Alas, Babylon
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Narrated by:
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Will Patton
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By:
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Pat Frank
About this listen
This true modern masterpiece is built around the two fateful words that make up the title and herald the end - “Alas, Babylon.” When a nuclear holocaust ravages the United States, a thousand years of civilization are stripped away overnight, and tens of millions of people are killed instantly.
But for one small town in Florida, miraculously spared, the struggle is just beginning, as men and women of all backgrounds join together to confront the darkness. Will Patton's narration paints this classic tale as an ominous picture of the terrible possibilites of the nuclear age.
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Jack Isidore doesn’t see the world like most people. According to his brother-in-law, Charley, he’s a crap artist, obsessed with his own bizarre theories and ideas, which he fanatically records in his many notebooks. He is so grossly unequipped for real life that his sister and brother-in-law feel compelled to rescue him from it. But while Fay and Charley Hume put on a happy face for the world, they prove to be just as sealed off from reality, in thrall to obsessions that are slightly more acceptable than Jack’s but a great deal uglier.
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The moods of the mass can't be fathomed...
- By Darwin8u on 05-21-18
By: Philip K. Dick
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Strong Motion
- By: Jonathan Franzen
- Narrated by: Scott Aiello
- Length: 20 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Louis Holland arrives in Boston in a spring of ecological upheaval (a rash of earthquakes on the North Shore) and odd luck: the first one kills his grandmother. Louis tries to maintain his independence, but falls in love with a Harvard seismologist whose discoveries about the earthquakes' cause complicate everything.
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Compelling Story, Ridiculous Narrator
- By DianeReads on 02-28-16
By: Jonathan Franzen
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The Forge of God
- By: Greg Bear
- Narrated by: Stephen Bel Davies
- Length: 16 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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On September 28th, a geologist working in Death Valley finds a mysterious new cinder cone in very well-mapped area. On October 1, the government of Australia announces the discovery of an enormous granite mountain. Like the cinder cone, it wasn't there six months ago.
Something is happening to planet Earth, and the truth is too terrifying to contemplate
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Great Story, Wonderful Listening, But the Editor?
- By George Knight on 07-14-13
By: Greg Bear
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Hornet Flight
- By: Ken Follett
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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It's June 1941, and the low point of the war. England throws wave after wave of RAF bombers across the Channel, but somehow the Luftwaffe is able to shoot them down at will. The skies, indeed, the war itself seem to belong to Hitler.
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An Outstanding Spy Novel
- By C. McCoy on 03-13-05
By: Ken Follett
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Iron Lake
- Cork O'Connor, Book 1
- By: William Kent Krueger
- Narrated by: David Chandler
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Anthony Award-winning author William Kent Krueger crafts this riveting tale about a small Minnesota town’s ex-sheriff who is having trouble retiring his badge. Cork O’Connor loses his job after being blamed for a tragedy on the local Anishinaabe Indian reservation. But he must set aside his personal demons when a young boy goes missing on the same day a judge commits suicide—and no one but O’Connor suspects foul play.
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Great New Series
- By Lia on 06-01-18
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The Dead Cat Bounce
- By: Sarah Graves
- Narrated by: Lindsay Ellison
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Since she bought her rambling fixer-upper of a house, Jacobia Tiptree has gotten used to finding things broken. But her latest problem isn't so easily repaired. Along with the rotting floor joists and sagging support beams, there's the little matter of the dead man in Jake's storeroom, an ice pick planted firmly in his cranium. Jake's unknown guest turns out to be local boy turned billionaire Threnody McIlwaine.
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too slow of a story...
- By Annette on 03-13-18
By: Sarah Graves
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The Hummingbird
- A Novel
- By: Stephen P. Kiernan
- Narrated by: Elyse Mirto, John H. Mayer
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Deborah Birch is a seasoned hospice nurse whose daily work requires courage and compassion. But her skills and experience are tested in new and dramatic ways when her easygoing husband, Michael, returns from his third deployment to Iraq haunted by nightmares, anxiety, and rage. She is determined to help him heal and to restore the tender, loving marriage they once had.
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A MUST READ or LISTEN
- By Taryn on 01-23-16
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Paradise
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In Paradise - her first novel since she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature - Toni Morrison gives us a bravura performance. As the book begins deep in Oklahoma early one morning in 1976, nine men from Ruby (pop. 360), in defense of "the one all-black town worth the pain", assault the nearby Convent and the women in it. From the town's ancestral origins in 1890 to the fateful day of the assault, Paradise tells the story of a people ever mindful of the relationship between their spectacular history and a void.
