A young woman and her lover are scuba diving on an old sunken warship off a Pacific island when the world above them on the surface turns into a monstrous fireball. The sunken wreck shudders and tips. This spectacularly conceived story may well assume a place somewhere between Nevil Shute's On the Beach and Margaret Atwood's Surfacing.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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From Publishers Weekly
Files's riveting debut novel begins with a bang, literally and figuratively. Kit Manning, an American woman teaching on a South Pacific island, is underwater, deep-sea diving, when "everything suddenly flares bright yellow." It's a nuclear holocaust, and when Kit, protected by her oxygen tanks, resurfaces, she finds her world decimated. Carefully underplaying the story of the disaster, Files gives it psychological truth by introducing scenes from Kit's past, showing her adolescent struggles with an unfulfilled mother as well as her devastated marriage, and we see that even without the nuclear apocalypse, Kit has felt her life to be in ruins. The authenticity of the character development offsets the contrivances in the plot. (Kit's trusty dog, for example, has been protected from the bombs, and Kit eventually finds other survivors, some menacing, some friendly, each handily endowed with particular expertise.) Superb pacing maximizes the suspense, propelling the reader to discover exactly how Kit will resolve her memories and face an extraordinary future.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From School Library Journal
YA-- World War III is the backdrop for this tale that combines Robinson Crusoe with a recasting of the Genesis story. Kitty Manning proves to be an Eve of the '90s as she survives nuclear disaster, escaped convicts, religious fanaticism, a typhoon, and, ultimately, her own past. Through a developing sense of self-redemption, her new clear-headedness enables her to defeat evil, rescue a possible Adam, and take the first hesitant steps that might create a second Eden on a South Pacific island. Through the liberal use of flashbacks, Files reconstructs her heroine's past life. While not dwelling on the causes of the war, she gives a nod to the realities of post-Soviet international politics by having the destruction stem from nuclear weapons in the hands of unstable Middle Eastern nations. The author spares readers technodrama and political polemics, however, in favor of one woman's life and struggle to endure. Unlike previous entries in the end-of-life-as-we-know-it genre, this story ends with a glimmer of realistic hope. Grisly and poetic in turn, it should appeal to mature, thoughtful, and sensitive YAs.
- Carolyn E. Gecan, Thomas Jefferson Sci - Tech, Fairfax County, VA
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
- Carolyn E. Gecan, Thomas Jefferson Sci - Tech, Fairfax County, VA
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Nice book
July 5 2005
By Ned Lord
- Published on Amazon.com
This book is mostly exciting. The writing is superb and the plot is unique. I thought it was going to be another "On The Beach," but I was wrong. I had a little problem with all the past to present segues and since I was most interested in the present story got a bit bored. But it is a worthwhile read.
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