Book Review: After America (The Disappearance)

I suppose I should warn you that this review will be a bit grumpy in places.  If you came simply to get some confirmation of an already held opinion that Birmingham's novel was good, you'd best keep going elsewhere.  If you want an admittedly fairly biased opinion from me, due to what I found in this book, then by all means, read on.

Source: Amazon.com

After America (The Disappearance), by John Birmingham

From the book's cover:

The world changed forever when a massive wave of energy slammed into North America and wiped out 99 percent of the population. As the United States lay in ruins, chaos erupted across the globe.

Now, while a skeleton American government tries to reconstruct the nation, swarms of pirates and foreign militias plunder the lawless wasteland where even the president is fair prey. In New York City, armies of heavily armed predators hold sway—and hold off a struggling U.S. military. In Texas, a rogue general bent on secession leads a brutal campaign against immigrants. And in England, a U.S. special ops agent enters a shadow war against a deadly enemy who has made the fight personal. While the president ponders a blitz attack on America’s once greatest city, the forces of order and anarchy wage all-out war for postapocalyptic dominance—and a handful of survivors must decide how far to go to salvage whatever uncertain future awaits . . . after America.

The review:

Have you ever picked up a book and thought it was one thing, and then after you begin reading, you discover that despite what the cover says, this is not the book you thought it was.  Often I imagine this is a matter of thinking a book will be a certain way, and then discovering that it has been promoted as "A," but is in fact unashamedly "B."

Well I had that problem with After America.  Or more to the point, I had a more interesting problem with it, at the start.  Namely, I thought I was picking up Mark Steyn's similarly named book on the decay of the United States global power and what we can do to avert much of it (or so I suppose is the case, based on what I noted online via the Washington Post review).  Not that I buy into such, mind you.  I was curious though.

The author, John Birmingham.  His Amazon.com page listing provides the following quote: "Hey there. It's me. JB. Right now I'm probably kicking back on my hovercraft somewhere in the Antilles, or the Maldives, enjoying a dissolute, essentially meaningless life funded by your generous book purchases. Please, don't make me go back to selling..."  Uh... yeah.  Tough life you've got.  Don't worry, I'll not force you to go back to slaving away at another writing project. / Source: Amazon.com

What I got, however, was Australian author John Birmingham's 2010 sci-fi/spy/thriller After America, which is part two of The Disappearance trilogy (here I was accidentally reading books out of order again - see my Odd Thomas series reviews for more on that scene).  And to be honest, at first I decided just to go with it, when I figured out my mistake.

I could tell within a dozen pages (if such can be called when you are reading an audiobook) that this was part "something" of a multi-part affair, and I was surely not in the first part of it.  The author so casually talks about a major destruction over much of North America, caused by some sort of stellar phenomenon called "The Wave," which came through in either 2003 or 2004, from what I can gather, and turned anyone struck by it into a dirty smear of residual dark-colored dust. Their clothes, stiffened with the once-a-person soot, fall down and leave a remnant showing someone has died.  In my mind there was an unintended correlation with the popular Christian novel Left Behind.  Not that I've read those myself (I’ve been curious, but I hate getting sucked into long series when I only intend to read one or two at most), but it sounds like a non-religious version of that idea.  Except the Wave doesn't care if you are pious or not.  It simply wipes you from the face of the planet.

Anyway, I couldn't figure out every single relevant thing that has changed since the world had this happen to it in Birmingham's book, but I could gather that this wave thing made major changes to the planet.  The global economy collapsed.  In the mess that followed, several sociopolitical hot spots around the world erupted into violence against each other, including a nuke strike by Israel against its enemies, and a mess between India and Pakistan.  There is talk in the novel about an Islamic uprising in France.  And of course the United States, or what is left of it, has its hands full trying to undo the damage that losing much of its population to cosmic accident would cause.

If you Google "Battle of New York City," this is one of the things that comes up (it's from Modern Warfare 3, according to the website caption).  Most of the images you get are from the Revolutionary War.  Go figure. / Source: fusible.com

But After America is set a few years after this all has supposedly happened.  And here is where I came in, so to speak, via book two in the series.  In After America, the author runs three or four different yarns of the novel’s over-arching plot at the same time.  There is the new President of the United States (semi-new, that is, as I gather he was big in the first book) mostly dealing with a rebellious semi-independent Republic of Texas, as well as pirate and insurgent conflict on the eastern seaboard, primarily centered in New York City.  Then there are a couple of smuggler folks who are making their way through the battle in New York City, trying to do some semi-illegal deed for some rich guy somewhere (I didn't fully get what they were doing, to be honest, but enjoyed their adventures as I read along).  There is also an assassin who is a U.S. citizen, but living in what is left of Great Britain.  This assassin’s husband is attacked by bad guys, and so she goes off to find the man who is responsible, who coincidentally also happens to be leading the jihadist segment of the battle in New York City.

