Alas, Babylon: The Classic Apocalyptic Novel of Courage, Survival, and Determination After Nuclear Holocaust

Having been published back in 1959, i.e. when the space program and commercial jetliner travel were still in their infancy, and whilst we were still in the Industrial Age and therefore less technology-dependent as we are now, not to mention less vulnerable to the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) effects of nuclear weapons as our present-day society would be, this novel is obviously a tad bit dated compared to more recent post-nuclear and other post-apocalyptic fiction books. Nonetheless, it's still an excellent book, eminently readable and engrossing, and frighteningly realistic, well worth the read. RANDOM STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS (and noteworthy passages): --p. 3: "The Russians had sent up another Sputnik, No. 23, and something sinister was going on in the Middle East. Sputnik No. 23 was the largest yet, according to the Smithsonian Institution, and was radioing continuous and elaborate coded signals. 'There is reason to believe,' Frank said, 'that Sputniks of this size are equipped to observe the terrain of the earth below.....'There is a new crisis in the Middle East. A report from Beirut, via Cairo, says that Syrian tanks of the most modern Russian design have crossed the Jordanian frontier. This is undoubtedly a threat to Israel. At the same time Damascus charges that Turkish troops are mobilizing….'" Wow, dated yet paradoxically so prescient in many ways. --p. 9: "Randy knew he wasn’t an alcoholic because an alcoholic craved liquor. He never craved it. He just drank for pleasure and the most pleasurable of all drinks was the first one on a crisp winter morning." Like the joke says, "I'm not an alcoholic, I'm a drunk, I don't go to meetings!" --p. 17: "'Nations are like people. When they grow old and rich and fat they get conservative. They exhaust their energy trying to keep things the way they are—and that’s against nature. Oh, the services were to blame too. Maybe even SAC. We designed the most beautiful bombers in the world, and built them by the thousands. We improved and modified them each year, like new model cars. We couldn’t bear the thought that jet bombers themselves might be out of style. Right now we’re in the position of the Federal Navy, with its wooden steam frigates, up against the Confederate iron-clad. It is a state of mind that money alone won’t cure.'” --p. 29: "B-47’ s," aahh, the pre-52 days of SAC. --p. 35: "'Then in ‘fifty-eight, after the Iraq king was assassinated, we grabbed the initiative and landed Marines in Lebanon. We got there fastest.'" --p. 37: Ah yes, the infamous "missile gap." --p. 55: Since the U.S. was still on the gold standard when this book was written, paper cash could hypothetically still be worth something even during a catastrophe such as nuclear war, I suppose.

I read Alas, Babylon when I was a teenager in 1960 at the height of the Cold War. It was powerful then when we were daily being presented with news of atomic testing, ICBMs, sabre rattling and practicing "duck and cover" in our classrooms. It was a scary time. This book, and the teleplay of the book, were spot on in depicting the terror of the times. After reading this the first time I tried to convince my parents - unsuccessfully - to build a bomb shelter in our back yard. Reading the book again for the first time in over 50 years brings back my memories of that time quite clearly. It is hard for people who did not live through that time to understand it, but this book does a good job of that. The book takes place in a small town in central Florida which just happens to be one of the few relatively safe locations in that state. It was far enough away from the many military bases and large population centers to miss being directly affected by the bombs and relatively unaffected by the fallout. The characters in this book are all interesting products of their times and their actions reflect that. Randy's panic when he fully understands what is about to happen is all too real. His confrontation with the town banker at closing time foreshadows the dividing line between before and after "The Day" as it comes to be known later. The book, published in 1959, also reflects the times with respect to race and segregation. It was interestingly advanced in the attitudes of some of its characters towards the "blacks" at that time, yet still portrays many of the ingrained, unrealized, unthinking attitudes of both blacks and whites towards each other that were then prevalent. The daily struggles for survival in a post-atomic war world are transformed by a staggering reduction of technology from free and easy power and the handy gadgets that makes possible (even before the always connected technology of today) to, for a while, a telegraph line and a single ham radio. The town doctor has a few instruments and drugs but no more are available as nothing can get to the town through the "restricted zone." Life becomes hard very fast and what once were trivial injuries and illnesses are now life-threatening. This book is a good read and still as riveting as it was the first time I read it. It will always be one of my favorites.

