Total War

The Survivalist #1

by Jerry Ahern

For years John Rourke, ex-CIA Covert Operations Officer, weapons and personal survival expert had planned for just one thing.

Survival. For him and his family.

The emergency wilderness retreat had been found, fortified and supplied. Now the ultimate crisis was upon them: nuclear strike and Russian invasion.

With Rourke half a continent away from family and home.

And so began a desperate, epic journey to a home that might not even exist any more, across an America shattered and burning, where murderous bands fought and killed. Killed for food, for clothing, weapons, and even from a sheer lawless lust for destruction.

Genres: Fiction, Post Apocalyptic, Adventure, Action, Science Fiction, War, Thriller

218 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published March 1, 1981

About the author

Jerry Ahern (born Jerome Morrell Ahern) was a science fiction and action novel author best known for his post apocalyptic survivalist series The Survivalist. The books in this series are heavy with descriptions of the weapons the protagonists use to survive and prosecute a seemingly never-ending war amongst the remnants of the superpowers from pre-apocalypse times.

Ahern was also a firearms writer, who published numerous articles in magazines such as Guns & Ammo, Handguns and Gun World.

Jerry Ahern passed away on July 24, 2012 after a long struggle with cancer.

Ahern also released books under pseudonym Axel Kilgore.

Reviews

[Checkman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started reading this series when it began back in 1981.I thought it was terrific at the time. I was also thirteen. Couldn't get enough of it and read probably the first ten installments. Finally I reached college and realized that the books were very repetitive and John Rourke was just Superman with an assault rifle. He would mow down dozens of villains at one time and not even break a sweat. I stopped reading them at that point. It probably shouldn't have taken me so long to arrive at that realization.

Nevertheless the first installment is the best of the series - which is pretty normal for long running series like this one. Rather like the pilot episode for a long running television series is usually the best. Because it's designed to sell the television network and convince it to buy the series.

Pure pulp fiction.

[stormhawk · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Survivalist is a classic, post-apocalyptic, hairy-chested men's adventure series.

I am neither hairy-chested, nor a man, but I enjoy these books.

John Thomas Rourke is a man who is ready if the world ends tomorrow. Tomorrow comes, and the adventure begins at breakneck pace, including piloting a plane to the gentlest crash landing ever, and California sliding off into the sea.

I don't try to claim that there is great literature or great art between these covers, but there is a a fine story of vast scope.

[Phil Elmore · Rating 5 out of 5]

The temptation to uncritically label every one of Jerry Ahern's books with five stars is definitely within me. Mr. Ahern's many fiction series (including this one, "Track," "The Takers," and his "Defender" books) had a profound influence on me as a writer. Jerry combines a very vivid imagination (and a willingness to leave the real world for science fiction and even fantasy settings) with solid firearms knowledge, a flair for adventure, and fast-paced action scenes. There are times when "The Survivalist," in particular, feels and reads like a soap opera, but that is part of the series' charm. Without that human element you'd be reading page after page of shooting people in the face... which, come to think of it, fairly aptly describes my own Executioner novels.

I have read what must be every novel Jerry Ahern has written, from these to his one-off books (such as "The Freeman" and "The Golden Shield of IBF"). I wrote him fan mail many years ago, in the dark ages when people still used dot-matrix printers. He wrote back, and we have corresponded infrequently over the years since. I even owe Jerry for discovering the work of Ayn Rand, for it was the fact that his protagonist in "The Survivalist" series was reading "Atlas Shrugged" that prompted me to pick up the old copy a friend had given me years previously. (I've always believed that Jerry named his protagonist in "The Survivalist" after Rand's in "The Fountainhead.")

No, Mr. Ahern's action novels aren't high literature, but neither is the genre meant to be. These are some of the most entertaining books I've ever read in the action-and-adventure category. They're not quite pure escapism, for Ahern brings realistic elements of firearms, preparedness, and even politics to what he writes. They do, however, comfort the reader in the same way entirely escapist fiction does. When you reach the end of each series, you are genuinely disappointed to see them end. I can think of no better tribute to an author or his work than to wish for both to soldier on in perpetuity.

