In ‘On The Beach’ Shute has crafted a breath-taking vision of humankind as it faces imminent annihilation by its own foolish hands.

And those that have lost loved ones already take solace in the fact that their time is near too. Even in the face of such unrelenting devastation of human life, those that have time to enjoy what time they have left, do so, in whatever way is best for them. A small chance that mankind could somehow survive.

The lethal radioactive fallout is still on course for Australia, its total annihilation of mankind almost inevitable. The men know that they will be leaving behind everything that is important to them, in order to take on this last and very possibly final mission for the whole of mankind. And so, American Navel Captain Dwight Towers is sent out in the nuclear powered submarine USS Scorpion together with a small crew including Australian Naval Officer Peter Holmes and scientist John Osbourne. The possibility that anyone could withstand the lethal effects of the nuclear fallout brings a potential for hope that just can’t go ignored. With that, one of the last American submarines in serviceable action is sent to Seattle in the hope of locating any survivors. With all of the US now deep within contaminated land, the signal brings out a small glimpse of hope that somehow, people have managed to survive. But all of that changes when a scrambled Morse code signal comes in from a coastal area in Seattle.

Nevertheless, the population still try to get to grips with their inevitable death. Life in Melbourne, Australia continues almost as normal, with the impending doom of mankind constantly a burden on everyone’s mind. In these last few months of humanities existence on the planet, the remaining population live out their final time in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the most southern areas of South America. With the eventual end of WWII still fresh in everyone's minds, Shute produced a powerful post-apocalyptic tale set during the after effects of a very short lived and devastating WWIII.Īfter Albania sets off a nuclear attack on Italy, a chain of catastrophic retaliations takes place, resulting in a short lived but utterly devastating World War III that sees the entire northern hemisphere void of any form of life from the widespread nuclear fallout.įurthermore, strong global air currents have been slowly pushing this radioactive fallout southwards, into the remaining areas of human population.

First published back in 1957 ‘On the Beach’ was one of the last novels by the British-Australian author Nevil Shute, before his death in January of 1960.

On the beach nevil shute review