Read this for the PA forum read. To start off with, the forward to the book was written by one Newt Gingrich who the author has collaborated with previously. Forstchen seems to have put himself in the book as the main character, Bill or Bob or John (that is one of the many problems I had with the book, the characters are mostly flat, undeveloped, seemingly interchangeable and totally unsympathetic). Anyway, Forstchen in real life is a history professor specializing in military history at a small college near Asheville, North Carolina and so is the heroic-forced-into-greatness-by-the-dire situation-and-his-military-training, main character...John. The premise of the book is EMPs knock out the entire communication, transportation and electrical systems of the continental United States throwing cities and towns into complete chaos, starvation, cannibalism, religious fanaticism and militarism, succumbing to disease and massive die offs of the U.S's population....and forcing them to eat the family dog...boo! 
 Although the premise of the book was interesting and the author linearly laid out well how the whole thing unfolded, there were numerous problems I had with the book. First, the writing style was bland, most of the good stuff, i.e. the final battle with the "Posse", was related off screen, with few details and after-the-fact. Two, the characters were not developed or were stereotypical(i.e. hippies bad and stinky/ex-military good and full of the only good ideas; men leaders/women mostly useless except to cook or tend to wounds) or even likeable. Thirdly, some of his situations and conclusions seemed implausible (i.e. why no help from Hawaii or Alaska?...why did it deteriorate so fast? why so ruthless?...or as someone else in the forum pointed out, why not fish rather than eat the family dog?). Lastly, much of it was preachy and propagandaish, especially the end with the better late than never General's little speech (i.e. why oh why did we spend so much money on global warming crap or right wing terrorists instead of on preparing for EMPs?). All of that could have been overlooked though and the story could have been enjoyed more if Forstchen was a better writer and had developed the characters more. I think he should probably stick to writing non-fiction military history books with his buddy Newt.