where the people are not prepared for what ever catastrophic event occurs. Not only do you see the dire situation of not having food, water or any type of plan in place and the collapse that could ensue; but in the more realistic books you will see the importance of medical preparations as people start dying off as they go off their life saving modern medicines & devices.

You will find my reviews have less with retelling you the actual story line, but why I recommend a certain book.

One of the first things that grabbed my attention with “One Year After” was reading the forward. Mr. Forstchen intended to write a book to expose the real possibility of an EMP event and how our nation as a whole doesn't see the reality and how we are not prepared. His point of view comes from being involved with people in the real world who are involved in the decision making process of being more prepared for an EMP attack on our nation. What he didn't foresee with his first book was he would be be introduced to the prepper community. He started to glimpse into our world, so much so that he eventually married a women from the prepping community (I believe I have that right). He addresses the fact most of the prepping community are just normal people, not like those crazed idiots often portrayed on popular “reality t.v.”.

Now, specifically “One Year After” starts after people have started to work together and the “government” is injected back into the scene. There is a lot of struggle with the concept of being a loyalist vs. a patriot. For me, it caused me to again reevaluate the lines that I would draw in the sand.

Overall it is scientifically on point and based on his research something our nation is ill equipped to handle. For me, I particularly like that he has a background in history that he weaves into the story. At times it is straight up referencing historical battle and at other times it has more oblique references that made me smile. That is why I started posting the hash tag comments like ‪#‎ByTheWatersOfBabylon‬. In the book BBC radio was sending out coded messages to the people resisting the EPTB (Evil Powers That Be - my terminology) that were seeking to control various nations with nefarious intent.

I highly recommend this book because eventually we have to think beyond beans, bullets and band-aids. Again, we could do our thinking when the “s” hits the fan or start building community now. In my opinion, we have to part of the solution. A catalyst for change. We really need to practice the skills of dealing with people in our life now. Dealing with that friend that says they are “coming to our house”. Trying to establish relationships with our neighbors if we plan on bugging in. These are concepts I hope to be exploring more with you soon.

You may be interested in this post on books I recommend: 43 Good Books for Your Library: Reading Can Seriously Damage Your Ignorance

Links for these books and a few others I highly recommend owning. Buy the real book.

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