Ahern, Jerry

Entry updated 8 May 2023. Tagged: Author.

Working name of US author Jerome Morrell Ahern (1946-2012), most of whose output consisted of violent Weapons-oriented Post-Holocaust novels, most notably in his Survivalist sequence, in which ex-CIA agent John Rourke attempts to preserve his family after a global nuclear conflict. This is perhaps the most influential series in the subgenre of Survivalist Fiction. The first arc of the sequence begins with The Survivalist #1: Total War (1981) and ends with The Survivalist #17: The Ordeal (1988). The second arc of the sequence – the unnumbered The Survivalist: Mid-Wake (1988) through to The Survivalist #27: Death Watch (1993) – takes place after the Earth's atmosphere has been destroyed by a catastrophic fire, and Rourke has saved his family and himself by entering cryogenic sleep (see Cryonics), emerging after 500 years (see Sleeper Awakes) to find a world deserted except for the personnel of the Eden Project – fresh from 500 years of hibernation aboard a fleet of space shuttles – along with batches of surviving groups of Nazis [sic] and fanatical communists. Twenty-first century continuations of the sequence, beginning with The Survivalist #30: The Inheritors of Earth (2013) with Sharon Ahern and Bob Anderson, seem at least initially to have been assembled from Ahern's notes.

A second rather similar sequence, the Defender series, begins with The Defender #1: The Battle Begins (1988) and ends with The Defender #12: No Survivors (1990). With his wife, Sharon Ahern, whose contributions elsewhere are sometimes anonymous, he wrote the short Takers sequence, as well as a number of singletons. He also contributed Turkish Bloodbath (1980) to the long-running Nick Carter sequence, writing as Nick Carter, and wrote the first ten titles of the associational adventure-thriller series Track. Of his singletons, The Freeman (1986) with Sharon Ahern applies a survivalist take to the Near Future creation of a Dystopia in America, indirectly caused by the USSR; this was followed by the loosely connected Miamigrad (1987) with Sharon Ahern, in which a decadent Miami remains obdurately dystopian. [NT/JC]

see also: Social Darwinism.

Jerome Morrell Ahern

born Chicago, Illinois: 23 June 1946

died Jefferson, Georgia: 24 July 2012

works

series

The Survivalist

• The Survivalist #1: Total War (New York: Zebra Books, 1981) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #2: The Nightmare Begins (New York: Zebra Books, 1981) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #3: The Quest (New York: Zebra Books, 1981) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #4: The Doomsayer (New York: Zebra Books, 1981) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #5: The Web (New York: Zebra Books, 1983) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #6: The Savage Horde (New York: Zebra Books, 1983) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #7: The Prophet (New York: Zebra Books, 1984) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #8: The End Is Coming (New York: Zebra Books, 1984) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #9: Earth Fire (New York: Zebra Books, 1984) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #10: The Awakening (New York: Zebra Books, 1984) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #11: The Reprisal (New York: Zebra Books, 1985) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #12: The Rebellion (New York: Zebra Books, 1985) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #13: Pursuit (New York: Zebra Books, 1986) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #14: The Terror (New York: Zebra Books, 1987) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #15: Overlord (New York: Zebra Books, 1987) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #16: The Arsenal (New York: Zebra Books, 1988) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #17: The Ordeal (New York: Zebra Books, 1988) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist: Mid-Wake (New York: Zebra Books, 1988) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #18: The Struggle (New York: Zebra Books, 1989) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #19: Final Rain (New York: Zebra Books, 1989) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #20: Firestorm (New York: Zebra Books, 1990) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #21: ... To End All War (New York: Zebra Books, 1990) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #22: Brutal Conquest (New York: Zebra Books, 1991) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist: The Legend (New York: Zebra Books, 1991) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #23: Call to Battle (New York: Zebra Books, 1992) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #24: Blood Assassins (New York: Zebra Books, 1993) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #25: War Mountain (New York: Zebra Books, 1993) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #26: Countdown (New York: Zebra Books, 1993) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #27: Death Watch (New York: Zebra Books, 1993) [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #30: The Inheritors of Earth (Santa Fe, New Mexico: Speaking Volumes, 2013) with Sharon Ahern and Bob Anderson [gap in numeration is deliberate: Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #31: Earth Shine (Santa Fe, New Mexico: Speaking Volumes, 2013) with Sharon Ahern and Bob Anderson [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #32: The Quisling Covenant (Santa Fe, New Mexico: Speaking Volumes, 2014) with Sharon Ahern and Bob Anderson [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #33: Deep Star (Santa Fe, New Mexico: Speaking Volumes, 2015) with Sharon Ahern and Bob Anderson [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #34: Lodestar (Santa Fe, New Mexico: Speaking Volumes, 2016) with Sharon Ahern and Bob Anderson [Survivalist: pb/]
• The Survivalist #35: Blood Moon (Santa Fe, New Mexico: Speaking Volumes, 2018) with Sharon Ahern and Bob Anderson [Survivalist: pb/]