This was a wonderful book. I saw it on TV, black and white TV, when I was about 12. I tried to check it out of the library but was told my mother would have to check it out because I was not old enough to read a book like that. Sadly, I had ridden my bike to the library. A few weeks later I saw a copy in a drug store. It was in the single four-sided rotating bookrack next to the magazines. The counter guy had no compunction about selling it to me. This book enthralled me. I read it several times over the years. The last time I moved my residence the book was without a front or back cover, it was brown, brittle with the center 50 pages loose and the whole book was held together with a rubber band. I threw it away and I have missed it since. A few days ago I found it as an e-book and I bought it. I have loved and hated re-reading the book. It holds up very well and the situation in the Middle East is almost spot on the same today. The story is as fresh as the first time I read it. But there is one thing that is appalling and unacceptable. The spelling and syntax is far below even the lowest standards of publishing. Spell check is not an editor! On page after page I have had to stop and figure out from context what is being said. It stops the flow of ideas and the movement of the story line. HarperCollins published this book but it is a sad, ignorant, demoralizing shadow of the original story. I almost feel that something that I remembered as beautiful, even elegant, is now found as a tired, dissipated and debauched whore hustling for a couple of dollars in back alleys and doorways. This edition of Alas Babylon also demeans your company. There was a time when publishing houses were held up as lustrous paragons of and protectors of the language. You made our literary heritage accessible to our culture. You had standards. Is the luster completely gone? Has all pride in the product you offer been subsumed in a frenzy for dollars at any cost? One of your authors has a great and I believe a pertinent quote. She said, "Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself". If you know this is happening, then it is too late and your reputation will not be maintained for long. If you were not aware it is time to fix it!

I first read Alas Babylon as a teenager. I read it again in my early 30s. This is my third reading of this book and I remember why I keep reading it over and over again. If I didn't know it was written 54 yrs ago, I would have thought it contemporary. Alas Babylon is an excellent cautionary tale about what would happen to a small group of people who survive the end of the world and how it changes them. It is still, to me, the stand alone novel on how to survive a terrible holocaust. The writing is crisp and informative. We get to know Our characters well. It is not told as a condemnation of one or the other political party. It is simply about survival during a time people never asked for and never expected. Pat Frank was way ahead of his time in his writing style and in the story he lays out. I have read much apocalyptic fiction. Alas Babylon remains the best book I have read in this genre. It is realistic, and after reading it, you will have read all you need to know should this awful event, still hanging over our heads in 2014, happen to us. I am a news junkie and know enough about world politics to know we are never but a heartbeat away from being these people. I think what separates Alas Babylon from the rest of the books I have read is that it centers on hope and has a better view about humanity, how they handle the crisis, how they survive without losing their civility. This is a well written story of the upside and hope that we ARE a country of immigrants who are strong and can rise above the terrible losses that will occur, should we find ourselves in the same situation today. Well done Pat Frank! And RIP - wish you had lived to see this amazing book become a classic. And as for us, you left us with many more stories to tell. Very highly recommended.

I have wanted to read "Alas Babylon" for over a year now, and I actually ordered it from Amazon several months ago. For one reason or another, though, it always seemed to get pushed behind another book. Normally, when I enjoy a novel as much as I enjoyed this one, it would annoy me that I put off reading it for so long. However, in light of September 11th, I'm glad that I did, for two reasons. The first is that this novel reminds us of mankind's near infinite capacity for self-destruction, or at least creating the mechanism for it. Osama bin Laden and his fellow psychopaths could only dream of the systematic cruelty the Soviet Union perpetrated on its own citizens, let alone the tightrope nuclear balance of terror that the superpowers walked. However, they are cut from the same cloth, and it is lunacy to try to co-exist with them. Moreover, the rationalization of the irrational, the attempt to explain the unexplainable (for instance how both the US and the USSR created strategies to "win" a nuclear war) can only lead to heartache. Secondly, and most important, "Alas Babylon" reminds us of the indomitable spirit of man. Even as his characters struggle to grasp some normalcy from incomprehensible nuclear destruction, they cling to that which makes them human: hope, love and faith. While some may find it odd to be reading apocalyptic fiction in this time of war, I found this novel to be uplifting, an affirmation really, of the good we have seen around the world in the face of evil. I realize I am going about this backwards, but for those of you not familiar with the plot, it runs as follows. It is sometime in the mid-1960's (a rough guess) and the nuclear balance of terror has broken down. The country is in ruins, the state of the world is unclear, and communities are left to fend for themselves. The readers follows the lives of one small community in Florida for the first year following "The Day" as they struggle to survive and maintain the rule of law. Frank masterfully captures the full scope of the struggle, from almost prophetic descriptions of weapons, tactics and strategy (the novel was published in 1958) to searing characterizations of people in crisis. "Alas Babylon" operates on so many levels, it has something for everyone. One could easily sit down and read it as an adventure/techno-thriller and come away completely satisfied. It is also a rather scathing critique of war and the bureaucratization of the military. It is not as simple as "war is bad" though, Frank argues through one of characters (a retired admiral) that while war, particularly nuclear war is insane, the price of peace is rational preparedness enacted by professionals, combined with a dialogue that humanizes the enemy. Above all, though, "Alas Babylon" is a testimony to the ingenuity and compassion of man. Yes, we have made mistakes, yes there is evil among us, but the majority of human beings are basically good when given the chance, and that, in these times as much as in the Cold War, is what we must never lose sight of.

