One Second After

Why it’s on the list: An EMP strike takes the grid down over a small North Carolina town and the novel works forward through the consequences week by week — medicine, food, order. Kyle’s note spells it “One Second After”; the book’s published title is One Second After, first of a trilogy.

A near-future scenario novel rather than historical fiction, so its presence in a historical-fiction thread is a reply that wandered.

Where I saw it: In the reply thread to @moseskagan’s question, “What historical fiction should I read next? (Bonus points for something involving building or trade, rather than violence)” (April 13, 2025) — a crowd-sourced list Kyle recovered by hand and saved to his Apple Note “Books To Read”; the full set of replies lives on What historical fiction should I… (tweet). It was listed there as “One Second After”.

Connections

• Energy — the grid as the thing everything else rests on.
• Institutions — what fails first when the infrastructure stops.
• What historical fiction should I… (tweet) — the thread this recommendation came from.