The Final Day

October 24, 2016
Pompous, windy political discussions swamp the few effective action scenes in bestseller Forstchen’s conclusion (after 2015’s One Year After) to his trilogy set in a United States reeling from the effects of a devastating electromagnetic pulse attack. John Matherson, commander of the independent State of Carolina, spearheads efforts to reconstitute pre-attack technology. Meanwhile, Gen. Bob Scales, Matherson’s friend and former commanding officer, offers Matherson and his community an ultimatum: they must unite with a shadowy reconstituted federal government or die. But Scales can’t fool his old friend. Matherson and his followers eventually uncover a conspiracy of governmental elites, who violated their oaths to the Constitution and saved themselves before the attack, then held on to power at the people’s expense. Needless to say, “the criminal entity that claims to be the federal government” comes to a bad end. Those who buy into right-wing wish fulfillment fantasies will be enthralled. Agent: Eleanor Wood, Spectrum Literary Agency.

October 15, 2016
In the aftermath of an electromagnetic-pulse attack linked to Iran and North Korea that wiped out American cities and led to the installation of an oppressive, unconstitutional government, hard-core patriot John Matherson is called upon to lead the resistance.The eastern half of the U.S. is "a twisted, burned-out, perverted wasteland." The ruling forces, having been thwarted in their efforts to conscript an oppressive Army of National Recovery, are on the verge of handing over large chunks of territory out west to China and Mexico. Matherson, based in a mountain community in the so-called "State of Carolina," must decide whether to trust his old friend and commanding officer Bob Scales. Once the most principled of leaders, Scales now is in charge of suppressing old-school patriots like Matherson in the name of assimilation. Matherson, who has overseen inspired efforts to restore technology in his community--amazingly, those old, cobwebbed computers still work--represents a threat to the status quo. Having suffered grievous personal losses in the nightmarish conflict, he is prepared to fight for the America he loves, even if that means abandoning his new wife, Makala, who's pregnant. Like its two predecessors in the Matherson series, this new novel entertainingly blends folksy and sophisticated, small-town nostalgia and sharp futurism. Ultimately, though there are many exciting scenes, this is less a post-apocalyptic thriller than a book of ideas: a thoughtfully rendered, richly detailed investigation into the "What if." The latest installment in Forstchen's dystopian series will be best enjoyed by those who have read the first two books, One Second After (2009) and One Year After (2015). But with its agreeable protagonist and nicely drawn settings, the novel quickly draws us in.

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