Nick Cole's Blog
January 12, 2016
Post Apocalyptic Thoughts...
Just some thoughts I developed after working on my latest PA Novel. Thought I might share.
In the very likely event that society does actually collapse the chances are it's not gonna be neat. As in... it might not happen with all your assets in order. Figures, it never does. In this instance "assets "might mean loved ones. Your loved ones might be abroad, in town, or stuck in the pandemonium of a big city mired in an ongoing crisis.
You've spec'd out your compound and your food, water, and shelter are in order along with a good preparedness and defensive plan. But what about those beyond the perimeter. Here're a couple of tips to find the missing, kids, loved ones, elderly relatives who need help, and get them back to your safe zone.
First Off:
Don't do anything. At first. They know where you're at. Give them an opportunity to extricate themselves from the situation they're in. It's important to maintain the safe zone you've set up. Leaving it in the critical first few days of a disaster opens you up to losing it, or getting into a situation yourself. So, for the moment sit tight and try to use every available means i.e. social media, cell service, those who might be able to get a message to your loved one, and email to get in touch with that person and find out what their situation is and remind them about the plan you've discussed in advance. (Right? You have a plan? Your tribe knows the details?)
Next...
Time passes and they don't arrive.
It's time to go get'em or ascertain what happened to them. This is a big choice. It's probably not safe, and its not the best decision. More people from the cities are going to be moving out into the hinterlands with the idea that food is just lying on the ground out there and its safer. When they figure out that's not the case they'll begin to act up with an eye towards those who took the time to prepare.
But, you decide to head into town, or the big city, and find your loved one.
11. Have a plan. This plan will be an analysis of that persons lifestyle, contacts and what you estimate they might do in an emergency. It will also take into account the current situation regarding routes leading into the search area and the search area itself. Don't leave your safe zone without leaving instructions about your next move, where you've gone, and when you'll return.
2. Search like a Native. The first tip is to blend in. If you're heading into a FEMA camp situation on the outskirts of a city that got hit by a dirty nuke, don't look well fed, well armed and gear'd out. Look like a desperate survivor who will do just about anything to stay alive. Law enforcement is probably martial or non-existent, so you don't want to present an easy target to the gangs that will invariably develop in this type of situation. Plus you don't want them to do a little detective work and follow you back to your safe zone. So search quietly.
3. Search Smart and keep it Personal. Search the last known position of your target. Gather info at the location. Identify messages, items missing, medications needed. Check answering machines and calendars. Know what they were doing on the day everything went sideways. Don't start anywhere else. Start from the known and work toward the unknown. Most people have a home, a job and some friends. Eliminate all these scenarios for contact before entering the public sphere.
Finally, if your search, or a lack of leads, draws you to the FEMA camps and the database (Either paperwork or a fence with "Have you seen me" pictures) that may occur, spend a day or two observing from abroad. Find out what the situation is. Are they allowing people to come and go? Is it safe? Can you visually spot your target? Any questions that will help you to make the judgement call on whether to take your search in this direction. If you decide to enter these type of camps then see Rule Number One and do accordingly. Have a story that's just like everyone else. Get into the camp and find out what the system is for locating your loved one. Work and try to improve people's lot in life. You'll catch more flies with honey than Tabasco. And finally, don't enter the camp without having a way of leaving, whether they want you to or not. If all else fails...
5. Search the Back Trail. If you don't find your target in any of the above situations you're left with one conclusion. They (the target) went to find you and the Safe Zone. Knowing what you know now from your time on the ground, follow the most direct route a survivor would take to reach your location. Look for nightly camps, listen to local rumors and keep moving. Consider carrying a spray paint can and leaving messages on the sides of buildings alerting your target to your presence and intentions. But, do it in code and be vague. As in, "Sue, We're at cabin". No details.
