One Second After
Encyclopedia
One Second After is a 2009
novel
by American
writer William R. Forstchen
. The novel deals with an unexpected electromagnetic pulse
attack on the United States as it affects the people living in and around the town of Black Mountain, North Carolina
.
The book was released on March 17, 2009 and reached the number 11 position on the New York Times Best Seller list
in fiction on May 3, 2009.
The option for the film rights
to One Second After was initially sold to Warner Bros.
, where it subsequently expired. A new option is currently being negotiated with another studio as of August 2011.
A trade paperback edition was released on November 24, 2009.
is a small town, host to a college with about six hundred students, no large businesses, but gaining favor as a summer hideaway for people from the larger cities.
Black Mountain is, however, strategically located on the Interstate highway system and provides the water supply to nearby Ashville.
At 16h50m (4:50pm) EST on the first day described in the book's narration, the phones suddenly go dead along with all the electrical appliances. Just a second before, everything worked; but now, just one second after, nothing seems to work.
John Matherson is a former U.S. Army Colonel who came to Black Mountain with his wife when she was dying of cancer. She had grown up in the town. Matherson is now a Professor of History at the local Montreat College
. The widowed father of two daughters, Matherson is respected within the community.
Within hours it becomes clear that this is no ordinary black-out, and that the power may be off for a very long time. Every modern electrical device is dead, destroyed by what Matherson is beginning to suspect is an electromagnetic pulse
(EMP) attack on the United States by unknown attackers. The United States has, in an instant, been thrown back into the 19th century; but the narration in the book points out that 21st century people are not at all equipped to live under 19th century conditions. John remarks near the book's end that the survivors have the technology of the early 16th century.
Matherson's immediate concern is his twelve year old daughter who has Type 1 diabetes. Without a constant supply of insulin
, which requires refrigeration, she will die.
The story shifts quickly to how the community reacts. Matherson is a respected outsider, his military experience and standing as Professor and his levelheadedness are appreciated.
There are hundreds of people whose cars and trucks simply stopped on the nearby Interstate highway. Those people make their way into town, where some of them are clearly unwanted. There is an immediate concern about food. The leaders of the community soon begin wondering how these several thousand people going to be fed for any appreciable length of time. No refrigerators or freezers are running. No trucks are bringing in fresh supplies every day.
Concerns immediately arise about the nursing home in town where Matherson's cancer-stricken elderly father-in-law resides. The elderly and frail need refrigerated medicines, and many require constant nursing care. The EMP has damaged the nursing home's standby generator
, which cannot be started.
There are no radio broadcasts, no television, no internet: no communication with anyone outside the town. Two months post-pulse, a working antique telephone is set up to connect Black Mountain with Swannanoa.
The family of Matherson's late wife have been car collectors on a small scale, and they happen to have a 1959 Ford Edsel and a Mustang that are so old that the EMP did not affect them because they have no modern EMP-sensitive electronics. Another local resident owns a vintage airplane that later becomes very useful because it is so old that it has no vulnerable electronics.
Without modern utilities and supplies, diseases surge. Minor wounds sometimes become seriously infected, but the community has soon exhausted its supply of antibiotics. The social order begins to break down. It is too late in the year to plant crops, and few people in the area know how to farm anyway. Skills that haven't been needed in several generations have become critically necessary. The town must organize its young people to defend itself against a marauding band of cannibals, who eventually attack the community, resulting in a violent and deadly conflict. After a time, the extreme shortages of food necessitate difficult choices about who gets how much food and which people are to be deliberately underfed to the point of starvation. The Black Mountain militia get more rations than the other citizens.
Increasingly, Matherson is forced by circumstances to assume a leadership role as the situation continues to deteriorate. Matherson, along with a few others, try their best to maintain a balance between the multiple necessities of rationing scarce resources, maintaining orderly law and individual freedom, as well as personal responsibility and moral behavior in the midst of deeply deteriorating physical and social conditions.
A full year post-pulse American soldiers appear to take over, it is revealed that the EMP was generated by three nuclear warheads launched from container ship
s. One was launched from the Gulf of Mexico
off the coast of the United States and detonated in space over the states of "Utah, Kansas, and Ohio." The container ship was sunk by an explosion immediately after the missile launch, and no indication remained of who was responsible for the attacks. The other two weapons were detonated over Russia - described as from off the Icelandic coast - and near Japan and Korea.
