- Paperback: 336 pages
- Publisher: Harper Perennial (Feb 25 1999)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0060931396
- ISBN-13: 978-0060931391
- Product Dimensions: 20.4 x 13.7 x 2.1 cm
- Shipping Weight: 295 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (136 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #805,651 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
"A warm, continuously interesting story of what can happen to a group of ordinary people in a perilous situation." -- -- New York Herald Tribune
"Ingenious...Provocative." -- -- New York Times
"Ingenious...Provocative." -- -- New York Times
"A warm, continuously interesting story of what can happen to a group of ordinary people in a perilous situation." -- New York Herald Tribune
"An enthralling and vivid story of the follies and failures of people, their courage and cruelty, their treachery and triumphs. Mr. Frank is a magnificent writer." -- Chicago Sunday Tribune
"Frank is successful enough in making us believe it could indeed happen here to send a small, fearful chill along our backbone." -- Saturday Review
"Ingenious...Provocative." -- -- New York Times
Book Description
The classic apocalyptic novel that stunned the nation with its vivid portrayal of a small town's survival after nuclear holocaust devastates the country.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
In Fort Repose, a river town in Central Florida, it was said that sending a message by Western Union was the same as broadcasting it over the combined networks. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
In Fort Repose, a river town in Central Florida, it was said that sending a message by Western Union was the same as broadcasting it over the combined networks. Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Could This Be A Survival Manual for the Post-Apocalypse?,
By A Customer
This review is from: Alas, Babylon (School & Library Binding)
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...
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful,
By S.R.W. Phillips "StevieRae5" (Lexington, Kentucky USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Alas Babylon (Paperback)
While Nevil Shute's "On the Beach" deals with nuclear war after the fact, Pat Frank puts the reader right in the middle of the war and lets them witness firsthand the mass hysteria and carnage that would accompany the beginning and aftermath in the first few years afterwards. The actual beginning of the nuclear war occupies only the first few chapters of the book, and the fallout, both literally and figuratively, is what makes up the rest. Having the reader in the middle of the action is what hits home the most--especially when the radio address by the new president, a woman who is about twentieth in line to succeed the president, reads a complete listing of the areas with so much fallout that people are forbidden to enter or leave them. Chills will run down your spine when you read this part and realize that you are right in the midst of one of these zones. This book is more optimistic than Nevil Shute's, so perhaps it's less realistic. However, Frank weaves a wonderful story of people picking up the pieces of the shattered world and managing to move on together in the face of such tragedy. Definitely a worthwhile read.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Almost too good . . . .,
By
This review is from: Alas Babylon (Paperback)
I read this book as a teenager and was so taken by it that I would reread it several years in a row. Its picture of life after a nuclear war is harrowing and frightening. In a sense, this is a prelude of the story that concludes with "On the Beach". The only problem is that Frank writes so well and gives such a hopeful slant to the possibility of survival that some readers might want to be there when the missles start to fall. (By the way, this much superior to that mess of a movie "The Day After"--and, oh how I wish, it would have made a splendid film. I believe it was made as a Playhouse 90 for TV in the 50s. Oh, would I love to see that!)
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