In 48 Hours, William Forstchen poses a fantastic premise. It sucked me right in. I was totally immersed in the dealing s of the president. The science was a little overwhelming at times, and the pacing suffered. I never quite connected to the female heroine, her actions seemed a little too out there and a bit unbelieveable. All in all, I found 48 Hours to be an entertaining and even thought provoking apocalyptic thriller. I would read more from the author.
I received my copy through NetGalley under no obligation.

Three weeks after a solar flare Darren and Darla have a new normal that involves a battery operated alarm clock and their drip coffee pot from their camping supplies. But he continues to go to work as a security guard at the caves underneath Springfield, Missouri. But Darren starts to realize that there is something else going on when a bigwig from DC shows up to take an inventory of the caves. In 48 hours Earth will be hit by another solar flare The radiation from the CME is expected to be an, but this one is an ELE."Extinction Level Event. It is possible that anybody in the caves could survive the radiation. As government officials around the globe make plans for government continuity Darren and Darla decide that they need to take action. If there is ever going to be hope for humanity's survival, they need to save the children. They take control of the caves and they start to their "Ark" project. Their goal is to round up as many children and experts as they can. Doctors, teachers, etc.. those who can pass on their knowledge to the generation that is going to save humanity. Will they be able to get it all done in just 48 hours? And keep the government officials at bay who wanted to only save themselves in the caves?

I guess you could say that end-of-the-world books are my guilty pleasure. The non-existent "prequel" to 48 Hours would be a book that I would be interested in reading. And maybe it is coming soon from the author. I have known for years about the "caves" in Kansas City and I am not surprised that they exist in other places in Missouri. The one thing that irritated me was the way the author kept having the residents of Missouri call the state capitol "Jefferson City." Yes, it is the proper name of the city, but I have NEVER heard a resident of Missouri call it anything other than "Jeff City." There was also a lot of scientific talk about CME's and stuff. It tended to make my eyes glaze over, but I guess it was necessary to explain what was happening and why. Overall I really liked the story and can't wait to see how it continues. There is obviously so much more to explore with this story - CLICK HERE FOR SPOILERS.

Bottom Line - 48 Hours is just more evidence that William R. Forstchen is the king of all things end-of-the-world. His plots are somewhat plausible, his characters are interesting, and his stories are captivating. Worth the read if you like that kind of thing.

Details:

48 Hours by William R. Forstchen
On Twitter
Pages:336
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Publication Date: 01/08/2019
Buy it Here!

48 Hours. It's not a long period of time. That's how long you have until a Carrington event (major like dinosaur extinction) hits the Earth and........
In the story, we follow the reaction to this news from different perspectives. The husband and wife preppers who decide to save as many children as they can. The President and his advisors doing what governments do best. You may construe that statement any way you like as long as it's negative. It's a thought provoking novel because it's a plausible scenario. That's scary. If you enjoy end of the world fiction try this one. Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Macmillan-Tor/Forge and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Darren and Darla Brooks are preppers with military backgrounds, one in the military the other running a company that supplied arms to the military. The story begins a few weeks after a solar flare has destroyed most electronics and the world is slowly starting to recover. Darren works security in a local underground storage facility which is suddenly receiving military visitors for a secret vault in the enclosure. When Darren reveals this news to Darla, she uses an old contact to find out what is going on that warrants this sudden interest in the secret storage area. Upon receiving information that points towards an extinction-level event, Darren and Darla decide to take over the facility to save as many local children and a few select adults to guide and educate them for as long as they need to remain underground.

Although I enjoyed this latest novel from William R. Forstchen, I didn't like it as much as his After series, my favourite being One Second After.

If you know me, you know that I love a good post-apocalyptic book. However, this book takes a look at the apocalypse from before its inception. A carrington level event is due to hit earth in 48 hours. (A solar flare that will possibly knock out all electronics and even possibly peel back the magnetic layer surrounding earth and therefore hitting earth with large levels of radiation.) The story adeptly follows different responses to the possibly of this event happening and how different storylines might pan out if this were to occur. I found some of the religious tie-in to be a little preachy but I guess perhaps understandable if it were the end of the world. Having read books by this author previously I can say it absolutely lives up to its hype and fans of his will not be disappointed!

This ebook was provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Published by Forge on January 8, 2019

48 Hours combines a pre-apocalyptic story with a bit of prepper porn (novels, mostly self-published, about survivalists who imagine dire emergencies that justify the huge investments they have made in bugout bags, cases of canned beans, and caches of guns). The story imagines two relatively simultaneous solar events that will screw with humankind. A solar storm (coronal mass ejection, or CME) disrupts the planet’s magnetosphere, quickly followed by a solar flare that irradiates the Earth and kills every life form that isn’t sheltered deep underground (deeper than a prepper’s basement). That’s a bad day for people who don’t dwell in caves.

The story explains that solar flares usually precede rather than follow a CME, and that the magnetosphere therefore protects us from the flare’s radiation. Apparently the two events happening in reverse order and both moving straight at the Earth is a rare occurrence, which is why we’re not all dead. I don’t know how accurate the science underlying the story might be, but William Forstchen sold me on the premise. Part of the premise — the part that kept me reading — is that the science characters aren’t sure whether the flare will hit the Earth before the CME (most everyone dies) or after the CME (most everyone lives although their iPhones die).

The story begins with a prepper (an ex-military guy named Darren Brooks) who congratulates himself on his generosity when he shares buckets of freeze-dried meals with his neighbors after a preliminary CME (all the while worried that if CMEs continue, he may have to shoot his neighbors to prevent them from devouring his hoarded survivalist supplies). Darren is a big, strong guy who knows all about guns, which in prepper porn proves his moral superiority to smaller people who know about other things.

