What is it about : Seventeen years after the "Doom-War", with the nation in ruins and the people surviving in isolated land pockets and had reverted back to tribalism - each guarding, trading, warring and making peace with one another; our loner of a man, Gordon found the corpse of a long dead postal worker and he donned the uniform of this federal postman and play-acted himself and conned his way into communities for a hot meal or two, even going to bed with a few hotties, so we were told. Soon, Gordon re-invented himself as the only link between his made-up restored civilised world and these communities, convincing most of these simple-minded if suspicious folks but at the same time, he was himself increasingly antsy and guilty about the deception and the whole charade; all was going well until he found himself confronted with the sole surviving artificial intelligence computer, Cyclops - Cyclops' secret only generated more despair for our Gordon, read on.
Some thoughts after having read the book : Way too many passages were devoted to describing the landscape and numerous repetition of ambushes by the "Tech-Haters" and the violent looting "Survivalists". The story remained somewhat, at a superficial level which I did not feel the desolation or the cruel Darwinian aspect of survival after the nukes fell seventeen years back. Communities seemed almost happy and jolly at their harvest and trading, without a care of "The Future" - perhaps that was the helpless reality, after all. The story ended with Gordon moving on to further afield to "spread hope", it was a fitting if melancholy conclusion of the book - a loner trying to find motivation for himself to carry on in that post-apocalyptic world.
Would I recommend this book to you : Good book to pass a few rainy nights but the drama could be a bit more exaggerated to make the book more interesting - perhaps taking a nasty turn towards the "Lord Of The Flies" story line. I would recommend the book as a Thought experiment - what Life would look like decades after a doomed nuclear war; and by the way, in the film adaptation, Kevin Costner played Gordon and the film received mixed reviews.