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MORRISON AT HER MOST COMPLEX
- By Kennedi Hill on 11-07-19
By: Toni Morrison
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Hour of the Hunter
- By: J. A. Jance
- Narrated by: Gene Engene
- Length: 14 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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A brutal, psychopathic murderer is released from prison - and stalks his prey with intent to kill.
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Hour of the Hunter
- By Marion Burke on 03-01-08
By: J. A. Jance
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A war no one fully understands has devastated the planet with radioactive fallout from massive cobalt bombing. Melbourne, Australia, is the only area whose citizens have not yet succumbed to the contamination. But there isn’t much time left, a few months, maybe more—and the citizens of Melbourne must decide how they will live the remaining weeks of their lives, and how they will face a hopeless future.
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Australia is one of the last places where life still exists after nuclear war starts in the Northern Hemisphere. A year on, an invisible cloak of radiation has spread almost completely around the world. Darwin is a ghost town, and radiation levels at Ayres Rock are increasing. An American nuclear-powered submarine has found its way to Australia where its captain has placed the boat under the command of the Australian Navy.
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What could have been.
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Already cited on the floor of Congress and discussed in the corridors of the Pentagon as a book all Americans should read, One Second After is the story of a war scenario that could become all too terrifyingly real. Based upon a real weapon - the Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) - which may already be in the hands of our enemies, it is a truly realistic look at the awesome power of a weapon that can destroy the entire United States.
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There's a Sheep in My Bathtub
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There's a Sheep in My Bathtub chronicles the adventures of the Hogan family as they try to follow God's leading into one of the world's most remote and mysterious enclaves. Disarmingly honest and charmingly humorous, their tale will thrill you and bring tears to your eyes. An intensely personal memoir, this book still manages to pack a powerful dose of missionary insight and biblical principles for seeing the Church explode into life among peoples that have never even heard of Jesus.
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Good story from front to back
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The accolades are undeserved
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Australia is one of the last places where life still exists after nuclear war starts in the Northern Hemisphere. A year on, an invisible cloak of radiation has spread almost completely around the world. Darwin is a ghost town, and radiation levels at Ayres Rock are increasing. An American nuclear-powered submarine has found its way to Australia where its captain has placed the boat under the command of the Australian Navy.
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Already cited on the floor of Congress and discussed in the corridors of the Pentagon as a book all Americans should read, One Second After is the story of a war scenario that could become all too terrifyingly real. Based upon a real weapon - the Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) - which may already be in the hands of our enemies, it is a truly realistic look at the awesome power of a weapon that can destroy the entire United States.
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A Civil War Re-enactor Saves a Community?
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Absolutely Stellar!
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Winner of the 1961 Hugo Award for Best Novel and widely considered one of the most accomplished, powerful, and enduring classics of modern speculative fiction, Walter M. Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz is a true landmark of 20th-century literature—a chilling and still-provocative look at a postapocalyptic future.
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Eine utopische Robinsonade: Im Schutze einer hohen Felswand gelegen, hat die mittelalterliche Burg Malevil die atomare Verwüstung der Erde überdauert. Ihre Bewohner haben für begrenzte Zeit noch Lebensmittel, etwas Vieh, Saatgut. Sie müssen sich der Bedrohung durch Plünderer und Söldnerbanden erwehren, und der Rückfall in eine durch Mangel bedingte Barbarei stellt ihr Überleben täglich aufs neue in Frage.
By: Robert Merle
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Bring the Jubilee
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In the world of this novel, said to be an inspiration for Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle, the Confederacy has triumphed and become an imperialist nation. What is left of the United States has been drained of its resources and is trapped in a depression. Hodge, a young man living in a village in rural New York with his parents, decides to head to the city to escape his otherwise inevitable future of poverty and indentured servitude.
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Ugh… Not good
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More Notes of a Dirty Old Man
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Filled with his usual obsessions - sex, booze, gambling - More features Bukowski's offbeat insights into politics and literature, his tortured, violent relationships with women, and his lurid escapades on the poetry reading circuit. Highlighting his versatility, the book ranges from thinly-veiled autobiography to purely fictional tales of dysfunctional suburbanites, disgraced politicians, and down-and-out sports promoters - climaxing with a long, hilarious adventure among French filmmakers.