What's the last book you read that you couldn't put down? Can't remember? Well, I got one for you! It's a 1959 novel that is more than just a story of the consequences and outcome of a nuclear war between America and Russia. This novel gives the reader the flavor of what America was really about in the 1950's. I remember the air-raid drills in grade school when a student was instructed to dive under their desk in the event of a atomic/nuclear strike. Like that was going to save your butt! I remember President Eisenhower saying the same thing. Here was a man who saw the destructive power of Little Boy in Hiroshima and Fat Man in Nagasaki saying that the desk would save me. Oh, well. Since this novel was published just before the civil rights movement, the ugly head of racism exists in this novel. This is not a knock on the author, Pat Frank, because he was writing in accordance with the prevailing thoughts of 1959. This novel was probably born out the U.S.A.'s fear of being attacked from space after Russia successfully launched the Sputnik satellite into space in 1957. This act most likely sparked the arms race and subsequently launched nuclear war/post-apocalyptic novels like this one into popularity during the 1950's and 1960's. However, this novel gives the reader hope that a nuclear war is survivable, unlike novels such as Nevil Shute's 'On the Beach', where there is no hope for survival after World War III has polluted the atmosphere with world wide nuclear fallout. Alas, Babylon truly gives the reader a taste of that 1950's fear and the general attitude of the citizens. Well done, Pat Frank. The story centers around the town of Fort Repose in central Florida. Our protagonist, Randy Bragg, is contacted by his brother, Mark, a Colonel in the U.S. Air Force stationed at SAC headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska. Mark tells Randy that war is imminent, and he is sending his wife, Helen, and two children to live with him in Florida. The day after Helen lands, the unthinkable happens. The U.S. and Russia exchange nuclear missiles! At first the town had electricity; then, the families witnessed a stunning explosion: "The white flashed back into a red ball in the southeast. They all knew what it was. It was Orlando, or McCoy Base, or both. It was the power supply for Timucuan County. Thus the lights went out, and in that moment civilization in Fort Repose retreated a hundred years. So ended The Day." Several days later, the bombing stops. Randy houses most of the River Road people, including his brother's family, Randy's girlfriend Elizabeth and her family, and the local doctor, Dan Gunn. The Western Union lady, Florence, and the local librarian, Alice, live next door. The Preacher Henry family lives close by, as does the retired Admiral, Sam Hazzard. This constitutes the main core of characters (Those living in the vicinity of Randy's River Road abode) in this cutting-edge story. Luckily for the town, the winds keep the fallout away from them even though Florida is listed as one of the many contaminated zones. The retired Admiral finds out via his short-wave radio that the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare is now Acting Chief Executive. Randy knew that: "...The struggle was not against a human enemy, or for victory. The struggle, for those who survived "The Day", was to survive the next." The ensuing chapters deal with the River Road people's efforts to obtain food; avoid typhoid; establish law and order against the many `highwaymen' attacking their town; and to establish ways and means for mankind's survival. I thought that Pat Frank's characterization was as good as it could be based on the many characters in the book. Near the end of the book, Lt. Colonel Paul Hart says to Randy Bragg: "'Some of our scientists think it will take a thousand years to restore a saturated [Contaminated Zone], like Florida or New Jersey, to anything close to normal.'... and Randy turned away to face the thousand-year night." By the way, the story does end with the reader finding out who won the war! I guess you will have to read this sci-fi classic to find out.

