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Summary: If there's one book I could make everyone read...
Review: I first read this in ninth grade English II. I loved it then and still do. Having read all the negative reviews, I can see some of the reviewers' points: a little slow, poor military references, and outdated. As for the claim of its outdatedness, I can see how it could be seen that way, but I think that if you read it with the right mindset it applies to everyone living in troubled times. Post 9/11, it's easy for me to connect better than ever to the earlier parts of the book, the idea of going on with everyday life but always feeling the turmoil of the world around you. Some reviewers mentioned Pat Frank's not-very-clear descriptions of the military state of the world. Others understood them but claimed that they weren't totally logical. I don't think it really matters. If you totally forget that part and just look at the situation and how the characters deal with it, you can easily understand Frank's message in the book. And finally, the most common complaint was that the story progressed too slowly and didn't have enough suspense. I think that would have ruined it, personally. The slow pace gives you time to get to know the characters and setting. While it's not edge-of-your-seat, white-knuckled whirlwind activity like "The Sum of All Fears," or similar films/books, the pace is plenty quick enough to keep you interested. Unlike most suspense novels, "Alas, Babylon" was written to convey a message, not to entertain. And it certainly does succeed with its message. "Alas, Babylon" is proof that human resourcefulness and determination can withstand anything other men may send their way. It's about keeping up hope, even in times when children say "If I grow up...," it's about finding happiness in simple things, and most of all it's about holding on to your family and friends, no matter what race they are, can help pull you through.
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Summary: Superb story about the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust.
Review: Pat Frank's "Alas Babylon" was published in 1959, yet the writing is still fresh and original. Frank depicts a small river town in central Florida, named Fort Repose, most of whose inhabitants escape the most devastating results of a widespread nuclear holocaust. In the aftermath of the tragedy, the townspeople must cope with such serious problems as a lack of electricity, food shortages, lack of medical supplies and ravaging "highwaymen". Frank wisely focuses on the individual personalities in Fort Repose and we get to know them intimately. The main character is Randy Bragg, an attorney who has no direction in life, until he pulls himself together to become a leader in his town when leadership is desperately needed. Dan Gunn is an old-fashioned doctor who makes the best of a tragic situation. He remains committed to helping as many people as he can, even when his medical supplies run out. There are many other townspeople who appear in the book, and each has a role to play in the story. Frank depicts the characters skillfully and with compassion, and they becomes flesh and blood people before our eyes. Considering the depressing topic of the book, Frank uses humor liberally and effectively. The story is riveting and the writing is sharp and believable. Frank's book reinforces the idea that we sometimes lose sight of what really matters in life--until a tragedy forces us to reexamine our values.
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Summary: Takes the reader to a different world, magnificently
Review: This was required reading for me in a high school freshman English class. Am I glad! As one of the first books I read as an adolescent, it awakened in me the potential power of books, how they can inspire and get us in touch with our feelings. How to some extent they can tell us whether we are even feeling, by whether we are emotionally connecting with the book. I really was sucked into this post-apocalyptic adventure, with its highwaymen and primitive fight for subsistence. Somehow the idea of a post-apocalyptic world forces us to get in touch with ourselves, by removing what is phony and comfortable and, often, unearned. There is love, action, thought and feeling here. A tremendously entertaining book.
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Summary: Shute's "On the Beach" wasn't the only good WW-III yarn
Review: This story deals with the Soviet nuclear attack on America that fortunately didn't happen. Where "On the Beach" was written from a British/ Australian perspective, this book is based in the American south, perhaps making Pat Frank the Pat Conroy of post-apocalyptic fiction. In 1960, during the height of the Cold War, Randy Bragg, descendant of an old Florida family, gets a heads-up from his career Air Force brother and prepares his family and his town for when "the button gets pushed". Younger readers who didn't live through the Cold War might find this story a bit campy, but as one of the kids taught by teachers to hide under my desk, I'm in no position to scoff. The book's short length (by today's standards) might make you take it for pulp fiction at first glance, but the fact that it's still in print four decades later is a testament to its quality. Rather than just crank this thing out, certain that no one would notice the picky details, Frank did his homework on this story. Even down to the dog tag on the collar of a wild stray German shepherd in one passage--as a one-time resident of Rochester NY the same as that dog, I can testify to the fact that the phone exchange on his tag really did exist back in those days...
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Summary: An excellent apocalytic post-nuclear drama
Review: ALAS, BABYLON - by Pat Frank (1959) In "Alas, Babylon," Pat frank has produced one of the best sketches of the apocalytic, post-nuclear survivalism which dominated the thoughts of many Americans at the time of the book's publication. Due to the age of the book (published 35 years ago) in 1959, the nuclear weaponry, war tactics and scenarios are notably dated but this does not detract from the book in any way. If anything, it enhances the reader's interest through examination of the mindset of the 1950's-1960's in relation to their fears of nuclear war. The novel is set in the small Central Florida town of Fort Response: a trite name, given that the town becomes, in a sense, a post-war fortress responding to the circumstances of the war. The characterization is particularly well done; the citizens of Fort Response are fascinating creatures portrayed in great detail and fashion.Told through the eyes and actions of Randy Bragg, he undergoes a transformation through the course of the novel from the town's respected, but borderline alcholic to the leader who saves the survivors of Fort Response through his sense of responsibility and organizational skills. Frank's device of focusing on the events of the nuclear war only as much as necessary to explain their effect on the citizenry of Fort Response greatly enhances the appeal of the story (unlike, for instance, an author like Tom Clancy). This character-driven approach allows the reader to feel and sympathize realistically and effectively with Randy and the small cadre of survivors. The ending of the novel is particularly clever and probably the most notable feature of the story. As a work of science fiction, it lacks any fictional science which would qualify it as a member of that genre. "Alas, Babylon is more properly in the category of "The Stand" by Stephen King; the two books share more than a few similarities. But it is the characters of "Alas Babylon" that make it a memorable classic and a novel well worth reading.
