Publisher's Weekly Review
At the start of bestseller Forstchen's stirring sequel to 2009's One Second After, 730 days have passed since EMP weapons destroyed nearly all electronic equipment in the continental U.S. After the initial violence and starvation, the community of Black Mountain, N.C., led by history professor and former colonel John Matherson, now faces a different sort of challenge. The federal government, sheltered in Cold War bunkers in Virginia, has instituted a draft. The new federal district administrator in Asheville offers John a position as major in the Army of National Recovery and a reduction in the Black Mountain draft, if John will help suppress a renegade group in the nearby mountains. John and his people must choose whether to side with their neighbors, painted as just plain folks struggling to survive, or the feds, whom John isn't sure he can trust. Readers should be prepared for some heavy-handed political commentary, but fans of Forstchen's historical novels coauthored with Newt Gingrich will be satisfied. Agent: Eleanor Wood, Spectrum Literary Agency. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Two years after futuristic electromagnetic pulse weapons linked to Iran and North Korea killed more than 80 percent of Americans, the survivors in a North Carolina town have more than marauding thieves, rationing, a lack of electricity, and other technological setbacks to cope with. A shady new government poses an even graver threat. The people behind that self-appointed government have issued draft notices to all the young people in sleepy Black Mountain, including the daughter of determined town administrator John Matherson. They'll hold off on plans to conscript the 18-year-olds into the new Army of National Recovery if Matherson, widely admired for his success in rebuilding the town, agrees to join them as a major general and head of the draft board. That's an iffy proposition at best, considering the talk he's heard of the government scrapping the Constitution and using neutron bombs to put down rebellions like the one that will defeat the ANR in Chicago. With One Second After (2009), the first installment in this series; the novella Day of Wrath (2014), in which ISIS commits massacres in Maine and other peaceful American spots; and now this book, Forstchen has fully assumed the role of apocalyptic bell-ringer. His new effort has fun with the notion of an Edsel being a coveted object and dentistry that puts the pain back in probing. But once an un-American America rears its head, he has trouble getting out of the way of his patriotic agenda. And what with the British doing finethe weapon meant for them took out Eastern Europe insteadyou can't stop wondering why no one ever brings up the possibility of a U.K. vacation. Fail Safe collides with Norman Rockwell in this fitfully entertaining novel about an America ripped apart at its seams. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
In One Second After (2009), the U.S. was plunged into anarchy after an electromagnetic pulse rendered nearly all technology useless. Now, in the sequel, history professor and former army colonel John Matherson is the de facto mayor of Black Mountain, North Carolina. Across the county, various technologies are being brought back into use, communities and local governments are forming, and the president has decided it's time to bring the nation back together. To that end, a new military force is created, a so-called Army of National Recovery, and widespread conscription is enacted. Matherson is immediately outraged (and not just because his daughter is one of the conscripted), and then suspicious: Just what does the president have in mind for this new army and for the people of the country? This is a fine postapocalyptic thriller, with richly drawn characters and the kind of story that we can easily imagine happening.--Pitt, David Copyright 2015 Booklist
