Cataclysm: A Matt Sheridan Novel

Robert Cole’s Cataclysm is a story of post-apocalyptic survival as a man and his family struggle in the aftermath of a nuclear exchange-I mean, terrorist attack. I have to mention this “night of the war” (to use the Survivalist’s term). Because not since the beginning Fuldapocalyptic days of The Red Line have I seen a setup so contrived when it didn’t have to be. In fact, The Red Line can at least be excused as commercial editors wanting it to be contemporary for sales reasons.

This independent novel has no such justification. Anyway, might as well tell this. So nuclear weapons destroy many American major cities in a strike that’s more than Arc Light but less than a classic Strangelove/North Star wipeout. That’s not so bad and I’d even call it somewhat refreshing to have some semblance of a government left. Except it’s not the obvious normal nuclear war. No, its setup goes like this: Islamic terrorists snuck nuclear bombs into said cities and detonated them. In response, the American government launched an immediate retaliatory strike against the fifty largest Muslim-majority cities across the world before concentrating on licking its worlds.

It feels gratuitous, and even for me a little insulting a setup. Like you could have just had say, Iran go nuclear, get several ICBMs, and have a “normal” exchange with them and no one would bat an eye.

Anyway, the book itself has a lot of exposition about every single slightly relevant thing. It also has constant references to the author’s protagonist’s “past wargames”, which makes this turn into the Survivalist-Kirov (this is not a bad thing).

The next arc is terrorist weaponized mega-smallpox, because one cheap thriller cliche wasn’t enough and Cole had to include another one. All he needed was VX gas for the Cheap Thriller WMD Triple Crown. But he goes for the second-best thing, and a tried and true literary device: When in doubt, have your characters fight a bunch of crazy bikers. In fact, such a super-biker gang becomes the main antagonists, a delightful change from the terrorists I was expecting.

The literary and action fundamentals are adequate. This sounds like passive-aggressiveness, but it’s not. Thankfully, the whole leaning so much into “Postapocalyptic Kirov” and huge expositions come across as endearing and not annoying. I had a lot of fun reading this book, and that’s what matters.