America is described as having 30 million survivors, with China occupying the West Coast with 500,000 soldiers; meanwhile Mexico occupied Texas and the American SouthWest as a protectorate against the Chinese.
The book also describes the increasingly intimate relationship John develops with a un-married and childless nurse called Makala Turner stranded by the pulse.
and cholera
set in from eating tainted food, drinking tainted water, and generally poor sanitation. Americans have lived in an environment of easy hygiene, sterilization, and antibiotics, making them prime targets for third-world diseases. The lack of bathing and poor diet will lead to rampant feminine hygiene infections; deep cuts, rusty nail punctures, and dog bites go untreated with antibiotics, tetanus
shots, or rabies
treatment as more die from common infections.
Critical medical supply and food thieves and others are executed in public as enforcement of martial law
. In 30 days cardiac and other drug-dependent patients die off. In 60 or so days, the pacemaker and Type I diabetics patients begin to die off (although John's young daughter manages to survive until Day 163). The 5% of population having severe psychotic disorders that no longer have medication will re-create bedlam
. Jury-rigged
wood-burning stoves lead to carbon monoxide
deaths and fires that cannot be controlled for the lack of a fire department.
Then refugees from the cities show up looking for food and shelter and the fight over scarce resources leads to confrontation, home invasion, and more violence-related die-offs. The community becomes an inviting target for free prisoners and organized gangs and more violence-related die-off. Ration cards are issued to conserve the little remaining food; regardless, the community slowly starves with the elderly the first to die off. Next parents starve themselves to save their children. Throughout this period suicides are common. After a year, approximately 20% of the initial population has "survived".
This was the "average" die-off for the country. Food-rich Iowa had the highest survival rate with a 50% die-off. New York City
and Florida
had a 95% die-off from its infighting among their large populations, low levels of cultivated land, high elderly population, the lack of air conditioning, rampant transmission of disease, and natural disasters such as hurricanes.
2009 in literature
The year 2009 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*8 October - Romanian-born German novelist Herta Müller wins the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature....
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
writer William R. Forstchen
William R. Forstchen
William R. Forstchen is an American author who began publishing in 1983 with the novel Ice Prophet. He is a Professor of History and Faculty Fellow at Montreat College, in Montreat, North Carolina...
. The novel deals with an unexpected electromagnetic pulse
Electromagnetic pulse
An electromagnetic pulse is a burst of electromagnetic radiation. The abrupt pulse of electromagnetic radiation usually results from certain types of high energy explosions, especially a nuclear explosion, or from a suddenly fluctuating magnetic field...
attack on the United States as it affects the people living in and around the town of Black Mountain, North Carolina
Black Mountain, North Carolina
Black Mountain is a town in Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 7,511 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Asheville Metropolitan Statistical Area. The town is named for the Black Mountain range of the Blue Ridge range in the Southern Appalachians.-History:Black...
.
The book was released on March 17, 2009 and reached the number 11 position on the New York Times Best Seller list
New York Times Best Seller list
The New York Times Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. It is published weekly in The New York Times Book Review magazine, which is published in the Sunday edition of The New York Times and as a stand-alone publication...
in fiction on May 3, 2009.
The option for the film rights
Film rights
Film rights are the rights under copyright law to make a derivative work—in this case, a film—derived from an item of intellectual property. Under U.S...
to One Second After was initially sold to Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
, where it subsequently expired. A new option is currently being negotiated with another studio as of August 2011.
A trade paperback edition was released on November 24, 2009.
Plot summary
Black Mountain, North CarolinaBlack Mountain, North Carolina
Black Mountain is a town in Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 7,511 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Asheville Metropolitan Statistical Area. The town is named for the Black Mountain range of the Blue Ridge range in the Southern Appalachians.-History:Black...
is a small town, host to a college with about six hundred students, no large businesses, but gaining favor as a summer hideaway for people from the larger cities.
Black Mountain is, however, strategically located on the Interstate highway system and provides the water supply to nearby Ashville.
At 16h50m (4:50pm) EST on the first day described in the book's narration, the phones suddenly go dead along with all the electrical appliances. Just a second before, everything worked; but now, just one second after, nothing seems to work.
