Aftermath

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Aftermath is a science fiction novel written by Charles Sheffield, where Alpha Centauri goes supernova circa 2022. Four years later, in 2026, gamma rays hit the Earth's atmosphere, creating a worldwide electromagnetic pulse that knocks out the power grid and most electronics.


Tropes used in Aftermath include:
  • After the End
  • A Million Is a Statistic: Discussed in brief by some of the characters while they are hitching a ride on a military convoy.
  • Awesome Aussie: Wilmer, the physicist on the semi-doomed mission to mars is often described as possessing classically Australian burliness.
  • Bizarre Seasons: Side effect of a second sun in the southern hemisphere.
  • Divided States of America: Averted
  • EMP
  • Endless Daytime: That poor southern hemisphere.
  • Inferred Holocaust: The EMP would have knocked almost all planes out of the sky, killing thousands. Subverted as the prologue follows the flight path of the Vice President on one of the crashing planes.