Emergence

I liked this when I first read it, and later reread it a couple of times, but there was something about it that didn't feel quite right to me. I avoided it for more than 30 years, and then I tried it again.

OK, the story is readable, quite gripping. The first-person 11-year-old heroine, Candy by name, is likeable despite being literally superhuman (this is explained in the story). She survives the extinction of humanity in World War III thanks to Daddy's wonderful underground shelter, and emerges to humanity almost entirely gone but the world more or less intact, thanks to the weapons being targeted specifically at humanity.

Eventually she discovers some other survivors. The first two that she meets, a male of about 13 and a male in his late 40s, both want to have sex with her, and tell her so. This strikes me as rather weird and icky, and it's one of my two criticisms of the book—although she manages to fend off both of them.

My other criticism is that it goes into too much detail about everything. The author did research and wanted to show it off. OK, but we the readers are not necessarily fascinated. In the later parts of the book, reading it now, I skimmed a lot.

Shorn of the excess detail, it makes a good enough story, although almost all of the characters turn out to be superhuman—and, well, I'm human. I like to think I'm above average as a human, but still, I don't identify well with these types. And the story is basically quite simple, the plot is not very sophisticated.

Overall, I think three stars is about right for this one: nowhere near favourite status, but mildly diverting, rereadable occasionally. It's a very American book, and I'm not American; but Candy is likeable, despite being absurdly precocious.

I quite enjoyed Emergence. Nowadays it would probably be called a YA book, but at the time of publication (1984) it was probably considered straight SF. The story reminds me somewhat of Heinlein's juveniles. In fact, the main protagonist, Candy, is a very Heinleinesque character.
I wanted more, but unfortunately, it seems that David R. Palmer pretty much stopped writing. Sad.