Nuclear War

Nuclear War was a high octane, depressing dive into what a "realistic" nuclear war scenario would look like if it were to ever come to the world. While much of it I imagine would be realistic, ultimately I found this to be sensationalized yet one-note throughout.

North Korea decides to launch a nuclear missile at the United States. Actually, they launch two, one from North Korea aimed at Washington DC, and one right off of the coast of California from a nuclear submarine targeting a nuclear power plant. Both strike their targets with countermeasures failing to stop them. The world is thrown into chaos, the president, in his escape, can't be located but countermeasures need to be taken. What follows is a presumably realistic take on what would happen as the world descends to nuclear war, complete with interviews from current and former officials within the United States government and military, as well as experts on the topic. This book is a depressing look into this scenario that tries to communicate the futility of nuclear war, and drives the message that there are current policies that immediately need to change in order to protect humanity.

I'm not going to claim to be an expert on history, politics, or nuclear war in the slightest (I didn't vote for this book club book), but even I found this scenario to be unrealistic. North Korea just decides, unprompted, to launch two nuclear missiles at the United States? Just two? Ultimately knowing that it would end in almost the complete destruction of civilization? Not South Korea or Japan? This is already a stretch, so the basis for this scenario is already on shaky ground.

The science behind what would happen here is probably pretty realistic, total death and destruction. Hell on earth for survivors who had the misfortune of surviving any initial nuclear blast. But damn, this was the narrative and pacing for the rest of the book. I get that the book wanted to stress the sheer and total annihilation that comes with nuclear war, but it honestly became a bit boring as we heard about charred bodies, vaporized buildings, and radiation poisoning over and over again. There was no variation in tone or pacing, no fluctuation in energy. It was a total slog.

Okay, this one is totally on me, I know that this is "fiction nonfiction" or speculative nonfiction, a fictionalized scenario that is informed by real information, science, and political relations. But I was hoping that this would lean more on actual, real scenarios or historical events. This is a book club book, and the decided genre was nonfiction, and I have to say that I feel completely cheated. This book certainly has a lot of real, true information on current policies around nuclear war and science about the creation of nuclear bombs, but all of it is in service of the more prominent, fictional story about nuclear war. And speaking personally, everything in here that was nonfiction, I didn't give a shit about. I would have rather read a history book than learn about the information in this book.

As a rule, I don't rate nonfiction books, but it's a good thing this isn't nonfiction! This sucked, I hated it.