Description:

“An extraordinary novel of men at war” (The Washington Post) and the bestselling book that inspired the TNT mini-series

The unimaginable has happened. The world has been plunged into all-out nuclear war. Sailing near the Arctic Circle, the U.S.S. Nathan James is relatively unscathed, but the future is grim and Captain Thomas is facing mutiny from the tattered remnants of his crew. With civilization in ruins, he urges those that remain—one-hundred-and-fifty-two men and twenty-six women—to pull together in search of land. Once they reach safety, however, the men and women on board realize that they are earth’s last remaining survivors—and they’ve all been exposed to radiation. When none of the women seems able to conceive, fear sets in. Will this be the end of humankind?

For readers of Going Home by A. American, Lights Out by David Crawford, The End and The Long Road by G. Michael Hopf, and One Second After by William Forstchen.

From Publishers Weekly

Perhaps the most surprising thing about this apocalyptic novel of the sea is that Brinkley has been able to spin so slender a plot to so great lengthmore than 500 pages. Global nuclear disaster has struck, and the guided-missile destroyer Nathan James, short on food and fuel, its crew of men and women seriously depleted by desertions, sails the seas in search of an uncontaminated landfall. The Nathan James is apparently the only ship afloatuntil it meets a Russian sub and a little belated glasnost is arranged. The destroyer's captain, a man given to Conradesque reflections more often ponderous than illuminating, describes how he struggles to assert his authority and maintain crew morale, how he establishes a settlement on an unpolluted Pacific island, assigning to his female crew the task of ensuring the continuation of the human race (he has a steamy affair with one of them himself) and how he handles, among other problems, a case of multiple murder. Brinkley (Don't Go Near the Water, Quicksand) clearly knows the U.S. Navy, and his narrative has its moments. However, his style here is turgid and the story as a whole, unlike the sleek and deadly Nathan James, sits pretty heavily in the water.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The author of Don't Go Near the Water superbly depicts life on a U.S. Navy destroyer after a heavy nuclear exchange. That women are now integrated into the navy adds to the interest. The survivors hunt a safe haven where life and perhaps the human race can continue, away from radiation. A Russian submarine, apparently friendly, appears and then is gone, while a group of mutineers irrationally try to return "home." The captain's narration is thoughtful and sensitive. Inexperienced with women, he must oversee the desperate assembly-line attempts to conceive children that he himself does not join. More than a military adventure, this is a first-rate study of beauty amid ghastliness, engrossing to the end.William A. Donovan, Chicago P.L.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.