- Mass Market Paperback: 547 pages
- Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group (1 Nov 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0553577387
- ISBN-13: 978-0553577389
- Product Dimensions: 17.3 x 10.4 x 3.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,157,645 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
It's 2026, and catastrophe has struck from an unexpected source. The Alpha Centauri supernova has risen like a second sun, rushing Earth toward its last summer. Floods, fires, starvation, and disease paralyze the planet. In a blue aurora flash of gamma rays, all microchips worldwide are destroyed, leaving an already devastated Earth without communications, transportation, weaponry, or medicine.
The disaster sets three groups of survivors on separate quests. A militant cult seizes the opportunity to free their leader, known as the Eye of God, from the long-term coma to which a court sentenced her. Three cancer patients also search for a man in judicial sleep: the brilliant scientist--and monstrous criminal--who alone can continue the experimental treatment that keeps them alive. From a far greater distance come the survivors of the first manned Mars expedition, struggling homeward to a world that has changed far beyond their darkest fears. And standing at the crossroads is one man, U.S. President Saul Steinmetz, who faces a crucial decision that will affect the fate of his own people...and the world.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
The disaster sets three groups of survivors on separate quests. A militant cult seizes the opportunity to free their leader, known as the Eye of God, from the long-term coma to which a court sentenced her. Three cancer patients also search for a man in judicial sleep: the brilliant scientist--and monstrous criminal--who alone can continue the experimental treatment that keeps them alive. From a far greater distance come the survivors of the first manned Mars expedition, struggling homeward to a world that has changed far beyond their darkest fears. And standing at the crossroads is one man, U.S. President Saul Steinmetz, who faces a crucial decision that will affect the fate of his own people...and the world.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Mr. Sheffield is one of the premier writers of "hard" SF. The novel begins with one suspension of scientific principles: alpha centari goes supernova. This cannot happen happen by today's known mechanisms of supernova formation, as binaries that go supernova involve a dwarf star. Once this happens, however, Mr. Sheffield follows the consequences of a gamma ray blast from the exploded star that happens to emit in a direction that puts earth in the path. The EMP pulse devastates the computerized world by frying nearly every microchip on the planet. When this is added to the global weather changes, the problem is monumental. The novel focuses on events involving three main groups of people, one of which is the president of the United States.
Overall the novel flows pretty well, and the plot lines are interesting. The novel may have been better served by having one less major line to follow. This is particularly true of the events surrounding the US president. Many of the things that happen (such as a quiet dinner with one of his aides one evening) are hard to imagine in the face of the greatest disaster to strike Earth during recorded history. It is surreal to have the president having a quiet dinner and talking about an old flame when Australia and the whole of southern Africa are apparently gone due to the violent weather patterns in the southern hemisphere. The scene is reminescent of Nero playing the lyre while Rome burned, though this is not the author's intent. Overall, the novel is in the "good" range. More focus and stronger plot development could have made it "excellent."
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Interesting start, but clearly the first of three. Way too many loose ends, Sheffield is not sloppy. Most amusing part is the grey panthers showing the youths how to cope with life without microchips (I would be one of them). Stay tuned for resolution of important questions, like what blew up Alpha (Niven's "culthang bronte" ?) and why Althea knew about it.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Never having read a Sheffield book, I was thoroughly entertained with Aftermath until I realized that there weren't too many pages left to adequately explain the unanswered. Oh great I picked up another scifi novel that the author feels compelled to make into a trilogy. I don't know about you but I hate that. By the time a sequel comes out I will feel compelled to read Aftermath again. Maybe that's not all bad but...I hope at least that the retail price is less than $14.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Interesting, but left too much wide open for my taste.
This was a decent read, but if this is a part 1 of three, I wish it would have advertised it on the cover. Read more
Published on 5 April 1999
What a dissapointment!
After a slam-bang beginning, most of Sheffield's characters fall into idiot mode. Major world leaders make world-changing decisions based on fifteen minute interviews with... Read more
Published on 27 Nov 1998
Great along the way, forgot to have a climax.
I have mixed feelings about this title. I liked the story fairly much, and would recommend it, except for one thing: It forgot to have a CLIMAX!! Read more
Published on 10 Nov 1998
Disappointing and Moderately Chauvinist
I generally like Sheffield, but this was a disappointment. He had absolutely no grasp of female reproductive biology on the fifth-grade level--which was not what the book was... Read more
Published on 27 Oct 1998
Exhilirating,real,apocalyptic tune,very real and possible
As a reader and absorber of scientic writtings,both science-fiction and real,this book is a great reading.And surprisingly,this is my first reading of shefield. Read more
Published on 13 Oct 1998
The best Science Fiction novel of the year.
Picked up this book after I threw away Tom Clancy's new bomb. Better than any end of the world-survival book written. The characters are extremely origional and entertaining. Read more
Published on 24 Sep 1998
High quality Sci-Fi; a mix of Clark and Clancy. Excellent.
The year is 2026. An Earth run by supercomputers is forced to revert to animal instincts to survive when a nearby Supernova causes the failure of all microchips. Read more
Published on 26 Aug 1998
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