Review: AFTER: FIRST LIGHT by Scott Nicholson (AFTER#1)

A brief preface from this reviewer: I have been enraptured with the pre-, post-, now-Apocalyptic Genre since the 1950's. First A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ (if you haven't read this incredible book, you must!) Which inspired me to fall in love with  the potential of imminent apocalypse, TOMORROW by Philip Wylie, which taught me to fear Apocalypse; then Neville Shute's ON THE BEACH, Wells' WAR OF THE WORLDS, Larry Niven' s INCONSTANT MOON, plus early TWILIGHT ZONE ("To Serve Man") and early OUTER LIMITS, plus two films: THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED and (shudder) DEEP IMPACT. That, plus growing up during The Korean Conflict, the Cold War, Senator Joe McCarthy' s witch-hunt,  the John Birch Society, etc. modeled me into  Paranoid Conspiracy Theorist, anticipating Apocalypse at any given moment.

Now, what does all that personal theorizing have to do with Scott Nicholson' s lovely AFTER series? Simple enough; quite obviously (judging by the quantity of fiction and nonfiction dealing with Apocalyptic topics--Zombies excluded--a great number of people have put in mega-hours of contemplation and analysis on divergent Apocalyptic possibilities/probabilities, and some have "got it right." (Hey--authors are Think Tanks, too.)

Scott Nicholson is one author who's nailed it. He's taken my #1 Apocalyptic Hit Parade--EMP: Electromagnetic Pulse--and made that his central premise. Here it's not a weapon, but stems from the worst possible source--our Sun. Mr. Nicholson specifies in clever detail the potential damage from a rogue Sun flare--and then he delivers it to us, with brutal impact.

Run, read this series. Reviews of the other three books in this series, soon.