I finished this book seven days ago and it is still haunting me. People quietly going about their lives waiting for the world to end in a few month's time. Going to work, raising their families, going to the club for lunch, planting next year's garden, etc. That is basically the whole premise of the book.

Part of me could not believe that people would continue on with their own lives, making future plans when nobody and no animal will be alive on the planet next year. Then again I had a friend who thought she could postpone our 26th April 2020 class reunion plans by as little as a week during Covid-19 lockdown. Incidentally, at the time of writing the earliest, the pubs are not predicted to open again in Ireland on the 10th August 2020 and no night clubs this year if ever. So I guess that really does exist as a phenomenon of people really misunderstanding the reality of their situation.

I best describe the character sthat Nevil Shute writes as typically post WWII stiff upper lipped English people who use the occasional Australian or American slang word to demonstrate their actual nationality in the novel. They literally keep calm and carry on. We have no insight into most of their thoughts or any of their feelings. How somebody feels about their situation must be interpreted by their actions only. At one point a leading character even points out that women want to know what it feels like to live in a submarine for weeks whereas men want to know its technical specs. I don’t believe it is just people identifying as female who wants this knowledge, . They're points in the story where people return to their home towns that have been destroyed by nuclear war. We have no insights at all as to how they felt about this, no conversations between colleagues, no descriptions of the mood of the crew, we have only the actions of one crew member. This either makes the novel quietly impactful or frustrating as hell. I haven’t made my mind up about it yet.

I would recommend this to people young enough not to remember growing up with the fear of nuclear war. This book was written in 1957 and perfectly describes what would happen if those red buttons around the globe found themselves pushed.

This is my second vintage paperback from Prudence and the Crow https://www.prudenceandthecrow.com/ and one I would not have read if not for this subscription service despite it being a best seller of its time. Definitely dark Sci-Fi as I requested!