Darren is head of security at a Kraft plant in Missouri. The plant is located next to a big cavern with steel doors. It turns out that the government has stored a bunch of survivalist supplies in the cavern as a contingency plan against an extermination event. The planners hoped to supplement the supplies with any processed cheese and other long-lasting foodstuffs that might be stored in the Kraft plant. The government’s plan, naturally enough, is to save the elected politicians, their families, and their campaign donors. Their rationale is that “continuity of government” will be important after the crisis ends — because a dead planet needs a government?

Darren learns about the plan from an army general with whom he served in Iraq. The general is in Missouri to make the shelter ready for occupancy by local government leaders. Darren decides to change the plan by saving the town’s children instead.

Darren’s assumption that he has the moral authority to change the plan is questionable, but at least it’s an interesting premise. Allowing children to inherit a decimated and parentless Missouri might be better than allowing politicians to inherit it, although the orphaned kids might disagree. And while there is superficial appeal in saving kids rather than “elites,” it seems to me that Darren makes himself an “elite” (and unelected dictator) by using force to seize to seize the shelter and deciding who gets to occupy it.

Darren’s plan and its aftermath are at least more interesting than the ridiculous speeches given by characters who decide to save the children. Eventually they realize that they need more adults to supervise the kids so the teenagers won’t spend all their time fornicating. To that end, Darren’s pastor designates a respected principal to choose “the best of our community” (presumably reliable white conservative Christians who know how to handle guns, and certainly none of those whacky academics who get people all worked up about climate change — Darren has no use for academics). How is Darren’s delegation of authority to a pastor and a principal any different from the politicians choosing who gets to survive? Politicians at least were elected to make choices; nobody elected Darren or his pastor. The ethical implications of the plan might make for some interesting discussions, but the novel fails to explore those implications in any depth.

Darren, a true prepper, tithes to his church because his pastor believes in the end times and the church uses the funds to buy and store survivalist supplies. The church contributes not one, not two, but four tractor-trailers filled with survivalist meals. Do churches really do that? Instead of feeding the needy today, they store freeze-dried food just in case the end times come? Seriously?

Richard Carrington, an aging sun scientist, is the novel’s other primary character. He has some interesting thoughts about history and science while he’s drinking tea with the president. As the disaster nears, other characters tell Carrington about mobs and looting, but all of that is off-stage. Most of the novel’s action takes place in Missouri and involves clashes between Darren’s side and the politicians’ side, with members of the military choosing one side or the other as the potential end of humanity draws near. That gives Forstchen a chance to describe the armament of various fighting vehicles as they shoot missiles at each other.

A compelling story could be based on the notion that federal, state, and local governments have spent huge amounts of taxpayer money to create plans to save politicians while the taxpayers who elected them will die in whatever catastrophe arises. Forstchen tries to write that story, but his focus is too narrow to do it justice.

Forstchen writes well enough to have gained bestseller status in some earlier novels. 48 Hours reveals an addiction to adverbs and other unnecessary words, including “indeed,” which appears dozens of times. I was on the fence about whether to give this a “Recommended with Reservations” or a “Not Recommended” until, near the novel’s end, I encountered the phrase “orgy of destruction.” 48 Hours is not overridden with clichéd phrases, but the story and its characters are so cliché-dependent, and the plot is so shallow and sappy, that the novel has too little to offer a discerning fan of pre- or post-apocalyptic fiction. I suspect, however, that 48 Hours will have great appeal to fans of prepper porn.

NOT RECOMMENDED

I can't say it was my favorite of Fortschen's works. The characters seemed undeveloped, the story rushed yet slow at the same time, and with a lot of dialogue and little imagery or action. I just had a hard time getting into it. Could use better editing. It really lacked the "magic" of his previous stories.

Forstchen follows the blockbuster One Second After with 48 Hours which is equally a compelling read!!

This starts with a Carrington Event that has taken a lot of the electric and communication grid down and you think that is the worse. It is not and what follows is a seat of your pants thriller where we follow several characters as they find that the world is facing a extension event and they work to save as many as possible. I was left feeling impressed by the action of the main characters and sad as they made a choice I was expecting. This is the first Forstchen book I have read and I enjoyed it and am looking forward to future book by this author. I found the comparison of our politics today with those of ancient Greece very interesting.

I received a free copy of the book in return for an honest review.

I did not like his EMP series, it was just too neat for me I guess. Anyway, I thought 48 hours was great. Richard Carrington is a solar scientist working for NASA who discovers an impending "dinosaur disaster: heading towards earth.
Sauron’s Eye, as it is named, is less than 48 hours away as the author uses the compressed timeline to introduce us to that characters who will make up the new series. I just hope the quality holds. Enjoy this great what if.

Loved a previous series by William R Forstchen so this sounded interesting. 48 hours started off as a great, fast paced read but then lost some steam near the ending. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC..

William Forstchen, author of "One Second After", brings us in "48 Hours", a gripping novel that portrays how well - and how badly - people at all levels of U.S. society face the apocalypse. What harm will some do for even a small chance of survival, and what good will others attempt, to save those who should have priority?

Essentially, the sun is acting up, and the situation just keeps getting worse. Readers watch events unfold from the points of view of the US President and his advisers, and also from the perspective of a remarkably effective husband and wife team who are intent on ensuring the survival of as many children as possible.

Highly recommended!