I was looking through some of my old posts and noticed a brief commentary on the time leading up to the last election that I called “October Surprise” (link) and thought that I would revisit the topic four years later. After all, we are coming up on another big election and will likely see widespread civil unrest regardless of the results. So far, this year has played out as a slow motion work of apocalyptic fiction. The pandemic has really shown some of the problems associated with the globalization of civilization and we are starting to see some cracks. While COVID-19 does not seem to be nearly as deadly as some of the fictional viruses that we have reviewed here on this site such as in Brushfire Plague by R.P. Ruggiero or George Stewart’s Earth Abides it is certainly causing widespread disruption.
I feel like I’ve read this book before. It starts off a bit slow with a novel virus that sweeps the world. What the virus lacks in widespread lethality, it makes up for in its contagion and its ability to disrupt and divide people around the world. Naturally, the protagonist in this story is ex-special forces. He starts out on team “hoaxer” but he starts to take it more seriously when one of his friends dies from the virus. Eventually, he decides to retreat with his family to their isolated and well stocked bug out location just before the shit hits the fan. Economies subsequently collapse under the strain of endless shutdowns and restrictions. Civil unrest ensues. Blame is passed around between already hostile superpowers. Of course, a world war erupts. Sure it starts off conventionally, but eventually it escalates to the use of nukes. We have plenty of variables to provide twists and turns along the way to impending doom. Heck, maybe we could even have some follow-up post apocalypse stories exploring the “aftermath”. Maybe even a short romantic episode between characters to maintain the attention of a wider audience demographic. Throw in some religious fanatics, a few sociopaths and it’s a winner!
Anyway, as the line between apocalyptic fiction and reality blurs in the coming months, many of us will maintain our normalcy bias, insisting that the worst case scenario is impossible. No doubt, these same people would have considered the prospect of mandatory face masks in public during a pandemic pure fear mongering. How many of these people now have face masks hanging from their rear view mirror for their short stops to the drug store or post office? As if a dirty, virus covered cloth mask that has been used for months has any remaining protective qualities. Judging from the way that people have reacted to COVID-19 both on a macro and micro level, I have very serious doubts about our prospects for long term survival (like I didn’t have enough doubts already!).
To anyone reading this I wish you the very best of luck in the coming months/years. I would love to have an opportunity to come back here four years from now to reflect on my paranoid world ending fears and the next October surprise. In the meantime, I hope to make a few posts about some apocalyptic fiction books that I have completed recently. Do something for your “just in case” plan today. You might be really happy someday that you planned ahead for bad scenarios no matter how unlikely you feel they might come to fruition.
The WITHOUT series is a 
There are 7.5 billion people on the planet. 1.2 billion of them live without power. I’ve traveled to many third world countries and have witnessed their daily struggle to survive. It intrigued me to think about how the population of our country would survive if electricity was taken away…forever. Life for those who never had it wouldn’t change much at all. Ours would be turned on its head.
My research covered a wide range of events that were either man-made, accidental, or natural disasters that caused large-scale power outages. Most only lasting a few days, but some lasting a few weeks. In every situation, the good and the bad in people hit both ends of the spectrum. In every situation when large groups of people were plunged into darkness, things went from bad to worse within 24 hours. The downward spiral didn’t change until power was restored.
WITHOUT and WITHOUT II – The Fall, are novels about what may happen if the lights go out…and they don’t come back. I wanted to immerse my character, and myself, into that world and push the boundaries of my creative process. I walked most of the route the character took. I lived without power for days. I was alone while doing both. I didn’t want to tell you what happened to the characters in my book. I wanted to show you.
Naturally the first things put into her were our mobile preps, 72 hour bug out bags, first aide kits, solar and crank powered lights and radios, extra bottles of all fluids the bus needs (like fuel additive, coolant, quick start spray, etc), and about a week’s worth the dry/canned goods. We’re not getting stranded if the bus breaks down, zombies rise up, solar flare or EMP takes out all electronic devices!
There’s lots left to do in the bus, whom we’ve named Jolene Lenore Freebird – including installing plumbing, propane cooktop, and tanks so she can either be shored at a park, or go off-grid without losing the basics of a home. We also need to have her vinyl wrapped so our store is recognizable, and she has some work that needs to be done on her electrical system. We’ve launched a Kickstarter campaign to help us achieve these goals – along with help us do some really awesome programming to help The Road Virus give back to the communities she visits, like literacy outreach, movie screenings, and a little free library. Please consider backing us – and bring the plague of literacy to a community near you!
In the Tarot, the death card doesn’t mean just death and destruction. It can mean change or a new way of looking at things. From this death, change follows rebirth and growth. It happens again and again around us every day in every aspect of our lives. The Apocalypse is in many ways the death card for the whole planet.
