I’m a sucker for post-apocalyptic fiction novels, be they involving zombies, meteorites, natural disasters, or in the case of Pat Frank’s Alas Babylon, nuclear armageddon.
The book follows Randy Bragg, a man adrift in life and lounging around in the small community of Fort Repose, Florida with nothing much better to to. That all changes when nuclear war breaks out between the U.S. and Russia (the book is set in the early 1960s) and everything goes to pot. Fort Repose luckily avoids the overlapping circles of nuclear doom that hit most of Florida’s cities, but it becomes cut off from the rest of whatever passes for civilization. Randy has to abruptly change gears and finds himself a leader both among his town’s survivors and his own expanding household. The book tells about how Fort Repose acts as a stand in for civilization in general as it unravels, adapts, and is reborn.
I really liked this book. The extra twist for modern readers like you and me is that Alas Babylon is set about 50 years in the past. In a way this is weird, because there’s a lot of ink spent on out dated details, like milk deliveries, telegrams, radio, and the like, where an updated version of the story would no doubt deal with cel phone networks, the Internet, and satellite television. But at the same time, this temporal setting gives the book its own flavor that grows on you and intrigues you by setting forth a slightly different set of rules. Then again, things like gasoline supply chains and the abstract nature of the world financial system remain as relevant now as they were then. Either way, it gets you thinking.
The other thing to like about Alas, Babylon is that there’s a lot more literary machinery going on under the adventure story surface. The book comments extensively on race relations between Whites and Blacks (which were no doubt different in 1959 than they are in 2009) and how it takes a nuclear war to level the playing field. And there’s plenty of commentary about how different people deal with the upturning of their world. Randy Bragg make plans to dig an artesian well to procure fresh water while the rich banker’s wife blithely decides to saunter down to the super market and hopes that it’s “not too crowded.”
So I’d definitely recommend Alas, Babylon despite its original publication date, or perhaps even partially because of it. It combines end of the world adventure with social commentary and psychological character development. What’s not to like?
You might want to read “On the Beach” by Nevil Shute. It is a really interesting take on the subject in about the same period.
I went through a phase and read about 10 of his books more or less all at once and they were all very good. “Trustee from the Toolroom” was a favourite, though.
Huh, cool recommendation. I’ll add it to my list. Thanks!
I love this book. I read the paperback so many times as a teenager that the librarian gave me the paperback when she was replacing it with a hardcover version. It’s right up there with The Road and The Stand on my list of favorite post-apocalyptic fiction.
Another great post apocalyptic book is “Swan Song”. If you like “The Stand” I almost guarantee you’ll like that one. There’s a lot of darkness but it tells a great story in a scifi/fantasy/horror kinda way – not as reality based as the others we talked about.