I got to thinking about this type of scenario while working on a book I just published about America in the last days of a Pandemic. Survivors might be separated by a continent, but the heart wants what it wants. You might just have to make a long journey to find that lost loved one. Chances are you'd want them to do the same for you, if you were in some kind of tight scrape. These are just a few thoughts for you should that scenario ever occur.
Nick Cole is a former soldier and working actor living in Southern California. When he is not auditioning for commercials, going out for sitcoms or being shot, kicked, stabbed or beaten by the students of various film schools for their projects, he can be found writing books. His latest book is The End of the World as We Knew It.
In the very likely event that society does actually collapse the chances are it's not gonna be neat. As in... it might not happen with all your assets in order. Figures, it never does. In this instance "assets "might mean loved ones. Your loved ones might be abroad, in town, or stuck in the pandemonium of a big city mired in an ongoing crisis.
You've spec'd out your compound and your food, water, and shelter are in order along with a good preparedness and defensive plan. But what about those beyond the perimeter. Here're a couple of tips to find the missing, kids, loved ones, elderly relatives who need help, and get them back to your safe zone.
First Off:
Don't do anything. At first. They know where you're at. Give them an opportunity to extricate themselves from the situation they're in. It's important to maintain the safe zone you've set up. Leaving it in the critical first few days of a disaster opens you up to losing it, or getting into a situation yourself. So, for the moment sit tight and try to use every available means i.e. social media, cell service, those who might be able to get a message to your loved one, and email to get in touch with that person and find out what their situation is and remind them about the plan you've discussed in advance. (Right? You have a plan? Your tribe knows the details?)
Next...
Time passes and they don't arrive.
It's time to go get'em or ascertain what happened to them. This is a big choice. It's probably not safe, and its not the best decision. More people from the cities are going to be moving out into the hinterlands with the idea that food is just lying on the ground out there and its safer. When they figure out that's not the case they'll begin to act up with an eye towards those who took the time to prepare.
But, you decide to head into town, or the big city, and find your loved one.
11. Have a plan. This plan will be an analysis of that persons lifestyle, contacts and what you estimate they might do in an emergency. It will also take into account the current situation regarding routes leading into the search area and the search area itself. Don't leave your safe zone without leaving instructions about your next move, where you've gone, and when you'll return.
2. Search like a Native. The first tip is to blend in. If you're heading into a FEMA camp situation on the outskirts of a city that got hit by a dirty nuke, don't look well fed, well armed and gear'd out. Look like a desperate survivor who will do just about anything to stay alive. Law enforcement is probably martial or non-existent, so you don't want to present an easy target to the gangs that will invariably develop in this type of situation. Plus you don't want them to do a little detective work and follow you back to your safe zone. So search quietly.
3. Search Smart and keep it Personal. Search the last known position of your target. Gather info at the location. Identify messages, items missing, medications needed. Check answering machines and calendars. Know what they were doing on the day everything went sideways. Don't start anywhere else. Start from the known and work toward the unknown. Most people have a home, a job and some friends. Eliminate all these scenarios for contact before entering the public sphere.
Finally, if your search, or a lack of leads, draws you to the FEMA camps and the database (Either paperwork or a fence with "Have you seen me" pictures) that may occur, spend a day or two observing from abroad. Find out what the situation is. Are they allowing people to come and go? Is it safe? Can you visually spot your target? Any questions that will help you to make the judgement call on whether to take your search in this direction. If you decide to enter these type of camps then see Rule Number One and do accordingly. Have a story that's just like everyone else. Get into the camp and find out what the system is for locating your loved one. Work and try to improve people's lot in life. You'll catch more flies with honey than Tabasco. And finally, don't enter the camp without having a way of leaving, whether they want you to or not. If all else fails...
5. Search the Back Trail. If you don't find your target in any of the above situations you're left with one conclusion. They (the target) went to find you and the Safe Zone. Knowing what you know now from your time on the ground, follow the most direct route a survivor would take to reach your location. Look for nightly camps, listen to local rumors and keep moving. Consider carrying a spray paint can and leaving messages on the sides of buildings alerting your target to your presence and intentions. But, do it in code and be vague. As in, "Sue, We're at cabin". No details.
