![]() ![]() The story develops around Australian and US naval personnel, who head north on a submarine mission to understand and report back on the extent of the destruction and the spread of the on-coming radiation. More critically, the thick dust of radiation that polluted the northern half of the globe is slowly drifting southward, with cities in northern Australia already dropping out of contact.Ī US naval submarine, her crew having managed to survive the war, is docked in the Melbourne harbor. Since the end of the war, no contact has been established with anyone in the northern hemisphere. ![]() A year before, there had been a month long nuclear war in the northern hemisphere, accidentally started, but eventually involving all of the major powers. ![]() The story opens in late 1962, and takes place principally in Melbourne, on the eastern end of the south coast of Australia. This fact makes it a much different reading experience from most other post-apocalyptic novels. In the second reading, every decision, comment and action of the characters, some of whom carry a false hope deep into the story, becomes more painful to observe. Reading it a second time shakes one even more than the first reading, because, knowing how the story ends shatters one's natural tendency to believe that there must be some hope of escape. ![]() Nevil Shute's On The Beach is one of the most devastating novels I have read. ![]()
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