The obvious theme, the horror of nuclear war, assaults the reader in the opening two paragraphs of the book. In fact, the first sixty pages, about the days and weeks immediately after a nuclear exchange, form a relentless catalog of tragedy. Only one member of the schoolgirl Sarah's family survives radiation poisoning. The entire surrounding region—and the world—is similarly devastated.

This theme appears in virtually all the many postnuclear holocaust novels published in the last half-century.

There are, however, large differences among these books in tone and message. Some, like Nevil Shute's On the Beach, show nuclear war as bringing the end of the world, or at least the extinction of the human race. Others, while also describing, the immediate postwar world as a terrible place, do have some people survive. The endurance of the human spirit against terrible odds...