I got to thinking about this type of scenario while working on a book I just published about America in the last days of a Pandemic. Survivors might be separated by a continent, but the heart wants what it wants. You might just have to make a long journey to find that lost loved one. Chances are you'd want them to do the same for you, if you were in some kind of tight scrape. These are just a few thoughts for you should that scenario ever occur.
Nick Cole is a former soldier and working actor living in Southern California. When he is not auditioning for commercials, going out for sitcoms or being shot, kicked, stabbed or beaten by the students of various film schools for their projects, he can be found writing books. His latest book is The End of the World as We Knew It.
December 2, 2015
How I Destroyed the World
Every book has got to begin somewhere. Often the circumstances, though seemingly fantastic, say as found in a Space Opera, are still pastoral. Setting is the way life is, and the characters within have only ever known it that way. But in the world of Post-Apocalyptic fiction, or PA fiction, the change from pastoral to doomsday is part of the tale.
And that’s where readers of PA find the sweet spot…
They want the world turned upside down, shaken not stirred and served into a cracked martini glass at a roadside fortress gas station where everyone wears leather, drives souped-up Dodge Chargers and carries a shotgun. Maybe. Or at least some of them do.
But first we’ve got to depart the regular gas station, and that 44 oz. Big Gulp we can have any time we want. Or, life as we currently know it. To do that, the PA writer needs to set the stage. The opening act is the final act. Or simply put, the world’s got to go.
So for those who read this blog, I’ll outline how I blew up the world. I don’t do this in the book, The Old Man and the Wasteland. So, here’s how it all went down…
We start with a new 9/11.
A terrorist cell manages to poison most of lower Manhattan with a dirty bomb and then a Mumbai-style ambush against first responders. After a week, the last of the terrorists have been killed and the casualties are enormous and mounting, due to radiation sickness. Manhattan is finished and a global capital is effectively terminated.
An American President, politically moderate before the attack, shifts wildly to the militant-right as the nation calls for a bloodletting. American forces airstrike three middle-eastern capitals. Let’s go with Damascus, Tripoli, and Tehran. An American expeditionary force lands in North Africa with the intent of a Sherman’s March to the Sea-style invasion in an effort to devastate the Muslim world.
Mid-invasion, a charter airliner flashing the correct Homeland Security transponder codes, explodes at high altitude over the Northern Hemisphere of the Unites States. The powerful EMP disables most everything from cell phones to toasters to early warning radar detection systems (Unless they happened to be switched off at the time of the pulse.) Within hours the city of Dallas experiences a high yield, low altitude nuclear explosion delivered by terrorist cells operating out of Mexico and piloting drone aircraft.Help Wanted
The next day, it’s Seattle.
Miami.
Pittsburgh.
For the next two weeks, a city a day is destroyed by drone-piloted, nuclear weapon carrying aircraft. The bombs are mostly low yield but there are some medium-yield bombs.
Emergency services are strained and collapse.
American citizens abandon their cities en masse.
A coalition of Muslim countries announce that the drone strikes, funded and powered by Chinese technology stolen from U.S. developers, will continue until The American Army, currently driving toward Saudi Arabia, surrenders completely.
The President of the United States authorizes a full scale nuclear strike by bomber aircraft against all the major capitals of the Middle East. Bombers receive their codes and commence their attack.
A Chinese fleet preemptively strikes the Northwestern United States. The President authorizes the use of T-LAN nuclear ordinance to repel the invasion.
China launches her entire nuclear arsenal in response to the loss of her fleet.
America retaliates with all her silo-based nuclear weapons.
Russia invades Central and Western Europe. Nuclear weapons are exchanged by France, England, and Germany against targets on their own soil and in Russia.
Pakistan and India exchange nuclear weapons.