[Malum · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun, quick little post apocalyptic action adventure story and the start of The Survivalist series. The only wierd thing about this book is that it felt more like a prologue than an actual first book in a series, because the post-apocalyptic stuff doesn't start until pretty far into the book.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Please sub this book review for any Ahern Survivalist book, as they are all pretty much the same book. I gave this one four stars cause it is the first and funnest, but they are all pretty much the equivalent of a McDonald's cheeseburger, they will all taste the same.

A guy who can kill anything and always comes out the winner in any situation is ready for nuclear war. His wife thinks he is a depressing nut. So when the inevitable nuclear war happens, he is out of town cause she needs space. What follows is the same scenario: the world needs to be saved by John Rourke over and over and over and over, while he wanders all over nuclear winterized destroyed America. It's fun, of little mental nutritional value, and mediocrely written. Like I said, it's a McD's cheeseburger. You can read several in one day, they are short.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first in what I consider to be the best men's adventure series out there. I've read all but 2 or three of these, and I think there are about 26 in the series. I really like the character and there is a very good level of action. There's also a lot of imagination excercised throughout the series. Ahern knows his weapons, knows his survivalism, and can tell a damn fine story.

[Lauren Stoolfire · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found several books in this series at a library book sale awhile back and I'll admit that I definitely picked it up for the cover of Total War (The Survivalist #1) by Jerry Ahern, this first book in the series. Yes, it looks like a Chuck Norris movie and it reads like one too. It was a real manly read - and I wouldn't be surprised if it put some hair on my chest. And, you know what? I didn't really expect any more or less.

[Little Timmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite adventure series. Dr John Thomas Rourke leads his family and friends through a post apocalyptic world fighting ever step if the way. Fantastic characters and plots. Very detailed weapon descriptions. Excellent series. My highest recommendation

[Tom Bettison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic story. Best post apocalyptic pulp series in existence. Hopefully I get up to number 29 this time.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read it in a sitting.
Silly little action thriller that was GREAT!

[Alex Power · Rating 3 out of 5]

Men's adventure at it's best! The main character, John Thomas Rourke, an ex-CIA operative and skilled surgeon, is almost godlike with his abilities to save lives as well as take them away. The action is intense if not repetitive (look for the excessive use of "the double Tae Kwon Do kick"). This is the first of about 26 books, and I think I made it through 18 of them before realizing my mind was slowly turning to mush. I have to rate this a 3/5 for sentimental value, as well as, this being the most "readable" of the series. The situations are not very plausible; the main character might as well be Superman; the supporting characters are cliches; but this is men's adventure!

[Carl Timms · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this series as a teenager and re-read more than once since. This is Man fiction with a capital M. Read whilst eating a Yorkie, drinking whiskey and watching a Rambo marathon.

The first book is a terrific scene setter and the sniping scene and finale have to be read to be believed.

The series gets more sci fi over time but this is a top notch post-apocalyptic violent action romp with some great firearms detail.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this was the first book series I read all the way through when I was about 12 or so. Now when I look back, the writing is cheesy, the stories themselves are ridiculous, and nothing is as 'deep' it seemed at 12. Still, the series influenced a lot of my real life interests then and even to this day. If you want some great adventurous commie/space nazi/viking nazi/viking commie/raider killing action without having to think too much, then you will love this series.

[Seth Creamer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Survivalist novel from back in the day. It's got the anti-commie propaganda and white hat kills all the black hats by himself we all came to know and love in Chuck Norris movies from the 80s. Characters are stereotyped, gun porn on every other page, and it turned me onto the genre. Read it first as a kid, have re-read it as an adult and I still like it. If you don't mind the pulp feel to a series, this is pretty good, if you like the pulp feel, this is awesome.