John Matherson is a former U.S. Army Colonel who came to Black Mountain with his wife when she was dying of cancer. She had grown up in the town. Matherson is now a Professor of History at the local Montreat College
Montreat College
Montreat College is a private, four-year, liberal arts Christian college with campuses located in Black Mountain, Asheville and Charlotte, North Carolina, United States and its primary campus in Montreat, North Carolina. The college offers on-campus traditional four-year degrees, an adult studies...
. The widowed father of two daughters, Matherson is respected within the community.
Within hours it becomes clear that this is no ordinary black-out, and that the power may be off for a very long time. Every modern electrical device is dead, destroyed by what Matherson is beginning to suspect is an electromagnetic pulse
Electromagnetic pulse
An electromagnetic pulse is a burst of electromagnetic radiation. The abrupt pulse of electromagnetic radiation usually results from certain types of high energy explosions, especially a nuclear explosion, or from a suddenly fluctuating magnetic field...
(EMP) attack on the United States by unknown attackers. The United States has, in an instant, been thrown back into the 19th century; but the narration in the book points out that 21st century people are not at all equipped to live under 19th century conditions. John remarks near the book's end that the survivors have the technology of the early 16th century.
Matherson's immediate concern is his twelve year old daughter who has Type 1 diabetes. Without a constant supply of insulin
Insulin
Insulin is a hormone central to regulating carbohydrate and fat metabolism in the body. Insulin causes cells in the liver, muscle, and fat tissue to take up glucose from the blood, storing it as glycogen in the liver and muscle....
, which requires refrigeration, she will die.
The story shifts quickly to how the community reacts. Matherson is a respected outsider, his military experience and standing as Professor and his levelheadedness are appreciated.
There are hundreds of people whose cars and trucks simply stopped on the nearby Interstate highway. Those people make their way into town, where some of them are clearly unwanted. There is an immediate concern about food. The leaders of the community soon begin wondering how these several thousand people going to be fed for any appreciable length of time. No refrigerators or freezers are running. No trucks are bringing in fresh supplies every day.
Concerns immediately arise about the nursing home in town where Matherson's cancer-stricken elderly father-in-law resides. The elderly and frail need refrigerated medicines, and many require constant nursing care. The EMP has damaged the nursing home's standby generator
Standby generator
thumb|right|Standby generatorsA standby generator is a back-up electrical system that operates automatically. Within seconds of a utility outage an automatic transfer switch senses the power loss, commands the generator to start and then transfers the electrical load to the generator. The standby...
, which cannot be started.
There are no radio broadcasts, no television, no internet: no communication with anyone outside the town. Two months post-pulse, a working antique telephone is set up to connect Black Mountain with Swannanoa.
The family of Matherson's late wife have been car collectors on a small scale, and they happen to have a 1959 Ford Edsel and a Mustang that are so old that the EMP did not affect them because they have no modern EMP-sensitive electronics. Another local resident owns a vintage airplane that later becomes very useful because it is so old that it has no vulnerable electronics.
Without modern utilities and supplies, diseases surge. Minor wounds sometimes become seriously infected, but the community has soon exhausted its supply of antibiotics. The social order begins to break down. It is too late in the year to plant crops, and few people in the area know how to farm anyway. Skills that haven't been needed in several generations have become critically necessary. The town must organize its young people to defend itself against a marauding band of cannibals, who eventually attack the community, resulting in a violent and deadly conflict. After a time, the extreme shortages of food necessitate difficult choices about who gets how much food and which people are to be deliberately underfed to the point of starvation. The Black Mountain militia get more rations than the other citizens.
Increasingly, Matherson is forced by circumstances to assume a leadership role as the situation continues to deteriorate. Matherson, along with a few others, try their best to maintain a balance between the multiple necessities of rationing scarce resources, maintaining orderly law and individual freedom, as well as personal responsibility and moral behavior in the midst of deeply deteriorating physical and social conditions.
A full year post-pulse American soldiers appear to take over, it is revealed that the EMP was generated by three nuclear warheads launched from container ship
Container ship
Container ships are cargo ships that carry all of their load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. They form a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport.-History:...
s. One was launched from the Gulf of Mexico
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...
off the coast of the United States and detonated in space over the states of "Utah, Kansas, and Ohio." The container ship was sunk by an explosion immediately after the missile launch, and no indication remained of who was responsible for the attacks. The other two weapons were detonated over Russia - described as from off the Icelandic coast - and near Japan and Korea.