News and information, accurate facts, a clear winner in any conflict is beyond determination. The world is beset by raging wildfires, disease, and starvation at heretofore unimagined levels. Within months, months of darkness due to the ash cloud that surrounds the earth, a mini ice age descends across much of the planet. A two year nuclear winter ensues.
Pictured from space by the few remaining Satellites that still circle the planet, the Earth is much the same. Except that it is completely dark on the sunless side of the terminator. Gone are the lights of cities and civilization that once burned in the night. Only the occasional large-acreage forest fire, burning out of control, can be seen in the night.
Thirty-eight years later, a survivor considered Seventy-Eight days unlucky, departs his village at dawn. He will either find something of use to his village or never return. His only companions are the words and wisdom of Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. Thus begins...
The Old Man and the Wasteland
http://amzn.to/1INZ1HC
And that’s where readers of PA find the sweet spot…
They want the world turned upside down, shaken not stirred and served into a cracked martini glass at a roadside fortress gas station where everyone wears leather, drives souped-up Dodge Chargers and carries a shotgun. Maybe. Or at least some of them do.
But first we’ve got to depart the regular gas station, and that 44 oz. Big Gulp we can have any time we want. Or, life as we currently know it. To do that, the PA writer needs to set the stage. The opening act is the final act. Or simply put, the world’s got to go.
So for those who read this blog, I’ll outline how I blew up the world. I don’t do this in the book, The Old Man and the Wasteland. So, here’s how it all went down…
We start with a new 9/11.
A terrorist cell manages to poison most of lower Manhattan with a dirty bomb and then a Mumbai-style ambush against first responders. After a week, the last of the terrorists have been killed and the casualties are enormous and mounting, due to radiation sickness. Manhattan is finished and a global capital is effectively terminated.
An American President, politically moderate before the attack, shifts wildly to the militant-right as the nation calls for a bloodletting. American forces airstrike three middle-eastern capitals. Let’s go with Damascus, Tripoli, and Tehran. An American expeditionary force lands in North Africa with the intent of a Sherman’s March to the Sea-style invasion in an effort to devastate the Muslim world.
Mid-invasion, a charter airliner flashing the correct Homeland Security transponder codes, explodes at high altitude over the Northern Hemisphere of the Unites States. The powerful EMP disables most everything from cell phones to toasters to early warning radar detection systems (Unless they happened to be switched off at the time of the pulse.) Within hours the city of Dallas experiences a high yield, low altitude nuclear explosion delivered by terrorist cells operating out of Mexico and piloting drone aircraft.Help Wanted
The next day, it’s Seattle.
Miami.
Pittsburgh.
For the next two weeks, a city a day is destroyed by drone-piloted, nuclear weapon carrying aircraft. The bombs are mostly low yield but there are some medium-yield bombs.
Emergency services are strained and collapse.
American citizens abandon their cities en masse.
A coalition of Muslim countries announce that the drone strikes, funded and powered by Chinese technology stolen from U.S. developers, will continue until The American Army, currently driving toward Saudi Arabia, surrenders completely.
The President of the United States authorizes a full scale nuclear strike by bomber aircraft against all the major capitals of the Middle East. Bombers receive their codes and commence their attack.
A Chinese fleet preemptively strikes the Northwestern United States. The President authorizes the use of T-LAN nuclear ordinance to repel the invasion.
China launches her entire nuclear arsenal in response to the loss of her fleet.
America retaliates with all her silo-based nuclear weapons.
Russia invades Central and Western Europe. Nuclear weapons are exchanged by France, England, and Germany against targets on their own soil and in Russia.
Pakistan and India exchange nuclear weapons.
News and information, accurate facts, a clear winner in any conflict is beyond determination. The world is beset by raging wildfires, disease, and starvation at heretofore unimagined levels. Within months, months of darkness due to the ash cloud that surrounds the earth, a mini ice age descends across much of the planet. A two year nuclear winter ensues.