The last piece of our jigsaw puzzle is humanity. When you view a single human and compare them to similar sized animals, humans have no natural weapons, armour or fur. We often have poorer vision, no night vision, poorer hearing, slower movement and little sense of smell. Our success lies in our adaptability, ability to work together and use tools. We instinctively come together as groups and work together. We can build things to help our survival. These instincts won’t go away in times of adversity but often are strengthened.
One thing that takes people aback is in my settings the new societies are often rebuilding. I find it odd that people wouldn’t consider it. After all mankind is a builder. Maybe my real life job as an Engineer has coloured my view. In my experience there will always be someone who can fix, repair and build things. I have met many amazing individuals who despite no formal education can fix anything and build amazing looking vehicles. Not all knowledge would be lost. There will be people with things rattling around in their heads. Things that may help your group of survivors rebuild.
killed. It seemed like an easy decision: there’s no one in the road, I want to bomb this gap. Oh wait, a car came while I wasn’t looking. Smash. Lying bloody in the middle of road, unsure of who I was, so deep in shock.
Because that’s what happens to us, isn’t it? Or at least, it can be. In the wake of whatever catastrophic event we have in our personal lives, there is an opportunity. A window wherein we can be reborn, change profoundly and become someone different than who we were before.
My take on Apocalyptic fiction in general is one that is obsessed with rebirth. With the idea that apocalypse narratives are just macrocosms of our own lives. Sometimes it feels like we’ve destroyed our own world, that we feel so distant from who we used to be and what we used to believe. But where something is lost the opportunity for something new to be born arises. A new life can come from the part of us or our world that has died. That’s what I write about. That’s the story I want to tell of the apocalypse.
the genre and keep the audience anchored into the setting. Because a post-nuclear world necessarily requires advanced technology, the genre finds itself at a crossroad between sci-fi and fantasy, utilizing the social commentary of the former with the fantasticism of the latter. 
in both sci-fi and fantasy. Although outwardly techno-feudalism outwardly looks identical to traditional feudalism, where it diverges in post-nuclear fiction is at the means of collecting resources. Traditional feudalism is rooted in farming and the production of resources. Techno-feudalism is rooted in the scavenging of resources, both for convenience and because the secret to advanced (and even primitive) technology is lost on uneducated wastelanders. Scavenging is key to the setting. 
While exploring the wasteland, scavengers often come across pockets of radiation. In reality, radiation from nuclear weapons dissipates after a few months. In fiction, radiation is used as a placeholder for magic (again calling on traditional fantasy). Mutants (both human and beast), psychic powers, and unexplained anomalies are engrained in post-nuclear fiction. 
aliens cannot. Mutants, by their nature, rely on body horror. Generally, mutant designs are just a twist on something that already exists. For example, the Fallout franchise combined dogs and men into centaurs. The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. franchise has grotesque chimera and pseudogiants. A handful of franchises go a step further, adding sentient mutant races to interact with humans, filling a roll similar to Elves and Dwarves in fantasy or aliens in sci-fi. Mutants are engaging, as they encourage the audience to think about what other animals would look like in the setting. 
In many ways post-nuclear fiction is similar to sci-fi and fantasy. They all reflect societies where governments are loose, territorial, or non-existent. They all have monsters, but the manner in which those monsters express themselves through design and intelligence varies widely. All of these things help the audience to better connect with the genre, because although fictional, it is rooted in reality. The locations are the same, but they are presented in through the filter of destruction and radioactive horror. Given the opportunity, post-nuclear fiction can define the post-apocalyptic genre the same way Tolkien defined fantasy and Frank Herbert defined sci-fi. 
this case, we find that Negan, ruler of “The Saviors” is the “big boss”, enforcing his power through his liberal use of brutality and his special friend “Lucille”. I have previously discussed to the likelihood of a tendency for sociopaths to rise to the power in the post apocalypse (
Shiva! That’s right, A PET TIGER that actually comes along with a fairly detailed background story as well (maybe we will see more of this story in future episode flashbacks). How awesome is that!
left of his throat!
It’s odd that I haven’t mentioned The Terminator on this site before. It was one of the first end of the world movies to capture my imagination. In many ways, the movie and the concept really sparked the genesis of my odd apocalyptic preoccupation. The Terminator is one of my all time favorite movies. An awesome combination of a killer cyborg, time travel, the dawn of true artificial intelligence and nuclear war gets me every time.
Not only that, but we later find out (in Terminator 2) that Cyberdyne systems actually based most of its work off of the robotic arm and circuits that they found and studied from Terminator 1. Oh Boy! So did Skynet actually create itself accidentally by sending the first terminator back in time? Wow, time travel is fun isn’t it, if you can get past the headache! 🙂
After watching the first season of Fear the Walking Dead (FTWD) again, it occurred to me that we rarely see any type of substantial fictional exploration of addiction and the apocalypse. As you may or may not know, depending on whether you watch the show, one of the main characters is a heroin addict. He is one of the first characters that we meet on the show and is also one of the first to encounter zombies if indeed the outbreak started in California.
people” are the first stage of the human transformation into raiding cannibal clans.