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Can't get enough.
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Part epic of Texas, part classic coming-of-age story, part unflinching examination of the bloody price of power, The Son is a gripping and utterly transporting novel that maps the legacy of violence in the American west with rare emotional acuity, even as it presents an intimate portrait of one family across two centuries. Eli McCullough is just twelve-years-old when a marauding band of Comanche storm his Texas homestead and brutally murder his mother and sister, taking him as a captive.
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Five Stars for the Lone Star, The Son, & Meyer
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Late For Doomsday
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What would you do in a modern-day nuclear crisis? Would you leave behind your job at the risk of being fired if nothing—which you pray for—happens? Twin brothers Sheldon and Ellis are keeping a close eye on the development of a war between China and the United States. When it looks like it is about to go nuclear, they realize how close they are drawing the line between evacuation and sheltering in place. On the eve of the war, one brother is poised to head for their remote desert ranch while the other constructs a hasty shelter for his wife who refuses to leave. Their individual choices...
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Quite good for the genre
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Seven years ago, a chemical spill brought the U.S. Army to rural Penn County, Iowa, where soldiers established a long-term, medically maintained quarantine. Officially, it’s called the PennCo Containment Area. But to the people trapped inside, their bodies tainted with chemicals that give off a sweet smell, it’s known simply as Flowertown. The quarantine was supposed to save their lives, but many of the survivors have grown suspicious of the government’s real motives. But not Ellie Cauley - her rage long ago burned down to hard, cynical pessimism. When a series of deadly events forces Ellie out of her apathy, she must prepare to face an enemy powerful enough to unleash her greatest nightmare.
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My favorite new smart-aleck heroine
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48 Hours
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In 48 hours, the Earth will be hit by a coronal mass ejection (CME) from the sun, a "Carrington Event" that has the power to shut down and possibly destroy the world's electrical infrastructure. To try and prevent permanent damage, everything goes dark prior to the hit: Global communications are shut down; hospital emergency generators are disconnected; the entire internet, media broadcasting, and cell phone systems are turned off. Will the world's population successfully defend itself in the wake of the CME, or will mass panic lead to the breakdown of society as we know it?
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Oh Bill...really? So, so disappointed.
- By Dante on 01-18-19
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Ashfall
- By: Mike Mullin
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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For Alex, being left home alone for the weekend means the freedom to play his computer games and hang out with his friends without hassle from his mother. Then the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts, plunging his hometown into a nightmare of darkness, ash, and violence. Alex begins a harrowing trek to search for his family and finds help in Darla, a travel partner he meets along the way. Together they must find the strength and skills to survive and outlast an epic disaster.
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Different
- By Corey J. Polesel on 08-30-15
By: Mike Mullin
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Fail-Safe
- By: Eugene Burdick, Harvey Wheeler
- Narrated by: Kevin Kraft
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Something has gone wrong. A group of American bombers armed with nuclear weapons is streaking past the fail-safe point, beyond recall, and no one knows why. Their destination - Moscow. In a bomb shelter beneath the White House, the calm young president turns to his Russian translator and says, "I think we are ready to talk to Premier Kruschchev." Not far away, in the War Room at the Pentagon, the secretary of defense and his aides watch with growing anxiety...
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This 1962 novel is one of the best suspense...
- By Wayne on 03-28-17
By: Eugene Burdick, and others
What listeners say about Alas, Babylon
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Celeste Albers
- 05-24-17
Timeless
I am amazed that it took so long for me to find this book-thank you Audible! This is a true classic and not dated in the way that I feared. There are no explicit sex scenes or graphic violence and the characters know nothing of the modern technology that we take for granted. What we do get is an expertly crafted and narrated story of survival. The characters are well drawn and engaging. The plot is realistic in a way that many more recently written and acclaimed books fail to achieve.
I thoroughly enjoyed it-a new favorite!
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54 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 02-15-12
Awesome
I loved this book. The naration was fantastic,story was great. I recommend this book to anyone considering it.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Andy
- 12-06-11
Post-nuclear apocalypse BBQ
1959. One of the early nuclear war stories. You know what happens.
Much of it seems dated now, but then that's interesting as an insight into 1950s American life in the South. Characters are fleshed out enough to carry the story. Not too melodramatic; brutally matter of fact.