I've been on this whole science fiction/post apocalyptic kick lately and Alas, Babylon was the second such book I tried because I'd read about it in the after word of another book. Isn't that how you find new books? Another book suggested was Neville Shute's On the Beach, which I read about 8 or 9 years ago when the guy at the post office suggested it. Alas, Babylon and On the Beach both deal with the world after a nuclear strike, except in Neville Shute's world, based in Australia, all human life was annihilated and Australians would soon be dead of radiation poisoning, saved on by their lower position on the globe. In Pat Frank's post nuclear holocaust world, specifically America and Fort Repose in Florida, many people died from the nuclear blasts and more of radiation poisoning, but many survived in a world without technology, electricity, and most of what modern people consider necessary: salt, medicine, antibiotics, doctors, etc. At the beginning of Frank's novel, Randall Rowzee Bragg is on the super highway to dissipation. Randy begins with a bit of liquor in his coffee and runs around with women, many of which come from Pistolville, the other side of the nonexistent tracks in Fort Repose. His family name is old and distinguished, but Randy spends more time in the red at the bank than in the black. He's friendly and well liked, but not what one would consider a pillar of the community unless the pillar is leaning drunkenly to the side and about to topple over. Randy gets a telegram from his brother, Colonel Mark Bragg, to meet him at a nearby Air Force base as Mark is on his way back from Puerto Rico and will touch down there to refuel. He is sending his wife and two children to stay with Randy in Fort Repose, signing his message, "Alas, Babylon," so Randy will know it's serious. Randy goes, meets his brother, gets the bad news that there will be war with Russia, nuclear war, gets a check for five thousand dollars, and drives back to Fort Repose to the bank where he has some trouble cashing the check, but walks away with the cash and a remark to the manager of the bank that cash will be the only thing that matters in a very short time. Randy gets most of the supplies on his list and drives the next morning to get his sister-in-law, Helen, and Ben Franklin and Peyton, his nephew and niece, all of whom were reluctant to leave their father in Omaha at the Strategic Air Command (SAC) base. Nuclear war comes with a double blinding dawn and soon the cessation of electricity amid panic and a world turned upside down where Randy becomes the strongest pillar of the community, coming alive with deadly purpose to preserve his family and his town. Alas, Babylon was published in 1959 at the height of fear of pending nuclear war with Russia -- and Cuba -- and amid racial segregation and the struggle for civil rights. Randy Bragg lives next door to the Henrys, a black family of modest means who were once the Bragg family's slaves. The Henrys bought the land on which they live and are a major asset in sustaining life and purpose for Randy and the extended family he gathers around him. The Henrys are the difference between life and death. Frank was writing at a time when he had intimate knowledge of politics, nuclear capabilities, and civil rights, having written about them as a war correspondent, reporter, and chief of a couple of newspapers. He knew first hand what life would be like in his family's home in Florida and the struggles he -- and indeed the country -- would face. Alas, Babylon is as true today as it was in 1959. I found the characters engaging and amusing and wonderful in their differences and their similarities and enjoyed the change especially in Randy as he squared his shoulders and took charge. Dated though some of the information seems at a glance, Frank pegged human nature, which seldom changes. People rise and fall in times of adversity and those that surprise us the most are the people we often discount before disaster hits. I highly recommend Frank's view of America after a nuclear holocaust, not only for its insights, but for its humor and its pathos. Since I read the Kindle version, I will warn you that there are many mistakes throughout the text with wrong words, doubled and missing words, and typos with most of the mistakes coming at the end of the book. It will take a few seconds to puzzle out what is supposed to be there, but it shouldn't slow you down too much. That is the reason for 4/5 stars when the book itself deserves a hearty 5-star review. This book stands the test of time.

