Customer Reviews

Alas Babylon

5 star:		(93)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

First read this book around 1959. Never forgot it. It is still a great yarn the second time around and 40 years later.

Randy Bragg is living an unspectacular late 1950's existence in well-named Fort Repose, Florida. Things begin to change when he is contacted by his brother Mark, an Air Force Colonel. Mark uses their long-standing code for trouble, a phrase from the Book of Revelations. Mark explains that war is imminent, and leaves his family with Randy for safekeeping. His predictions prove accurate. The brief nuclear exchange that follows swallows Mark and a large proportion of the country's population. It leaves Fort Repose in the middle of a radiation-free zone, safe but cut off from the outside.

Much of what follows has since become standard in "after the big war" stories. Randy and his community cope with the absence of civilization. As electricity fails, they use candles for light and fire for cooking. As canned food supplies dwindle, they rediscover fishing, hunting and planting. They learn to repair, then make simple tools like bows and arrows that are now needed to survive. Many authors have covered this ground, but Pat Frank was one of the first. And he does it well.

What sets this story apart is the focus on people. We see contrast between the town's banker, who cannot adjust to a world without money, and other Fort Repose citizens who form a working barter economy. Some former neighbors steal from each other, while others become closer--cooperating to catch fish, find a new source of salt, and even have community social gatherings. Randy emerges as a leader, organizing use of community resources, access to medical care, and defense against marauding outlaws.

The book also explores subtle currents in the relationships between its characters. Randy's sister-in-law Helen, for example, has to deal with the attachment she forms to Randy. Although this attachment is more domestic than romantic, it complicates Randy's growing romance with his neighbor, Lib McGovern. These explorations of personal and community relationships set the book apart from more traditional post-war science fiction of this time, such as Earth Abides. Readers who enjoy this human element will recognize similar themes in the darker On the Beach by Nevil Shute. There are also elements of post-disaster community-building in John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids. Pat Frank's book has a strong dose of both.

This book his highly recommended to fans of post-apocalyptic science fiction, students of 1950's opinions about surviving nuclear war, and readers who simply enjoy a good story with interesting characters.

This was an excellent read. It's a combination of excellent writing and technical knowledge. As relevant today as it was when it was written at the height of the Cold War. (minus the impact of an EMP to current electronics).

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...

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.

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!)

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.

I had to read this book last year for my English class. It's about a small town in Florida watching a nuclear war take place around them. Overall I'd say it's a pretty interesting book, but if given the choice, I would've picked other books to read instead. If you like sci-fi novels about nuclear war, give it a shot. Otherwise, keep looking...there are other books out there.

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.

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...