Nightmare Fuel / War Day

• The opening scene where a nuke-caused tsunami floods the New York City subway system, drowning everybody in it amidst their screams, is chilling.
• Later on, it is implied that many more people starved to death or died of sickness after the nukes than did in it, due to the destruction of the North American electrical grid and weakened immune systems due to radiation exposure. Many neighborhoods in U.S. cities that were not hit by nukes are empty because most of their inhabitants starved to death, got sick and died, or fled.
  • Due to many of them living near urban centers (targeted by nukes), African Americans in particular are hit hard by the nuclear aftermath, with many of them, entire families even, starving to death or dying of illness in the years since, to the point where they are rarely seen in the postwar U.S. 5 years after the nuclear holocaust.
  • Apparently, Mexico was so unprepared for the post-apocalypse that Mexicans still illegally immigrate en masse into the U.S. despite the bad shape the U.S. is in, implying that whatever situation Mexico is in is far worse than the condition the nuke-riddled U.S. is in.
• The author books a ride aboard a military helicopter to fly over what used to be San Antonio, 5 years after it was nuked. Instead of the stereotypical carnage or rubble where the Soviets' nuke impacted, there is nothing. Just emptiness.
• At the start of the book, the Soviet nuclear detonation off the coast of New York City sets its outer boroughs on fire. The flames spread up Long Island unopposed, burning it to cinders. The author's description of it is pretty scary.