Alas, Babylon: The Classic Apocalyptic Novel of Courage, Survival, and Determination After Nuclear Holocaust

Having been published back in 1959, i.e. when the space program and commercial jetliner travel were still in their infancy, and whilst we were still in the Industrial Age and therefore less technology-dependent as we are now, not to mention less vulnerable to the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) effects of nuclear weapons as our present-day society would be, this novel is obviously a tad bit dated compared to more recent post-nuclear and other post-apocalyptic fiction books. Nonetheless, it's still an excellent book, eminently readable and engrossing, and frighteningly realistic, well worth the read. RANDOM STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS (and noteworthy passages): --p. 3: "The Russians had sent up another Sputnik, No. 23, and something sinister was going on in the Middle East. Sputnik No. 23 was the largest yet, according to the Smithsonian Institution, and was radioing continuous and elaborate coded signals. 'There is reason to believe,' Frank said, 'that Sputniks of this size are equipped to observe the terrain of the earth below.....'There is a new crisis in the Middle East. A report from Beirut, via Cairo, says that Syrian tanks of the most modern Russian design have crossed the Jordanian frontier. This is undoubtedly a threat to Israel. At the same time Damascus charges that Turkish troops are mobilizing….'" Wow, dated yet paradoxically so prescient in many ways. --p. 9: "Randy knew he wasn’t an alcoholic because an alcoholic craved liquor. He never craved it. He just drank for pleasure and the most pleasurable of all drinks was the first one on a crisp winter morning." Like the joke says, "I'm not an alcoholic, I'm a drunk, I don't go to meetings!" --p. 17: "'Nations are like people. When they grow old and rich and fat they get conservative. They exhaust their energy trying to keep things the way they are—and that’s against nature. Oh, the services were to blame too. Maybe even SAC. We designed the most beautiful bombers in the world, and built them by the thousands. We improved and modified them each year, like new model cars. We couldn’t bear the thought that jet bombers themselves might be out of style. Right now we’re in the position of the Federal Navy, with its wooden steam frigates, up against the Confederate iron-clad. It is a state of mind that money alone won’t cure.'” --p. 29: "B-47’ s," aahh, the pre-52 days of SAC. --p. 35: "'Then in ‘fifty-eight, after the Iraq king was assassinated, we grabbed the initiative and landed Marines in Lebanon. We got there fastest.'" --p. 37: Ah yes, the infamous "missile gap." --p. 55: Since the U.S. was still on the gold standard when this book was written, paper cash could hypothetically still be worth something even during a catastrophe such as nuclear war, I suppose.

I read Alas, Babylon when I was a teenager in 1960 at the height of the Cold War. It was powerful then when we were daily being presented with news of atomic testing, ICBMs, sabre rattling and practicing "duck and cover" in our classrooms. It was a scary time. This book, and the teleplay of the book, were spot on in depicting the terror of the times. After reading this the first time I tried to convince my parents - unsuccessfully - to build a bomb shelter in our back yard. Reading the book again for the first time in over 50 years brings back my memories of that time quite clearly. It is hard for people who did not live through that time to understand it, but this book does a good job of that. The book takes place in a small town in central Florida which just happens to be one of the few relatively safe locations in that state. It was far enough away from the many military bases and large population centers to miss being directly affected by the bombs and relatively unaffected by the fallout. The characters in this book are all interesting products of their times and their actions reflect that. Randy's panic when he fully understands what is about to happen is all too real. His confrontation with the town banker at closing time foreshadows the dividing line between before and after "The Day" as it comes to be known later. The book, published in 1959, also reflects the times with respect to race and segregation. It was interestingly advanced in the attitudes of some of its characters towards the "blacks" at that time, yet still portrays many of the ingrained, unrealized, unthinking attitudes of both blacks and whites towards each other that were then prevalent. The daily struggles for survival in a post-atomic war world are transformed by a staggering reduction of technology from free and easy power and the handy gadgets that makes possible (even before the always connected technology of today) to, for a while, a telegraph line and a single ham radio. The town doctor has a few instruments and drugs but no more are available as nothing can get to the town through the "restricted zone." Life becomes hard very fast and what once were trivial injuries and illnesses are now life-threatening. This book is a good read and still as riveting as it was the first time I read it. It will always be one of my favorites.

Good book, moderate interest in the topic helps, it's a regular guy that gets a tip from a trusted source and from then on confronts the expected problems..read in two days as it was an easy flowing story , for some beginner prepper type, maybe a good way to get your mind working ...read a few books/watch some prepping movies, and just think about all the things you wouldn't have done ..lol...

Fantastico a chi ama il genere fantascienza... Pat Frank un mito nel genere.

One of the best postapocalyptic novels - a classic!

An excellent, well-written story with extremely credible characters. Considering that it was written almost 70 years ago and a decade before the Civil Rights Act, it is very advanced in its social thinking. It is also sobering in the way it brings home the leaps that we have made technologically since 1959. I especially chuckled at the thought of power only coming from hydroelectricity or oil.

Look, this book is a classic. It's extremely well-written, both in literary and technical terms. I am of the generation that feared nuclear war from childhood, and now I'm getting old. What I'm trying to say is.. we made it a long time now since mankind first stared down the barrel of nuclear apocalypse. Maybe there is a god.

I liked this old classic about nuclear war and its aftermath. Written in 1959 it aged a little, but still is a GREAT read. Below, more of my impressions, with some limited SPOILERS. Randy Bragg lives in the small Central Florida town of Fort Repose. He is not a very successful guy, in fact he is mostly content with eating his inheritance... One day however his much more formidable brother, Colonel Mark Bragg, USAF, sends him a telegraph ending in the words, "Alas, Babylon", a pre-established code between the brothers warning of impending disaster. It appears quickly, that this disaster is a HUGE one... This was one of the very first novels to describe the occurence and the consequences of an all-out nuclear war. The much darker and much more pesimist "On the beach" was published two years earlier and the equally dark and pesimistic "Canticle for Leibowitz" was published in 1960. "Alas Babylone", a much more realistic thing than those other two classics, made quite a splash when it was published. Unlike so many others, the author, whose real name was Harry Hart Frank, knew what he was writing about. He served in military during WWII and watched Korean War as journalist, he studied a lot about the nuclear weapons and it shows in this book. The novel deals less with the nuclear war itself, than with what happens next. There are, quite obviously, survivors, in fact quite a lot of them, but the organised society as we know it initially collapses - the description of this process is quite fascinating. Then, as always, people regroup and re-organise themselves, facing challenges and solving problems. This is an uphill battle, but life always ultimately triumphs over death... Author very wisely states in this book, that it is not the strength of American nuclear arsenal that is the problem - it is the weakness of USA that causes Soviet union to attack, as Moscow believes it can win a nuclear war. It is a very important point showed in this book: in some circumstances a nuclear war CAN be won - it becomes only imposible if BOTH sides have enough primary and back-up fire power to always fully incinerate the enemy, no matter how total the initial surprise and how big the first-strike damage. On another hand, one thing totally absent here is the "nuclear winter", and a mighty good thing too, as it is a total nonsense... This book can be also read as a kinf of post-apocalyptic SF, albeit slightly more optimistic than most of such works. Left-winged people and peaceniks will almost certainly hate this book - which is another point in its favour... I don't want to provide spoilers here so I will keep this review short. This is an important book, still a good read and a thing that makes one think, in fact think a lot. I am glad that I bought and read it. ENJOY!