I'd be curious to know more about the reception/impact of this book at the time. I think stories like this did help save us from nuclear apocalypse by clarifying the madness of mutually assured destruction.
Excellent narration.
Thanks Audible for rescuing this.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Debbie
- 03-05-13
You think this couldn't happen? Think Again
Just finished this audio book, which by the way was written when I was only four years old . . . but for a few things, like the prices of things, etc., it could have been written today . . . America thinks the Federal Reserve is infallible . . . nothing is as sure as death and taxes . . . well, if there were no IRS, no central government, no grocery stores, no televisions or dvd players, no drive thrus . . .how WOULD we be able to survive? I grew up in the time when the threat of nuclear war was a real and present danger . . . when fall out shelters existed, and we had drills in school. The cold war was real, the USSR was our enemy. After high school, I became an army wife. We were stationed in Europe when the Berlin wall fell, and the cold war ended. Two sons have served in Iraq, a very different kind of war, yet the similarities of America's political correctness, complacency, and underestimation of the enemy are still here . . . and greater. We are a nation even more spoiled by conveniences than in 1959, yet the author had an uncanny grasp of human nature, both the tendency for evil, as well as good that exists, whether it is current day or centuries ago. The book will cause one to think, to ponder what is truly valuable, and for that alone it is priceless.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Lauriesland
- 04-24-13
Left Me Stunned
I opted for this novel because of North Korea's recent threats concerning its nuclear capabilities. Frank's 2005 book begins just before the US and Russia's nuclear holocaust and focuses on a small inland Florida community in the months thereafter.
The carefully thought-out details resulting from devastating shortages--salt and batteries, for example--and how the survivors deal with the loss of communication with other areas of the country are fascinating. Does the United States still exist? How do we feed ourselves and protect our loved ones from roaming highwaymen? What do we do without antibiotics, insulin, and anesthesia? What happens when the town's only doctor is savagely beaten by addicts who steal his meager supplies? How do we keep ourselves warm? On and on.
In a world without fuel-powered transportation, electricity, money, and the comforts we take for granted, the protagonists depend upon their ingenuity, common sense, and courage, and they strengthen the bonds of family and cooperation with neighbors so they can survive.
Effusive praise cannot do justice to Will Patton's narration. He puts you right there with the characters--men, women, black, white, young, and old, of every background. It was amazing.
Listening to this book was an unforgettable experience.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Greg
- 02-15-11
Worth a read
I read this book when it was first published. I still like it. Well narrated. A worthwhile investment of time and money.
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2 people found this helpful
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- M.
- 12-28-18
Interesting, but out of date
The story itself is intriguing, and blossoms with detail. The main draw back, which could be somewhat attributed to the era in which the novel is set, is its mildly racist, and strongly sexist content. While these do not overly dominate the book, the main character’s objectifying attitude towards women puts a damper on its otherwise excellent content.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Ethan
- 07-13-16
Absolutely outstanding!
Brilliant book with an amazing performance by Will Patton. Highly recommended. It's a very realistic look at what living in a post nuclear war world would be like. Also, no zombies.
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- psnorb
- 10-05-15
Written in 1959, Still Relevant Today.
I was somewhat reluctant to listen to Alas Babylon because I read it for the first time when I was about 13 years old. Many of the books I thought were excellent at age 13 turn out to be less than excellent today. I'm almost 50 and my taste has changed as well as my perspective of the world. A second reason I was reluctant to read this book was because I dislike books that are clearly dated in their technology and writing style.
I have an audible library of over 400 books and I am very glad I returned to Alas Babylon. I did NOT find any of the storyline dated and I am sure that this time around I was more appreciative of the international political discussion that I probably skimmed over in my youth. This is not a survivalist's handbook, but a story of survival that was very well written. Give the book a listen too you will not be disappointed.
Will Patton is one of my favorite narrators.
If you are looking for a survivalist handbook try "Going Home" by A. American
I worry that as the world's population grows and resources dwindle we may end up in a similar situation. God help us if we do.
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- Carolyn
- 07-03-15
Gripping tale of survival!
My first Pat Frank but not my last! First book in a long while that kept my attention the whole way. Couldn't stop listening.
Will Patton was an excellent choice for narrating the story. Don't know if it was the story or the narration - but whatever it was, it worked for me!!
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