And then there is what caused to book to ultimately lose steam for me.  Namely, it is the thread of the plot which concerns a Mexican-turned-U.S.-citizen who is part of some sort of home-steading mandate down in the Republic of Texas region.  At book’s beginning, he witnesses from a distance his family brutalized and murdered, and his ranch looted.  He and his only surviving daughter take off after the men who did it.  On the trail, they come across a party of "Mormons" who are tracking some so-called "road agents" (wandering killers, that is) who stole their women.  And our protagonist and daughter decide to aid them.

Now I have mixed feelings here.  On the one hand, between the details of the battle going on in New York City and this hunt for the captured women down in Texas, I was actually kind of hanging on with the plot.  The rest I’ve mentioned was a bit dull to me, honestly.  Good, I suppose, but surely not Tom Clancy good.

On the other hand...  how can I say this politely?  When an author gets a particular group of people so wrong, and you as a reader are familiar enough with said group that you'd know (as I am, in this case), then his credibility in all other aspects tends to crumble, in my way of thinking.  What I'm saying is, if Birmingham did so little research, or such one-sided research, on people of the LDS Faith, then how am I to take the rest of his book seriously?  Yes, I know it is a work of fiction.  But do your homework, sir.

Boy Scouts doing the whole "Boy Scout" thing.  Funny sidebar:  Lot's of "Mormon" boys are in the Boy Scouts in their youth.  And the Boy Scout program has historically promoted self-reliance, responsibility, and good old fashioned survival skills. / Source: macombhistory.us 

Truly, his group sound to me more like a cross between Amish (from what I have heard on TV - I don't claim to know any myself personally) and Baptists to me (my relatives on one side of the family are from the deep South).  You know, it seems like Birmingham just needed an odd religious group to shoehorn into an otherwise dull part of his book, and so he decided to drop these folks in and call them "Mormons."

You know, another thing comes to mind.  The "Mormons" of Birmingham’s book are so out-of-touch that they seem completely unsuited to this new post-Wave life, and the dangerous wilderness in which they travel.  But true Mormon boys are, by and large, encouraged to be part of the Boy Scout program in their youth, and so should have at least some pretty basic skills for survival.  Heck, Latter Day Saints (the correct version of address for members of the so-called "Mormon" Faith) are instructed to stockpile storage and resources.  Before it became mainstream, this was going on.  Point of fact: In many disasters around the world, one of the first international relief agencies to go to work is the LDS Church.

The "Mormons" in general are portrayed, for the most part, as a very stereotypical and overly-religious sort.  It's as if the author is saying: "these people could never make it out here without the help of my plucky Mexican and his daughter."  Not to disparage the Mexican guy and his daughter; I found them sympathetic characters and plausible.  Had you made up your group’s religion, using some general stereotypes of the sort of people you had in mind, you'd have gotten away with it.  I'd have even sympathized.

Yep. / Source: nonsensetomomsense.com

However, when you call people "Mormons," and then even quote some parts of the faith's specific prayers (and do it all wrong by the way - true Latter Day Saints NEVER sprinkle for any sort of baptism), and do it all in a way that shows you don't know what you are really talking about...  Well you well and truly lost me, sir.   

As for the novel itself, it was a fairly decent little premise, and the general writing wasn't too bad overall, in my opinion.  I'd even recommend it to those who you think the idea of a sci-fi/spy/thriller sounds good.  I sure thought it was a nice mix.  But when the author went off track...  well for whatever reason that seemed OK to him, but for this reviewer, you lost business.  I have literally hundreds of books on my list, waiting to be read.  On to the next book for me.

Learn more about After America (the Disappearance), by John Birmingham, on Amazon.com


The parting comment:

Source: LOLSnaps.com

I really could use an alarm clock like this.  In fact, as long as they had a setting that could tell whether it was both feet and your body weight on it, and it wouldn't stop until you'd been on the darn thing for at least two whole minutes, I'd use it.  Because otherwise... yeah, I'd drop the contents of my night stand on it and go back to sleep.  Totally.