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Title: Warday: And the Journey Onward by Whitley Strieber, James Kunetka ISBN: 0-03-070731-5 Publisher: Henry Holt & Company, Inc. Pub. Date: April, 1984 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $2.98 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.59 (37 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Biased yes, but I keep coming back
Comment: I first read Warday when it first came out (15, 16 years ago?). I keep re-reading it. Yes, it has a Leftist slant (the war is our fault because we deployed SDI, etc. etc.), and yet it's not so preachy as some say: a lot of the preaching reflects the very realistic depiction of how people *after* such a war would likely feel about *our* world after the fact.
But never mind all that. There's never been anything to compare to Warday. Not in technical accuracy. Not in scope of post-apocalyptic survey (virtually the entire U.S. and then some). Not in style of writing (a journalistic account from two very different perspectives). And on top of that, the human element is as strong as or stronger than any other book of its kind.
Like I said, I keep coming back. Most people I know who've read it do the same. No matter what the quibbles I have with it, it's the best of the best. It's definitely the best thing that nut-ball Whitley Streiber ever produced. Truly a must-read, must-own.
Rating: 5
Summary: Dated though Chilling
Comment: I only stumbled upon this great post-apocalyptic novel in my university library quite by accident. Knowing Streiber's later bizarre works on UFOs and alien abductions, I expected in this book another sanguine piece of sensationalistic journalism mixed with half-baked fiction. Not so. Indeed, after reading this novel, it sheds some light on why Streiber described such vivid pictures about the world being destroyed, and also perhaps explains why he developed a religious belief in the existence of intelligent aliens who will save us from our own foolishness (a common SF theme during the Cold War).
The premise of the novel is simple enough-it is a journalistic travelogue compiled by Streiber and Kunetka over a period of five years, as they travel across their wrecked homeland in search of answers as to what happened on 'Warday', when a short and limited nuclear war changed the world forever. Along the way we get some fascinating insights into the political, sociological and economic after-effects of the war. Most amusing is the almost superstitious fear about radioactivity, especially in post-war California, which takes over as the economic and political heart of the U.S., as well as the comical but tragic paranoia about refugees. The authors hold no punches though about showing the horrible aftermath in its detail, ranging from burns, sickness, involuntary euthenasia, starvation, plague, famine, and the other effects which end up claiming 70 million or so American lives in the war's aftermath.
In realism, the novel is quite accurate. The nuclear war is triggered when the U.S. builds a space-based 'star wars' system, which apparently leads Russia to believe its deterrent will be useless. Russia then launches a first strike, destroying the ICBM silos in the Midwest and launching a salvo of 10 megatonne bombs against Washington, New York, and San Antonio. About 70 megatonnes fall on Washington, reducing the city to molten rock and glass, whilst lesser megatonnage falls on New York. Although most of the New York salvo misses, enough damage is done to kill 3 million people and damage the city beyond repair. Russia also detontates a number of 'EMP' bombs over the U.S., destroying most of the electronics and computer systems in the U.S. The President, panicked and bewieldered, launches nuclear counter-strikes of similar force against Russia, and probably also orders the use of biological weapons against the Warsaw Pact (although this is never claimed explicitly). Russia also appears to deploy a biological agent against America, which ends up being simply called the 'Cinncinati Flu' which ironically kills about twice as many people as the nuclear strikes themselves do.
Although the authors vastly over-estimate the likely yield of the Soviet bombs (modern city busters have yields of about 400-750 kilotonnes, deployed in ICBMs with 3-12 warheads apiece) the general effects of the deployed weapons and the aftermath corroborate well with what I know about nuclear weapons and war in general. What is perhaps the most chilling is that a 'limited' nuclear war still effectively ruins and cripples the U.S., reducing it from a premier superpower to a nation with the same might as say, modern Japan or India. The authors are also prescient in their awareness of the damage an 'EMP' burst would do, something of considerable worry in more recent times with nuclear terrorism.
Overall the novel is perhaps the best fictional account of what a nuclear war could do. I would certainly give a copy to anyone who thinks nuclear weaponry is the best means of achieving political aims or of resolving international disputes.
Rating: 2
Summary: Disturbing, scary, and utterly unrealistic.
Comment: Many of the other reviews for this book are positive. Mine is not. There are spoilers in the following, so if you're wanting to be surprised, stop reading after this paragraph.
There. Now for the rest of you, it is fairly well crafted, but right from the start, when you read it and look at the publish date, it's only a transparent manifesto to speak out against Reagan's Star Wars program and the gloom and doom that will occur if we choose to defend ourselves. "If we build this they'll blow us up!! They have no choice!!" Given that, the authors failed to understand the American experience in an emergency scenario. We won't fold, we won't fragment, we certainly will not allow ourselves to be pillaged and colonized and parceled off.
Well, they didn't blow us up, we spent them to death. Of course, we may have killed our own economy by doing that, but that is another story.
The book has this fantasy play out that the America of the last 200 years ceases to exist in spirit and fact after the destruction of several major cities, missile fields and a sizeable chunk of the Navy. A breakdown in communications caused by the electromagnetic effect of the weapons discharge wipes out all information services, and collapses the economy. DC is destroyed with all Federal functions. This is where the story falls apart.
The book, set years after the attack, has the military running parts of the country, people being isolated and restricted from medical treatment, food, basic human rights, routinely tolerates and sanctions violations of the Bill of Rights, seizes property, etc. Undamaged parts of the country run themselves like they are their own countries. Contaminated parts of the country are effectively on their own except for 'benevolent' care from foreign nations. Parts of the country secede or are taken over outright.
So, we're expected to believe that the Federal Government ceases to exist, and in five years, can't reconstitute itself? Hogwash. We're expected to believe that the US military ceases to be a fighting force and that we're a 'joint' command with England? Uhmmm, what about the military forces based here that were not affected by the war, which are substantial? Did they just melt away? We're expected to believe that we gave (or sold off) Los Alamos to the Japanese, and Alaska to Canada? What did we do, just give ourselves lobotomies at the same time? We're expected to believe that the sole surviving Cabinet member just can't get his act together and get a Supreme Court reconstituted, can't **call** or **write** the State Legislatures to elect new Representatives and Senators, and can't appoint provisional Cabinet members and provisional military leaders? Heck, any college graduate worth his salt could do that in a week. My wife could do it in an afternoon!
I cannot fault the authors for not knowing the potential yield of nuclear weapons targeted at the specific targets at that point in time, but it I believe that it is now more clear that more, smaller weapons were probably targeted on the US, rather than massive weapons with overlapping effect. They probably made a reasonable guess. Realistically, you don't need to nuke a city three times to make it die, and groundbursts are handy for missile fields or severely hardened targets--of which, cities aren't. Once is plenty, and you can pack 10 or more small nukes in a warhead that could hold three or four big ones. Hence, more targets hit, more panic, more bang for the ruble. With regards to the long-term effects of nuclear radiation after a war of this nature, it is speculation more than anything else. We simply don't know. This is scary, and therefore worthy of reading just so you understand how bad things could be in a limited war. It could be worse.
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Title: Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank ISBN: 0060931396 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 April, 1999 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: Earth Abides by George R. Stewart ISBN: 0449213013 Publisher: Fawcett Books Pub. Date: 12 September, 1986 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Last Ship by William Brinkley ISBN: 0345359828 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 13 February, 1989 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: This Is the Way the World Ends by James Morrow ISBN: 0156002086 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: May, 1995 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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