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Summary: Could This Be A Survival Manual for the Post-Apocalypse?
Review: When I was an impressionable young girl of 14, my then boyfriend insisted I read Alas, Babylon, saying that he felt a nuclear conflict was not only possible, but inevitable. Of course, this was in the late Seventies and the Cold War was still all about 'arming for peace'. Knowing there was a distinct possibility that one day I might have to face a full-on nuclear disaster, I found that Alas, Babylon rang so true to me that it haunted me for years. The only other novel I have read that gave me such a chill was Stephen King's The Stand, a book that I also love - and I'd bet the rent money that Mr. King has also read Alas Babylon; there are too many coincidences for me to believe otherwise.
Alas Babylon tells the tale of a family preparing for, experiencing and then surviving a nuclear war in the mid 1950's. The characters are well-rounded and multi-dimensional; the situations realistic and haunting, and everytime I read it, I'm caught up again in the thrill of fear of hearing that first bomb drop - something I pray I will never have to actually experience. I have moved all over the country and halfway across the world, and my battered old copy of this fantastic novel has come with me. Well, my impressionable years are behind me, but the impact of Alas Babylon's vision of how folks in a small Southern town would react to a nuclear halocaust is still as strong. I read it just the other day and was again struck by it's vivid, disturbing descriptions of not only the horror of watching your world literally blowing up around you, but also the grisly task of how to survive it. Yes, it's military Cold War jargon and it's prickly talk of racism and segregation give it a slightly dated feel; but if the bomb drops tomorrow, and I'm alive, I can only hope my copy of Alas, Babylon survives with me. It may just safe my life...
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Summary: Could This Be A Survival Manual for the Post-Apocalypse?
Review: When I was an impressionable young girl of 14, my then boyfriend at the time insisted I read Alas, Babylon, saying that he felt a nuclear conflict was not only possible, but inevitable. Of course, this was in the late Seventies and the Cold War was still all about 'arming for peace'. Knowing there was a distinct possibility that one day I might have to face a full-on nuclear disaster, I found that Alas, Babylon rang so true to me that it haunted me for years. I have moved all over the country and halfway across the world, and my battered old copy of this fantastic novel has come with me. Well, my impressionable years are behind me, but the impact of Alas Babylon's vision of how folks in a small Southern town would react to a nuclear halocaust is still as strong. I read it just the other day and was again struck by it's vivid, disturbing descriptions of not only the horror of watching your world literally blowing up around you, but also the grisly task of how to survive it. Yes, it's military Cold War jargon and it's prickly talk of racism and segregation give it a slightly dated feel; but if the bomb drops tomorrow, and I'm alive, I can only hope my copy of Alas, Babylon survives with me. It may just safe my life...
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Summary: Absurdly optimistic
Review: I would never have imagined a book about nuclear war being so insanely optimistic and upbeat (just count on your neighbors and all will be well in the end). I picked this one up after reading the infinitely superior ...(and was on a post-apocalyptic lit jag) and was greatly disappointed. The (excessive) explanations for the novel's war are rooted firmly in the 50's and offer nothing to a modern reader and aside from a lack of fresh produce, life seems to be pretty groovy for the survivors in this book.
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Summary: A classic although dated story of nuclear holocaust
Review: This book is a superb look at what a nuclear war might have been like had it occurred in the late 1950s. Although some of the weapons issues that the book discusses are now dated (the book features a pretty good discussion of the missile-versus-bomber issue that was very real in the late '50s but which is now passe) in my opinion this detracts not at all from the novel's relevance. This is a gritty, hard-hitting novel about what life might have been like had mankind not managed to avoid nuclear conflict during the bad old days of the Cold War. Nuclear weapons are still around in abundance, and this book is still worth reading, and it is an enjoyable read that I personally found impossible to put down. The story is set in a small Florda town that manages to be outside any of the blast or target zones. The novel begins prior to the outbreak of nuclear conflict, and takes us through it to its aftermath--an aftermath of anarchy, hardship, and economic chaos, as the agricultural and economic back of the country are broken, and perhaps a majority of Americans are dead, in common with people in many parts of the world. This could have happened and still could. This stark fact is what makes this novel as relevant today as it ever was, despite some of the dated military-political issues that it occasionally discusses. The book does show the citizens of this small town surviving with dignity and even some optimism. But it never lets us forget that a nuclear war would be a catastrophe for mankind. Although we have dodged this bullet so far, surely current events show that we cannot be complacent, and books like this are as important as ever. A good novel that I recommend to everyone.
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Summary: Terrific, Innocent look at nuclear war
Review: This classic was written for two purposes: (1) A dire warning against nuclear war and (2) A morality tale of hope, goodness and survival. Everyone is immediately drawn to this book because of its downhome familiarity and avoidance of central issues that would arise in a nuclear holocaust. It doesn't really matter that the aftermath is a lot more hopeful than what would actually occur, or that people could really thrive and carry on after such a disaster. What's important - and this is the essence of literary license - is that Frank has made this story so immediate and so gripping and (most important) imbued it with such hope that one forgets the inaccuracies and unrealistic optimism. This is also a romance between the hero and his gal involving old girlfriend, another woman, a dead husband and all the accompanying sparks that necessarily fly. It is rated a clear "G" and literally sings of a new Earth with all races and all peoples working hand in hand to rebuild. A clear winner and one that is as popular with the young as it is the "mature".
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