The book was great on the idea and the story. Frankly, he could easily have gotten a ghost writer out of any fifth-grade honor role. As an avid reader and a writer (I quit after HS, thank god.
) the style just
grates until I got used to it.
But the story is excellent, after the writing settles in--clear goal, dealt with by a determined but average man, and the vague catastrophe doesn't feel out of place because everyone involved also has a '***? Well,
crap.' sort of look on it.
To judge by the rough timeline, it could be anything from a harsh Tunguska-style event (a previous poster is right, bad meteor strikes
do flash, I was thinking in terms of a shower instead of a single large one) to a a miles-wide volcanic rupture (there are cases of small ones openin in flat fields, who's to say it couldn't
be the field?) to a nuclear accident to the Russians making a first strike mid- to late cold war, or the start of WW3--we would be a
big target for pre-emtive strikes, and the Russians already demonstrated Big Ivan, which could blast Rhode Island into elemental carbon and had--what, five percent?--the radioactive fallout, proportionally, than Fat Man did.
The author doesn't even specify that it's worldwide. It
could just be the western hemisphere, or even just the USA. A large meteor strike directly between the western coast and the Great Lakes could easily cut off Canada (or blast it off the map) and the ocean wash would fill that crater, probably cut off the other side, and could quite possibly cause a wave or such that would wash over some of Central America and cut us off from South America.
Or a nuclear accident/attack, that Europe wouldn't have the capability or will to aid with. How likely would the UK be to aid the couple thousand left in a blasted wasteland if Russia threatened to do the same to anyone that lends aid, and already demonstrated with horrific efficiency?
Anyway, enough speculation. That revolver's about the same as I'd use, too. Easy to wield, easy to find ammunition for, as much as anything else then. If there was any actual life left, a .22 would be more useful, but since the only things were what humans protected, you only have to worry about what they bring.