Pictured from space by the few remaining Satellites that still circle the planet, the Earth is much the same. Except that it is completely dark on the sunless side of the terminator. Gone are the lights of cities and civilization that once burned in the night. Only the occasional large-acreage forest fire, burning out of control, can be seen in the night.
Thirty-eight years later, a survivor considered Seventy-Eight days unlucky, departs his village at dawn. He will either find something of use to his village or never return. His only companions are the words and wisdom of Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. Thus begins...
The Old Man and the Wasteland
http://amzn.to/1INZ1HC
November 12, 2015
Post Apocalyptia is the Only Acceptable Schadenfreude
schadenfreude
noun, scha·den·freu·de
"a feeling of enjoyment that comes from seeing or hearing about the troubles of other people."
Apocalypse Tomorrow
The world ends as we know it, and you feel fine? Or at least you enjoying watching movies about it like the coming Mad Max: Fury Road, or reading about it in the myriad of PA books available.
For most people the world ending is a source of fear, trepidation, concern even. Some go to great lengths to survive promised nuclear Armageddons or threatened global pandemics. Supplies are purchased in bulk, skills are learned, weapons stockpiled, all in hopes of surviving the worst case scenario ever imagined by the writers of any Bruckheimer summer blockbuster. But for others, it’s the ultimate game of Survivor.
For these, the end of the world is a source of pleasure. Reading pleasure, that is. Welcome to the wild and wonderful side street alley Science Fiction calls Post-Apocalyptic fiction, or PA for short.
Once we pass through the greats of the sub-genre, i.e. Canticle for Liebowtiz, Earth Abides, The Road, etc., we get down to the pulp fiction. Here we find the Former Navy Seal who can do just about anything, the saavy teen phenom with a penchant for solving her problems with a bow, and even the ‘prepper’ who’s learned every skill and stockpiled everything one might need to survive. This last book might usually begin with a laundry list of supplies similar to the IKEA shopping fantasy one finds in a Stieg Laarsen novel. So don’t be surprised when the protagonist pulls out that pair of wound-specific medical clamps from within the bunker.
Once we have a firm hero in mind, the Post-Apocalyptic world is revealed. To be more specific, what’s left of the world is revealed. Our hero journeys through the fallen Starbucks and fortress Wal-Marts of a crumbling world turned upside down.
And this is where I find the beauty of Post-Apocalyptia.
I love to imagine the ‘What If’ particulars of ‘what if it all went sideways’. I have been doing this for some time. I suspect this habit may have begun on the Sunday evening before that fifth grade State report assigned at the beginning of the year was finally due. Why did I pick North Dakota?! Since then, when things get rough, the bills are due, I didn't get that job, or it’s someone’s wedding, I tend to engage in a bit of Catastrophic Dreaming. It happens a lot, even when I’ve got a few minutes to kill on the road. For example, I give you this happy accident: Just a few days ago I was driving to downtown Los Angeles. It was a Saturday and all the freeways were jammed. Eventually the 710 slowed to a crawl and the traffic report blared that things didn’t look so good for the 5 and 101 interchange. So, taking the path less traveled, I cut up Firestone Boulevard all the Way to Alameda, turned right, sighted the towers and office buildings of downtown and made a straight dash for my destination. A word of note here, this area is Rodney King Riot Country. Since 1992, it has been a place you don’t willingly enter. So I hadn't, ever in fact. It wasn't altogether safe, but it wasn't as bad as my imagination had envisioned it in all those years of driving the 710, and when I turned onto Alameda, I found Post-Apocalyptia.
I found a long line of salvage yards ringed with barbed wire. Tall concrete warehouses with few window openings. Wide spaces to see your enemies coming. All in the southern shadow of the heights of Downtown Los Angeles.
