Return to “One Second After, by William R. Forstchen”
Last week, Texas Sen. Bob Hall introduced Senate Bill 83 in the Texas State legislature to protect the Texas power grid against a nuclear EMP attack. Texas is in a unique position in that its electric power grid is entirely independent from the nation’s grid. SB 83 would require the state to develop an EMP prevention plan by September 1 of 2018.
Excellent post! Thank you for the thoughtful and informative reply. I remember that period when typos began to appear with regularity in the books I purchased. You're correct, now instead of it bugging me I just shake my head and read on.Skiprr wrote:
Now, when we download an e-book from Amazon to our Kindles, we start reading with the full expectation that the book will not be well edited. If we're very lucky, it will have been edited at all...beyond hoping that the author himself or herself actually read through the final work with an eye for errors. We're so used to this status quo now that we don't even blink when we encounter a typo or minor error in grammar or syntax even in a book produced by a major house.
One Second After is an example. The book was published by MacMillan in 2009, reached the 11th position on the New York Times Best Seller list for fiction 45 days later, and a trade paperback edition was produced eight months after the hardcover publication. But, yep, the book contains typos. Not many and not egregious, mind you, but they're there and we're simply now conditioned to read over them and keep going.
I think I'll go back and edit my first post to make it clear that I was offering a quick opinion of One Second After as a novel, as a literary work of fiction. It may well be--in fact probably is--an important book. It's well-researched subject matter is chilling, eye-opening. On that basis I'm glad I read it.
But as a novel, it is not well written and does not display fine craft in the art.
Thanks! I'll add this one to my reading list.The Annoyed Man wrote:Also recommend "Lights Out" (same premise - EMP), but Texas specific. https://www.amazon.com/Lights-Out-David ... Lights+Out
http://www.onesecondafter.com/JRG wrote:One second after.................what?
What is the premise of the story?
Joe
It is not a literary masterpiece - it is however a chilling warning about a real threat. Forstchen wrote the book to warn the people about the seriousness of this threat.Skiprr wrote:Just finished One Second After by William R. Forstchen. A very thought-provoking and well-researched book.
But as a novel, it pretty much sucked eggs.
William R. Forstchen is a Professor of History and Faculty Fellow at Montreat College, in Montreat, North Carolina.
The first-person protagonist of his novel is John--SURPRISE!--a Professor of History and Faculty Fellow at Montreat College, in Montreat, North Carolina.
John is a colonel in the U.S. Army, was a step away from earning his star, but Forstchen has no actual military experience. And it shows.
Forstchen also has no MFA degree. Obviously. To say this novel is stilted would be to ask Shaquile O'Neal to walk around on 10-foot-tall stalks of balsa wood. The dialogue is interchangeable: no distinguishable intonation or character: anyone could have spoken anyone else's lines. And am I the only one who was put-off by John's two-pack-a-day smoking habit? A U.S. Army Colonel in the 21st Century? Really?
Good premise; good research. Thought provoking.
Alas, written by a history teacher, obviously so, and written poorly. Not written by a novelist.
I won't be reading anything else by William R. Forstchen because life is far too short for mediocre writing. How he sold two follow-up books to this C-grade novel, I will never know.