So what would life be like one second after all of our electronic devices stopped running – permanently! 

Just our electronic devices, you say.  Well, that includes your car, which is now a computer controlled electronic device, unlike cars of just twenty years ago.  In fact, electronic device probably fits just about everything you depend on these days. 

I’ve often joked with my friends that one day we will find out the common yellow number two pencil now has a computer chip in it. 

So now everything you depend on has stopped working and there is no electricity, no air conditioning, no refrigeration, no nothing.  Think of it as a power outage that is going to last months or years – like a winter storm or hurricane outage – just much longer. 

Things start getting serious real fast in the story, as they would in real life and civilization starts breaking down as people try to cope with being instantly hurled back to the 1800’s. 

The cause is something called an EMP – an electromagnetic pulse set off by a nuclear weapon detonated 100 miles above the earth.  There’s no fallout and no blast effect – just everything stops working.  

The effect has been well known since the cold war, but we have taken our eye off the ball since the end of the cold war.  But others have not, developing weapons that create an even greater EMP effect.

 The seriousness of this effect is so real that members of Congress have discussed its homeland security aspects and some have read the book.  The book even has an intro written by Newt Gingrich.  It’s also not without a touch of humor, particularly since the only car that works for the hero is an old Edsel (since there were no electronics in cars when it was made). 

But overall, if you’re looking for a real thriller ride, you will want to read this book — I couldn’t put it down and had to tell all my Facebook and Twitter friends about it. 

Here’s a link to the book if you’d like to check it out – http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_16?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=one+second+after&sprefix=one+second+after. 

Have a nice day – J. Daniel