America is described as having 30 million survivors, with China occupying the West Coast with 500,000 soldiers; meanwhile Mexico occupied Texas and the American SouthWest as a protectorate against the Chinese.
The book also describes the increasingly intimate relationship John develops with a un-married and childless nurse called Makala Turner stranded by the pulse.
Die-off sequence
The book's premise sets the stage for a series of "die-offs". The first takes place within a week (those in hospitals and assisted living). After about 15 days, salmonella induced Typhoid feverTyphoid fever
Typhoid fever, also known as Typhoid, is a common worldwide bacterial disease, transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with the feces of an infected person, which contain the bacterium Salmonella enterica, serovar Typhi...
and cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
set in from eating tainted food, drinking tainted water, and generally poor sanitation. Americans have lived in an environment of easy hygiene, sterilization, and antibiotics, making them prime targets for third-world diseases. The lack of bathing and poor diet will lead to rampant feminine hygiene infections; deep cuts, rusty nail punctures, and dog bites go untreated with antibiotics, tetanus
Tetanus
Tetanus is a medical condition characterized by a prolonged contraction of skeletal muscle fibers. The primary symptoms are caused by tetanospasmin, a neurotoxin produced by the Gram-positive, rod-shaped, obligate anaerobic bacterium Clostridium tetani...
shots, or rabies
Rabies
Rabies is a viral disease that causes acute encephalitis in warm-blooded animals. It is zoonotic , most commonly by a bite from an infected animal. For a human, rabies is almost invariably fatal if post-exposure prophylaxis is not administered prior to the onset of severe symptoms...
treatment as more die from common infections.
Critical medical supply and food thieves and others are executed in public as enforcement of martial law
Martial law
Martial law is the imposition of military rule by military authorities over designated regions on an emergency basis— only temporary—when the civilian government or civilian authorities fail to function effectively , when there are extensive riots and protests, or when the disobedience of the law...
. In 30 days cardiac and other drug-dependent patients die off. In 60 or so days, the pacemaker and Type I diabetics patients begin to die off (although John's young daughter manages to survive until Day 163). The 5% of population having severe psychotic disorders that no longer have medication will re-create bedlam
Bedlam
Bedlam may refer to:* Bethlem Royal Hospital, London hospital first to specialise in the mentally ill and origin of the word "bedlam" describing chaos or madness-Places:* Bedlam, North Yorkshire, a village in England...
. Jury-rigged
Jury rig
Jury rigging refers to makeshift repairs or temporary contrivances, made with only the tools and materials that happen to be on hand. Originally a nautical term, on sailing ships a jury rig is a replacement mast and yards improvised in case of damage or loss of the original mast.-Etymology:The...
wood-burning stoves lead to carbon monoxide
Carbon monoxide
Carbon monoxide , also called carbonous oxide, is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas that is slightly lighter than air. It is highly toxic to humans and animals in higher quantities, although it is also produced in normal animal metabolism in low quantities, and is thought to have some normal...
deaths and fires that cannot be controlled for the lack of a fire department.
Then refugees from the cities show up looking for food and shelter and the fight over scarce resources leads to confrontation, home invasion, and more violence-related die-offs. The community becomes an inviting target for free prisoners and organized gangs and more violence-related die-off. Ration cards are issued to conserve the little remaining food; regardless, the community slowly starves with the elderly the first to die off. Next parents starve themselves to save their children. Throughout this period suicides are common. After a year, approximately 20% of the initial population has "survived".
This was the "average" die-off for the country. Food-rich Iowa had the highest survival rate with a 50% die-off. New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
had a 95% die-off from its infighting among their large populations, low levels of cultivated land, high elderly population, the lack of air conditioning, rampant transmission of disease, and natural disasters such as hurricanes.
Non-Fiction Afterword
The book contains a brief non-fiction afterword by United States Navy Captain William Sanders about EMP, which includes references to the reports of the United States EMP Commission and the book The Effects of Nuclear Weapons by Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan, published by the United States Department of Defense, which is considered to be the standard reference on nuclear weapons effects.External links
- Official Website: One Second After (www.onesecondafter.com)
- US Government, Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack website