Quote:
Originally Posted by stormlion1
Its funny, I remember reading the book a long time ago but forgot the name of it until I heard about them bringing it to TV. I remember it not being about a virus though.
|
The book was an 80s cold war gone hot novel that dealt with a lone Arleigh Burke class missile destroyer getting "the" flash message. Fires the missiles its ordered to, then receives no further message from National Command. A bit later they get an automated signal from Norfolk ordering all remaining elements of the Navy to return, but the message just keeps repeating until it degrades to gibberish (shades of On the Beach).
Rather than that, the captain cruises into the Med and later the English Channel and they find out that most population centers have been bombed out of existence and there are very few if any survivors.
Getting no further word from anyone of authority in the US the Captain makes the decision to sail to an island out of the worst of the fallout-laden weather patterns and wait for word from someone, or just settle down (it's a mostly male crewed ship but there are some women onboard). Part of the ship's command staff and some of the crew however claim that their last orders were to return to Norfolk and argue for that. Rather than have a bloody mutiny on his hands and knowing he can't imprison the dissenters forever or execute them, he chooses to give them the captain's launch and enough fuel and supplies to (hopefully) make it back there. That group is never heard from again.
Along the way they encounter a Soviet SSBN, the Pushkin, which like the Nathan James, has declared itself independent of command and is seeking safe haven. The two commands agree to seek out some refuge.
They find their "island paradise", but more trouble occurs: the crew is almost unanimous in their decision to rid the new community of nuclear weapons, and fires the remaining missiles, but one detonates prematurely and irradiates the island and kills much of the surviving crew. The Pushkin arrives and in it the remaining members of both crews sail for McMurdo Station in Antarctica to try and rebuild society.