Aftermath

(Written for Worm's Sci Fi Haven by Dagny Taggart, more of her reviews can be read here: www.wormsscifi.com/haven) Everyone has heard the line "repent! The end of the world is near! God is angry!" But what happens when the world ends because of natural causes? Aftermath takes place about 20 years in the future, in an America with few advances in technology over what we have today, most notably, "judicial sleep", a type of prison (think the prison setting from the Minority Report movie, without the pipe organ). A healthy star in the Centauri system has gone supernova, sending a massive electromagnetic pulse towards earth. We follow characters in a few separate plot lines: the crew of a manned mission to Mars, on their way home, a group of cancer survivors looking to rescue the inventor of their experimental treatment from judicial sleep, and the President of the US and a few of his aids. Thanks to the EMP, all electronic devices become useless. No refrigeration, no computers, no cars, no nothin'. Think Hurricane Katrina gone global. Yes, it is a huge disaster, with many deaths. I read this book before Hurricane Katrina hit, I wonder if I would have felt differently one way of the other if I had read the book just after that storm hit? Something that made the book far more enjoyable was that it did not dwell on the negative impact of the disaster. All of our characters stay optimistic. All of our characters are constantly thinking ahead, planning for the future, not dwelling on the fact that nothing works anymore. Maybe it's because many of our characters are used to adverse situations? The president has all his politics to deal with, our cancer patients are thankful to be alive, and our Mars astronauts are have been living in a shoebox shuttle for the last 6 months. So our characters are used to challenges. We do not hear about people dying, flooding, mass starvation. It's implied that it is there, but Sheffield does not dwell on this, and I am thankful for it. The book is action packed, from the cancer survivors breaking their freakish doctor out of judicial sleep and trying to avoid the marines who are surrounding the place (trying to break someone else out), to the Mars mission survivors crash landing near a compound of religious fanatics, whose leader foreseen all. Some interesting ethical questions are raised, such as what is a doctor's genius brain worth, if he is a predatorial criminal? When you only have one chance to save your own life, of the life of your friends, what do you do? Surrounded by tragedy, Sheffield keeps his eyes on the prize, namely the cancer survivors and their bizarre doctor, the Mars mission survivors trying to survive a cult of religious fanatics, and the President and his surrounding spider web of politics. Once I got halfway through this book, I could not put it down. This is the first Sheffield book I have read, and I promise not to make it my last, however I was mighty frustrated to find the book ends

Many of the reviews posted here berate Sheffield's work for weak characterizations. I think that those readers were spoiled by Tomorrow and Tomorrow, in which Sheffield had the entire book to develop ONE character. Now, in Aftermath, Sheffield has many more characters to develop, and not enough space to do all fully. Overall, I think Aftermath was a strong work. Sheffield effectively presents state of the art scientific ideas such that they can be understood by the average reader. The book isn't as strong on its own as Tomorrow and Tomorrow, but then again it was never meant to be, Starfire is its sequel. This book shouldn't be judged lightly, it does contain breakthrough science, and it's only the beginning of the plot.

This is the first book I've read by this author. I had the benefit on knowing that little would actually be resolved at the end. (I bought the sequel halfway through reading this one.) I found this book to be a great read and got caught up in the fates of several of the characters. I'm looking forward to reading the sequel shortly.

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.very great science author.The apocalyptic tune of the book is real.Very inflaming,possible and a story that reminds us all that the technological gadgets around us may not be able to help[ us all someday,and both nature and our actions can render them useless ,and could fail us all.The book is a great apocalyptic masterpiece,and i enjoyed it.the book is also a serious reminder of how our last days could look,the end of time.A serious survivalism book,the events that will eventually put us all on the survival mode is the fear of all establishments and mankind,and we are doing all we can to avoid it,b=ut it can happen,it does happen everyday thru a lot of accidents that we all see.I think the book is great.A thumbs up

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. Caused by an unseen cataclysm, the Earth and human civilization are paralyzed and anarchy ensues. After the reader is accustomed to the underlying threat, author Charles Sheffield takes him/her on an adventure using the lives of a derranged serial killer, a group of near death cancer patients, the first human Mars expedition, and the President of the United States. The research required to write such a story is apparent in the facts and theories presented. An interesting topic and a fast read. If you enjoyed reading the Aurthur C. Clark Odyssey series or Tom Clancy novels, I highly recommend this book!