[Jodarryl Tinker · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like guns, a post-apocalyptic setting, and survivalism this is the book for you. Basically, this is a story about a man named John Rourke(who happens to be a doctor, a survival and weapons expert, as well as an ex-paramilitary operations officer for the CIA) trying to get back to his family after nuclear war has wiped out the majority of the country.

[Dennis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love his books, got this in a ebook and couldn't put down the series

[Craig Herbertson · Rating 4 out of 5]

He shoots people as others shoot dice and its difficult to imagine how he walks carrying all that metal and his brain must be worn down with gun nomenclature and yet...and yet its all good fun

[Dan Panke · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good start to a series. Total War provides the background for the series.

[Jeff Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read whole series a couple times. Apocalyptic ww3 series. Great books. Nostalgic now but awesome characters

[Angus McLean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Re-read this for the millionth time; great fun, great start to a cool series. Lots of pulp action and adventure and inspired me as a young reader.

[Chris Silva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun read...reminds me of Rambo meets Red Dawn.

[RANGER · Rating 4 out of 5]

Campy Cold War Classic; precursor to the modern prepper-penned end-of-the-world novel
The Survivalist: Total War is the first episode in Jerry Ahern's Cold War era action adventure series featuring ex-CIA agent turned weapons expert/survivalist, John Rourke. Rourke is a classic "men's fiction" action hero (yes, such a genre existed and was popular in its hey-day). In Total War we discover he is an expert on practically everything including medicine (he's a doctor), piloting aircraft, survivalism (we call it "prepping" today), family man, sniper/weapons/combat (ex-CIA paramilitary), motorcycles, charming women, running through blizzards with luggage while declining a ride, etc. You get the idea. Originally published in 1981, World War III starts with a Soviet invasion of Pakistan from Afghanistan (ahhh, the world as it was in 1981... *sigh*) escalating into a five way nuclear conflagration between the US, USSR, PRC, Pakistan and India, which the US mostly loses. Rourke just happens to be on-hand during the initial Soviet thrust across the Khyber Pass. He flies home to Georgia to warn his doubtful wife that nuclear war is imminent. There is a brief but needless description of their love-making -- needless except to remain in sync with the "men's fiction" model -- before he departs on a trip to train the Royal Canadian Mounties (he gets around). WWIII begins with a Soviet first strike while Rourke is in a commercial jetliner trying to get home. Most of America is devastated. Rourke seems pleased that WWIII vindicates his decision to build a mountain survival sanctuary despite his wife's pre-war reservations. After crash landing the airliner in New Mexico and defeating a 60-person armed motorcycle gang almost single-handedly, Rourke and his new sidekick, Paul Rubenstein, set out across America in search of Rourke's family. And the adventure begins...
Jerry Ahern's "The Survivalist" series was the original end-of-the-world novel written by a real prepper. While the series claimed to provide technical insights on survivalism it was short on know-how skills and prepping and very long on describing guns in detail (Jerry Ahern owned Detonics USA and a pair of Detonics Combat Master .45 ACPs figure prominently in the series). The Survivalist follows an end-of-the-world paradigm popular at the time in which America is defeated by the incompetence of politicians and false reassurances of the military. The "prepping" talk was lite, the science was mostly inaccurate and the post-WWIII world was populated by radioactive mutants and SPETSNAZ commandos. Today's apocalyptic fiction is more prepper descriptive and mutants have been replaced by zombies or cannibals. The end now usually comes with government connivance or cover-up -- it's a more dystopian world now than the 1980s.
The Survivalist books are short but action-packed. There isn't much nuance here, just blood, guts and an indestructible protagonist. I understand the series is back out on Kindle. Nice, but I found it in an old-school mass market edition -- just like I first read it as a teenager in 1981. As suspense fiction, it's a 3-star read; as a well-written formulaic classic of Cold War nostalgia, it's 4-star.

[Nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am now beginning this new series: The Survivalist. There is just something about the paperback cover (the red one) that screams 1980’s. The tank top hero wielding a machinegun. The missile in the background. In the lower right we have a picture of his family, which tells us the entire motivation of the hero. From here, we get the opening chapter of a 1980’s apocalyptic action/adventure novel.

The world begins pretty normally. Our hero John Rourke is having problems with his family. He was in med school at one time, but quit to join the CIA. His wife disagrees with this choice as it makes him somewhat distant. He is also a survivalist, which is something that his wife doesn’t understand. They air out their disagreements away from their young children who will play a prominent role in this story.

The essence of the book is that World War 3 has started and Rourke is trapped on an airplane. The beginning of the book has a lot of escalation of hostilities between the USA and USSR. There are conversations between the US president and Soviet premiere. We follow a Pakastani soldier who defends a pass from Soviet invasion. There is a submarine crew that finds the Soviets tracking them. There are a lot of different characters brought forward at the beginning only to then focus on Rourke and his family.

Once the bombs start going off in America (Rourke sees it from his plane window), the more traditional apocalyptic stuff starts occurring. Rourke and new partner, Rubenstein (a normal person) go looking for supplies and they find themselves in the Mad Max type society.
This is a decent introduction to the world that Rourke will inhabit in later books. It was a bit too detailed with the preparation leading to World War 3. I would have preferred the book to start out with Rourke on the plane and watching the bombs go off. Still the beginning half of the book created a somewhat plausible 1980s scenario for the beginning of World War 3.

[Alexander Engel-Hodgkinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.2/5

This is a slightly better-than-average action adventure novel about a guy anyone would want on their team when the bombs start dropping: john Rourke, survival/firearms/medical expert who will nonetheless fly a commercial airliner despite knowing full-well that a nuclear strike is imminent and that nukes have EMPs. I guess he was hoping he'd make it back home to his family before the bombs started launching. His expectations were far too high.

But of course, if they weren't, we wouldn't have a series on our hands. Honestly, this is off to a strong start. The nukes don't immediately drop ten pages in; it's built up with growing tensions between the two superpowers, and in this one, the Soviets aren't immediately demonized; they feel like actual people with actual thoughts, feelings, goals, and stubbornness in equal magnitude to their international rivals. I doubt it'll stay this way in later volumes, but at least in the beginning, everyone seemed normal.

I also liked that Rourke's wife wasn't just a screaming, helpless shrew who needed saving every two pages. When the need arises, she steps up and hopes her husband's not dead while she does her damnedest to protect their children from harm. It's nice to see.

Aside from Rourke's brain-farting decision to board a plane of all thing on the eve of the apocalypse, and a good number of typos, Survivalist #1 is a pretty decent start to the series, and I'd like to read more of it sometime down the road. Not right away, but you know... eventually.

[Arthur Chappell · Rating 1 out of 5]

Virtually an NRA propaganda tract. It was penned in the 80's when there was a surge in sales of fallout shelters, and an increase in home defense weaponry. Many books and films like Red Dawn depicted Russian invaders and ordinary Americans fighting them off as if they were a horde of zombies. All very gung-ho, jingoistic and at times even racist.

This was the first of nearly thirty Survivalist books, (and a writer calling himself 'A American', to really hammer home the excess Trumpian patriotism of the post 9/11 era is writing a very similar series also called The Survivalist today).

Here, the protagonist is a Chuck Norris in sunglasses ex-CIA secret agent, who has trained himself up for the apocalypse, setting up a fully stocked fall out shelter and gaining himself a formidable Armoury. Unfortunately when WW3 starts, he is on a teaching assignment in Pakistan.

Abandoning the job, he fights his way onto a flight home, but the pilots are blinded when the nukes go off. Our infallible hero crash-lands the plane himself on US soil and starts a 250 mile trek home, taking on Russian invaders, radioactive mutants, cult leaders, crazed biker gangs and even cannibals on the way, wiping them all out Mad Max style. It gets increasingly violent and silly by the page. It is virtually Survivalist porn. The chance are if you do survive the nukes hitting your city, you won't survive long using this book as your survival manual.