Fifty five years ago, as an Orlando high school senior, I read Pat Frank’s book, Alas, Babylon. In we 1959 Floridians worried more and more about nuclear war. A cottage industry had developed to build bomb shelters. My dad, a WWI veteran, had an M1 military rifle in the closet to ward off marauders. Sputniks circled the planet while the US struggled to offset the Soviet menace. Such fearfulness was the American mindset, especially with Cuba, the Soviets’ new proxy, only ninety miles from Key West. But Frank’s Alas, Babylon was not just more fear mongering from on ideological high. It spoke a word of hope for humanity’s ability to survive and rebuild after catastrophe. It provided commentary on the irrationality of the nation’s racial history. It challenged the idiocy of thinking anybody could possibly “win” an all-out nuclear war. On the one hand it affirmed that survival of the fittest, with all the bestiality that phrase suggests, lies just below the human surface. But so does a nobility that can arise under duress. Upon rereading the book at age seventy, I emerge not so much terrified as hopeful for a human future. I see less danger of nuclear Armageddon, at least as we imagined total and Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) in decades past. But I anticipate other modes of apocalypse as Earth’s ecosystem protects itself from human poisoning. I imagine pandemics and new pathogens, environmental devastation, climate change, water wars, desertification, and oxygen depletion from destruction of forests and jungles. Moreover, like Pat Frank, I see governmental “leadership” that is at best inept, a league of puppets responsive not to human interests but to corporate puppeteers. Half a century ago we lucked out and did not create a planetary mushroom cloud. Despite unrelenting madness at the policy making level, we survived as a species. But now we move into a different 1,000 year night, one we have not learned how to endure, only how to initiate. As the sea levels rise and inundate coastal cities like Miami, Boston and San Francisco, we have to learn with Randy Bragg and his cohorts how to survive anew. While both societal and international chaos ensue from collective malfeasance, we have to learn how to evolve a new order of meaning. Otherwise, the human animal will have proved an unsuccessful evolutionary experiment, and our lifespan as a species will pale before that of the dinosaurs. Still, Alas, Babylon ups my level of hopefulness. It reminds me of a resilience I’ve sensed, in myself and in others, as people rise to occasions of distress. It sparks an inner compulsion to stand forth, to rework what doesn’t work, to keep putting one bruised foot in front of another. It highlights how sisters and brothers in the human family can find bases for collaboration, even when philosophical or religious snares linger. In short, Alas, Babylon reminds me that what unifies us into community isn’t a creedal statement but an existential spirit of shared humanity. It’s a compassion that bridges gulfs left by grief and disappointment or just plain hurt.

Fantastico a chi ama il genere fantascienza... Pat Frank un mito nel genere.

One of the best postapocalyptic novels - a classic!

An excellent, well-written story with extremely credible characters. Considering that it was written almost 70 years ago and a decade before the Civil Rights Act, it is very advanced in its social thinking. It is also sobering in the way it brings home the leaps that we have made technologically since 1959. I especially chuckled at the thought of power only coming from hydroelectricity or oil.

Look, this book is a classic. It's extremely well-written, both in literary and technical terms. I am of the generation that feared nuclear war from childhood, and now I'm getting old. What I'm trying to say is.. we made it a long time now since mankind first stared down the barrel of nuclear apocalypse. Maybe there is a god.

I liked this old classic about nuclear war and its aftermath. Written in 1959 it aged a little, but still is a GREAT read. Below, more of my impressions, with some limited SPOILERS. Randy Bragg lives in the small Central Florida town of Fort Repose. He is not a very successful guy, in fact he is mostly content with eating his inheritance... One day however his much more formidable brother, Colonel Mark Bragg, USAF, sends him a telegraph ending in the words, "Alas, Babylon", a pre-established code between the brothers warning of impending disaster. It appears quickly, that this disaster is a HUGE one... This was one of the very first novels to describe the occurence and the consequences of an all-out nuclear war. The much darker and much more pesimist "On the beach" was published two years earlier and the equally dark and pesimistic "Canticle for Leibowitz" was published in 1960. "Alas Babylone", a much more realistic thing than those other two classics, made quite a splash when it was published. Unlike so many others, the author, whose real name was Harry Hart Frank, knew what he was writing about. He served in military during WWII and watched Korean War as journalist, he studied a lot about the nuclear weapons and it shows in this book. The novel deals less with the nuclear war itself, than with what happens next. There are, quite obviously, survivors, in fact quite a lot of them, but the organised society as we know it initially collapses - the description of this process is quite fascinating. Then, as always, people regroup and re-organise themselves, facing challenges and solving problems. This is an uphill battle, but life always ultimately triumphs over death... Author very wisely states in this book, that it is not the strength of American nuclear arsenal that is the problem - it is the weakness of USA that causes Soviet union to attack, as Moscow believes it can win a nuclear war. It is a very important point showed in this book: in some circumstances a nuclear war CAN be won - it becomes only imposible if BOTH sides have enough primary and back-up fire power to always fully incinerate the enemy, no matter how total the initial surprise and how big the first-strike damage. On another hand, one thing totally absent here is the "nuclear winter", and a mighty good thing too, as it is a total nonsense... This book can be also read as a kinf of post-apocalyptic SF, albeit slightly more optimistic than most of such works. Left-winged people and peaceniks will almost certainly hate this book - which is another point in its favour... I don't want to provide spoilers here so I will keep this review short. This is an important book, still a good read and a thing that makes one think, in fact think a lot. I am glad that I bought and read it. ENJOY!