One Year After by William R. Forstchen is a sequel to One Second After. If you haven’t read or listened to One Second After, I HIGHLY recommend you start there.
Brian’s Overall Rating Of One Year After
A very strong four and a half stars. I really enjoyed book two of this trilogy, A John Matherson Novel. Even with the narrator switch, it was an ear sticker. I totally just made up that term. LOL
I couldn’t recommend this more to anyone that enjoyed the first book. This one is almost THAT good.
Ready To Listen?
A John Matherson Novel Series Book One Recap
In book one, One Second After, the country is brought to her knees after an EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse) strike. No electricity, most cars and electronics are useless, no delivery trucks, gas production or the internet. Most medicines are gone and nothing is being developed or produced.
John Matherson lost his little girl to type one diabetes, the community fought off a large gang of violent cannibals and people were dropping like flies from starvation.
The Storyline
“Promote a troublesome thorn up and out of the way if you cannot crush him, and then, once gone, impose whatever was planned in the first place.”
William R. Forstchen – One Year After
One Year After doesn’t begin immediately after One Second After, it actually starts off on day 730. I guess that makes sense since One Second After took us to about the one-year mark. Then, One Year After begins a year after that, which is two years after the EMP event.
Without giving too much away, John and Makala are married, Elizabeth is the mother of 14-month old Ben and the Country is still in tatters.
John is the Town Administrator and Makala is Director of Public Health and Safety. Fancy titles for people with frayed clothing and no running water but they take their duties seriously.
The community faces war, a ruthless politician out for blood and even a military draft. As some things seem to improve, others are still deteriorating fast. How on Earth will humanity survive? And what in God’s name is a Reiver? Because there are a bunch of them to deal with as well.
One Year After offers touching friendships, heartbreaking scenes and examples of bravery and hope.
“This is the way the world ends
T.S. Eliot
Not with a bang but a whimper.”
Mature Subject Matter:
Violence: Enough violence to make Al Capone nervous.
Profanity: Very little.
Sex: Not really.
Alcohol/drugs: Nothing that would bother Daisy May “Granny” Moses.
One Year After Main Characters
- John Matherson – Main character
- Makala Turner Matherson – John’s wife and the town’s Director Of Public Health And Safety
- Elizabeth Matherson – John’s 18-year-old daughter
- Ben – Elizabeth’s 14-month-old son
- Jennifer Matherson – John’s deceased 13-year-old daughter
- Jennifer Datson – John’s Mother-in-law
- Dale Fredricks – Federal Administrator in Ashville
*Spellings may be wrong, I’m going by audiobook only.
Other names and mentions in Forsaking Home
- Mabel – Runs the post office
- George – Mabel’s husband
- Jim Barnett – Volkswagon mechanic
- Reverand Black – Local rock and counseller
- Step Family – Local prepping family
- Pat Step – Killed
- Ernie Franklin
- Lee Robinson – John’s neighbor
- Seth – Lee’s son
- Ed – Police Chief
- Grace Freeman – College student and a local soldier
- Phil – BBQ cook
- Paul & Becky Hawkins – IT and Librarian working on hydroelectric generation
- Abe & Mira – Local grandparents of twins
- Richard Black – Town Hall
- Maurey Hurt – Pilot & Reaction team
- Forrest Burnet – Leader of the local Reivers
- George – Reiver
- Maggie – Reiver nurse
- Billy Tindle – Pilot
- Danny Mullin – Airplane mechanic
- Don King – College president
- Secretary Jenson – Secretary Of Unification
- Captain Dedra Johnson – Captain taken prisoner
- Major Calman – Pilot taken prisoner
- Keven Mallody – Town soldier
Constructive Criticism
My biggest complaint about books two and three are the switch in narrators. Book one, One Second After, was narrated by Joe Barrett and the final two audiobooks of the trilogy were narrated by Bronson Pinchot.
I’m not sure why the switch in narrators but that is always an issue in an audiobook series. It’s generally not that one narrator is better than the other, it’s that you get a mental image based on the character’s voice and changing that midstream is a bad idea. This can literally ruin an audiobook series for many listeners.
I intentionally reviewed several other audiobooks between One Second After and One Year After to ease that mental transition I had to navigate. This TOTALLY worked for me. The transition between narrators wasn’t nearly as difficult with a small gap of time and outside reading.
One Year After Author: [book-author]
[about-author]One Year After Audible Narration By Bronson Pinchot
[about-narrator]Get this book on Audible. If you’re not an Audible fan, get it on Kindle or paperback. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
