Patrick Scalia

Simply the most accurate and authentic--by far--novel about a nuclear war ever written. The documentary style does a magnificent job of rolling out all the disturbing and harrowing facts and figures--the book is written as a post-war survey of the state of the country, but also has many immediate first person accounts of the short few minutes of the war itself--while also being a fantastically good novel in the literary sense. Great plotting, outstanding characterization, utterly believable dialogue. This novel has it all. It also, remarkably, is written in a way that I'd never seen before and have never since: The authors are themselves the protagonists, in a fictional world in which they endured and then survived a nuclear war. It sounds like a conceit, but it works very very well. When it comes to an apocalyptic novel involving a nuclear war, this is hands down the best one you'll ever see. I find it surprising that I can say this, but it's even superior to William Brinkley's The Last Ship. Which is the second best novel in this subgenre you will ever read.