Michael Armstrong (2) (1956–)

Interesting story of life after a huge thermonuclear bomb exploded releasing a million-watt electromagnetic pulse that fried all electronics and to varying degrees human synapses leaving the populace with no memories and few intellectual skills and a distrust for anyone who managed to maintain any thinking abilities. The story follows several unlikely characters who meet in a bar under duress and escape to join with a Blimp crew who travel and trade between isolated pockets of civilization. show more They were trading suitcase nuclear weapons for self defense use while collecting broken or dud nukes to repair and further arm the wandering population. People without any ability to create, lived by scavenging leftovers from the destroyed civilization that they had once been part of with only a vague sense or glimmers of lost memories that tied them to humanity. Weapons and size trumped all. People without memories took names from artifacts that they found or were on them when the Zap occurred. Pre-Zap beer, bullets, tools and weapons were coveted. Utility ruled. The blimp was headed in a northern direction and the captain (Nike after the logo on his ball cap) was looking for Big Mac (either a person or a place in the far north) He had a large cache of coke mixed with a psychotropic drug that brought back pieces of memory for a short time to users. Problem was that it had been stored with radioactive materials and made a geiger counter peg the scale. Nike had a contract to deliver it to someone in the north. Homes and Blue (Lucy) ended up as part of the blimp crew and traveled north. Homes was separated from the blimp when it was raided while trading on the ground. Homes was taken in by some people who traveled by dog sled and he was trained briefly and was a natural. His body remembered how to react with the sled and the dogs and he traveled north to hook back up with the blimp at a northern meeting point that a memor told him about. Homes was a reader and Lucy knew how to construct nukes or repair bad ones. The story is very involved and has many visual scenes with good descriptions making story even more interesting. The details of caring for and sledding behind dogs was very involving. The key for activating the suitcase nukes was surgically implanted in the heart of a close relative of the leader who was acquiring the bomb. That was a deterrent to prevent casual use of the nukes. Having to kill your son or wife to gain the key to activate the bomb made the users much more thoughtful about their use. Blue or Lucy is involved with Homes but, seems to withdraw from him or expose him to many threats during their travels. Her real loyalty is shown in the end and a very successful and satisfying conclusion ensues. A wide variety of strange encounters and constant action keeps the reader constantly involved with the story. Worth reading if for no other reason than exposure to the range of possible future issues. show less

Alaska sci-fi by a University of Alaska writing pro and the current editor of the Homer paper. Just a great read, Alaskans will especially enjoy the places and tales of those unique 49ers in them.

In the future, the hide (synthetic skin) can protect people and provide all their needs. A "Beat" man learns about the Alliance society after loosing a war and is sent to the edge of the solar system to defend it.

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2682354.html

I gave up on this one after fifty pages; it's a rather routine mil-sf story about a soldier with wonderful technological device working to overthrow the invader, clunky in style, and obvious where it was going from the first few chapters.