Back to the re-reads.
Damnation Alley (the film adaptation) came out in 1977. Mad Max was released in 1979. Escape from New York in 1981. The not-quite-apocalyptic collapse of civilization enjoyed a vogue. Not all post-apocalyptic stories took place thousands of years later after survivors mutated and began to rebuild. One example is 1974’s The Texas-Israeli War: 1999 by Jake Saunders and Howard Waldrop, an extended version of stories published in 1973 in Galaxy Magazine.
As always, I’m glad the predictions failed. But this one was entertaining. The (unlikely) premise is that a limited nuclear exchange in 1992 was followed by on-going biological and chemical warfare that wiped out 90% of the world’s population. Texas (at the connivance of those dastardly oil executives, sigh) seceded from a weakened United States. The president was kidnapped and is being held by Texas as a bargaining chip in the new war of secession, with the vice-president quietly acquiescing in order to hold onto his own newly acquired power. The US (and Texas) both employ mercenary forces from Israel. Israel came out of the global conflict relatively unscathed, the only country with a growing population. The story follows an Israeli tank commander and an American armored vehicle sergeant through an introductory battle in Dallas against the Texans and then through a scheme to rescue the president.
It is slight, at 207 pages. But the characters are not given short shrift, the plans are properly thought through, and the military aspects are well-done. Technically, given that the Israeli tanks carry laser guns, this is Mil-SF, though the story would have worked just as well without that trapping. As a fix-up and extension of short stories, it works. Any longer and it probably would have begun to feel padded.
The book is a fun time-capsule of a 1970s vision of the near future. It isn’t a classic of the post-apocalyptic genre. Its premises range from implausible to absurd: the build up to the war in 92; the unlikely countries involved; and the mustache-twirling bad guys can be a little silly if you let your suspension of disbelief drop. But it is worth an afternoon’s read.
I don’t know what combination of implausible, absurd, and fun to assign to Twilight Galaxy: Dekason, but you could read it and report back to me.