Arthur Chappell

[Jordan Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well look at that: another post apocalyptic novel of nuclear destruction and annihilation.

And just like every book in this genre The Survivalistchecks off every cliche. Macho testosterone fueled survivor man, war with Russia, nukes, rapist motorcycle gangs, and death everywhere.

Yeah this one is no really no different than the plethora of books that came before or after it, however this ain’t half bad.

Even though this series (at least from the outset) does little to distinguish itself from series like Wastelands (which def takes a unique peek at the apocalypse) and Johnstone’s Ashes book, Ahern makes this one a blast to read. The familiar and expected tropes are still fun and Ahern manages to make them exciting for his intended audience. I mean you got an untrained doomsday prepper kinda dude trying to land a passenger plane after both pilots are blinded and die of radiation sickness. That same dude also mows down something like 40 badass bikers without even breaking a sweat. On top of that he’s a trained physician and a master of all kinds of weaponry. Basically Steven Segal without the judo.

This is the first book in the series so the nuclear wasteland mutants haven’t shown up but I’m pretty damn sure they’re coming in the next few books…and I eagerly anticipate their debut.

[Andy Bundy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book which spawned a series covering centuries, wherein he extended and rather confusing, if brave and full of derring-do, so their best to survive the end of the world in the form of WW3, then again in the form of some unexplained but scientifically obvious burning out of the atmosphere, and finally, if this was not enough, a general lack of popularity forcing them back into suspended animation for another while.

Find out how it all started, and how a series of thirty plus books spanning centuries began. Meet John Rourke, All American super soldier, spy, doctor and expert on everything, and his trusty sidekick.

If reading fails to tickle your fancy, the main story arc as originally written has been recorded and distributed by Graphic Audio in a multi character dramatic set of audio dramas.

[John Kidd · Rating 1 out of 5]

This quick flip of a book is nothing more than the author's personal gun porn. The main character is a very 2D Mary Sue who always makes the right decision and always has things work out the way they want it, which seems to include getting to use his 50 guns on everyone. Most scenes consist of him entering stage left, killing a horde of Bad Guys, and having a revolving companion to act impressed by the main characters actions and remark how "this is just like the movies".

There are some interesting ideas in the first half of the book where the apocalypse scenario is being set up, but they got pushed to the side for the author to make more room to repeat the action sequence above and so that the author could name every single gun the main character picks up in excruciating detail. There are several instances where the name of a gun takes up a full line of text.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh man, the Cold War and hatred of all things Russian from the 80s has not aged well. Especially in today’s current political climate.

A fun read that plays out like an old action flick.

John Rourke is a guy who pretty much can do anything. A weapons expert, a doctor, apparently he can figure out landing a plane, knew that the evil Rooskies were going to attack, a survivalist (which he kind of talks about to a point of nausea), and a retired CIA operative. And ladies, look out. He’s quite the lover according to his wife.

If you’re looking for something poignant and to think about, then this book is probably a pass for you.

However, if you want to read about a guy going on a one man wrecking crew through the freshly nuked wasteland that is what’s left of America to get back to his family? Yep. Right here.

[R.E. Warner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I literally found books #1-9 in a box in an old jail that is being renovated. Highly apropos. This book falls into the category of so-bad-it’s-great. It may be necessary that you lived through 1981 to understand why all the pages of descriptions of weapons and one-liners from the protagonist are so funny. Some chapters are one and a half pages, but the fist fights are right pages! And don’t worry, the type-setting and editing improve with each book.

I will never forget the phrase “the Twin Detonics stainless .45s he carried in the quick-draw double Alessi leather shoulder holsters”. Hot damn! This book (and subsequent ones) are impossible, ridiculous and awesome. Some brilliant producer *needs* to turn this into a Netflix series with no CGI, practical effects, video cut from B reels and only and rear-projection driving—Roger Corman style.