Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank

Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank

"An extraordinary real picture of human beings numbed by catastrophe but still driven by the unconquerable determination of living creatures to keep on being alive." --The New Yorker

The classic apocalyptic novel by Pat Frank, first published in 1959 at the height of the Cold War, with an introduction by award-winning science fiction writer and scientist David Brin.

"Alas, Babylon." Those fateful words heralded the end. When the unthinkable nightmare of nuclear holocaust ravaged the United States, it was instant death for tens of millions of people; for survivors, it was a nightmare of hunger, sickness, and brutality. Overnight, a thousand years of civilization were stripped away.

But for one small Florida town, miraculously spared against all the odds, the struggle was only just beginning, as the isolated survivors--men and women of all ages and races--found the courage to come together and confront the harrowing darkness.

Pat Frank (1908-1964) is the author of Alas, Babylon, a famous postapocalyptic novel, as well as Forbidden Area, a Cold War thriller. Frank worked as a journalist and as a government propagandist before becoming an author. He was one of the first and most prominent science fiction writers to tackle the aftermath of nuclear war.