Series
One Second After / John Matherson
William R. Forstchen · 4 novels · 2009–2023
Retired army colonel and college professor John Matherson is living an ordinary life in a small North Carolina town when every piece of modern electronics around him dies at once -- the opening move of an electromagnetic pulse attack on the United States. William R. Forstchen's One Second After follows Matherson and his neighbors as they try to hold their community together with no power, no vehicles, and no outside help, and the sequels track the same slow, grinding rebuilding over the following years. The series leans hard into plausible, granular detail about what actually happens to a country when its grid goes down.
Summary by Loreful, from public sources
Reading order
The order the books came out.
Best read in the order they were published.
Map
One Second After / John Matherson at the centre, its books fanned around what holds them. Pick anything for its details, and zoom out for similar series in orbit — the reading order above lists the same books as text.
Stats
By decade
- 2000s1
- 2010s2
- 2020s1
Shape
Mood
Grim and intense: 100% of this series' placed works, the catalog's 46%.
this series · the catalog · one dot = one book4 of 4 works carry a tone
Edges of the map
- Five Years Afterdarkest · calmest
- One Year Afterbrightest · most intense