Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJfJP...

Honestly, I'm of two minds. For a nuclear holocaust dystopia from 1959, it's probably top notch. A lot of fans attest to it. It's also full of good characters and solid 1959 survivability thought. No complaints about the science, either. In fact, the whole situation and character feel is quite a bit like the Walking Dead. Solid.

So what's my complaint?

This outcome could only have happened in 1959 and it was egregiously optimistic to boot. The nuclear stockpiles and deployment might not have made it to total annihilation levels by then so lobbing all the arsenal might not have been an all or nothing thing at this point in history. Plus there was still a lot of the previous generation (read pre-electricity) tools available to peeps at this time, even if they were getting rather old.

That, and it was mild as hell compared to most dystopian books I've read or even movies. Again. 1959. And the totally unbelievable optimistic ending? Yeah. 1959.

But that's just it. It's hard to activate my magical belief hoodie after having lived through so many dystopians and expecting something even as grand as Fallout.

At the very LEAST, however, it shows me how much society has changed since then. 60 years. Now, all we do is expect unending rapes and mass murder when the world ends. This book tells the opposite and optimistic story. Despite the mass death. *shakes head*

Props for its time, though! Want some Nuka Cola?

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