Survivalist Short Story Collection

• Shades of Love (Santa Fe, New Mexico: Speaking Volumes, 2013) with Sharon Ahern and Bob Anderson [story: ebook: Survivalist: na/]
• Once Upon a Time (Santa Fe, New Mexico: Speaking Volumes, 2014) with Sharon Ahern and Bob Anderson [story: ebook: Survivalist: na/]
• Light Dreams (Santa Fe, New Mexico: Speaking Volumes, 2014) with Sharon Ahern and Bob Anderson [story: ebook: Survivalist: na/]
• For I Have Sinned (Santa Fe, New Mexico: Speaking Volumes, 2014) with Samantha Ahern and Sharon Ahern [story: ebook: first appeared in More Phobias: Stories of Unparalleled Paranoia! (anth 1995) edited by Richard Gilliam, Martin H Greenberg, Edward E Kramer and Wendy Webb Survivalist: na/]

Survivalist: Rourke Chronicles

• Everyman (Santa Fe, New Mexico: Speaking Volumes, 2014) with Sharon Ahern and Bob Anderson [Survivalist: Rourke Chronicles: pb/]

Takers

• The Takers (Toronto, Ontario: Gold Eagle, 1984) with Sharon A Ahern [Takers: pb/]
• The Takers: River of Gold (Toronto, Ontario: Gold Eagle, 1985) with Sharon A Ahern [Takers: pb/]
• Summon the Demon (Toronto, Ontario: Gold Eagle, 2001) with Sharon Ahern [Takers: pb/]

The Defender

• The Defender #1: The Battle Begins (New York: Dell, 1988) [Defender: pb/]
• The Defender #2: The Killing Wedge (New York: Dell, 1988) [Defender: pb/]
• The Defender #3: Out of Control (New York: Dell, 1988) [Defender: pb/]
• The Defender #4: Decision Time (New York: Dell, 1989) [Defender: pb/]
• The Defender #5: Entrapment (New York: Dell, 1989) [Defender: pb/]
• The Defender #6: Escape (New York: Dell, 1989) [Defender: pb/]
• The Defender #7: Vengeance (New York: Dell, 1989) [Defender: pb/]
• The Defender #8: Justice Denied (New York: Dell, 1989) [Defender: pb/]
• The Defender #9: Death Grip (New York: Dell, 1990) [Defender: pb/]
• The Defender #10: The Good Fight (New York: Dell, 1990) [Defender: pb/]
• The Defender #11: The Challenge (New York: Dell, 1990) [Defender: pb/]
• The Defender #12: No Survivors (New York: Dell, 1990) [Defender: pb/]

Ed Mulvaney

• The Yakusa Tattoo (New York: Pocket Books, 1988) with Sharon Ahern [Ed Mulvaney: pb/Peter Caras]
• The Kamikaze Legacy (New York: Pocket Books, 1990) with Sharon Ahern [Ed Mulvaney: pb/]

individual titles

• Turkish Bloodbath (New York: Charter Books, 1980) as by Nick Carter [Nick Carter: pb/George Gross]
• The Freeman (New York: Pocket Books, 1986) with Sharon Ahern [pb/]
• Miamigrad (New York: Pocket Books, 1987) with Sharon Ahern [pb/Peter Caras]
• WerewolveSS (New York: Pinnacle Books, 1990) with Sharon Ahern [pb/]
• The Golden Shield of IBF (New York: Baen Books, 1999) with Sharon Ahern [pb/Bob Eggleton]
• Written in Time (New York: Baen Books, 2010) with Sharon Ahern [pb/]

about the author

• Paul Brians. Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction, 1895-1984 (Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 1987) [nonfiction: pp108-113: hb/Eric Donelan]

links

• Jerry Ahern
• Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Picture Gallery

previous versions of this entry

• Internet Archive