I thought, as I usually do when dreaming up global destruction, how would this place hold up given the end of the world? When I’m at Anthropolgie watching my wife shop, I usually find the answer is, not well. Malls, the obvious 1980’s B movie screenwriters’ choice for setting the end of the world tale, in my opinion won’t hold up too well. Hard to defend, obvious targets, too many entrances. Or if I’m watching my favorite player not hit homeruns for the Angles, I think, wow, Anaheim stadium would be like a Post-Apocalyptia Castle sitting astride two freeways, like some medieval fortress from which a minor warlord might torment the local population.
Back to the salvage yards south of downtown Los Angeles - great places. Already set up to defend their loot. Lots of scrap to construct armor, both personal and vehicular. Off the beaten track. A great place to hunker down and plan your next move.
This is Post-Apocalyptia. This is PA fiction. The thrill is in the setting. Envisioning the ‘what if everything I know doesn't work, burns down, or I must flee from’. Regular Science Fiction and Fantasy ask you to envision sometimes impossible landscapes. So unless you’ve been to Outer Mongolia and Death Valley, I don’t think anyone’s got a really firm picture of Mordor. And I still can’t even get my mind around Alastair Reynolds’ Glitter Band from The Revelation Space Novels. But my neighborhood two years after a viral doomsday. The skeletal remains of New York City. A burning IHOP surrounded by zombies. I can picture that.
And therein lies the special thrill PA readers seek when delving wastelands both suburban and desolate. The thrill of what happened at the mall. The airport. The deepest depths of The Wasteland. PA readers want to see what End of the World tricks the writer can play with these places we live in, pass along the highway or have seen in the movies. It’s fun.
What will become of this place?
What will become of me?
Nick Cole is the author of The End of the World as We Knew It.
"In the future, an artist specializing in historical records creates a piece of art based on three separate accounts of the Pandemic. What follows is a patchwork tale of survival and horror as two lovers struggle to survive the undying dead and the collapse of an America turned charnel house. Told as memos from Ground Zero, and later in the journal of a Dark Tower-like quest by train and foot across a nightmare landscape of ruined cities and raving corpses, the three accounts reveal more than just the grim realities of society’s collapse. The Notebook meets The Walking Dead in this stained glass depiction of the end of the world as we knew it.'
Get it here:
http://amzn.to/1JgW5Fq
noun, scha·den·freu·de
"a feeling of enjoyment that comes from seeing or hearing about the troubles of other people."
Apocalypse Tomorrow
The world ends as we know it, and you feel fine? Or at least you enjoying watching movies about it like the coming Mad Max: Fury Road, or reading about it in the myriad of PA books available.
For most people the world ending is a source of fear, trepidation, concern even. Some go to great lengths to survive promised nuclear Armageddons or threatened global pandemics. Supplies are purchased in bulk, skills are learned, weapons stockpiled, all in hopes of surviving the worst case scenario ever imagined by the writers of any Bruckheimer summer blockbuster. But for others, it’s the ultimate game of Survivor.
For these, the end of the world is a source of pleasure. Reading pleasure, that is. Welcome to the wild and wonderful side street alley Science Fiction calls Post-Apocalyptic fiction, or PA for short.
Once we pass through the greats of the sub-genre, i.e. Canticle for Liebowtiz, Earth Abides, The Road, etc., we get down to the pulp fiction. Here we find the Former Navy Seal who can do just about anything, the saavy teen phenom with a penchant for solving her problems with a bow, and even the ‘prepper’ who’s learned every skill and stockpiled everything one might need to survive. This last book might usually begin with a laundry list of supplies similar to the IKEA shopping fantasy one finds in a Stieg Laarsen novel. So don’t be surprised when the protagonist pulls out that pair of wound-specific medical clamps from within the bunker.
Once we have a firm hero in mind, the Post-Apocalyptic world is revealed. To be more specific, what’s left of the world is revealed. Our hero journeys through the fallen Starbucks and fortress Wal-Marts of a crumbling world turned upside down.
And this is where I find the beauty of Post-Apocalyptia.
I love to imagine the ‘What If’ particulars of ‘what if it all went sideways’. I have been doing this for some time. I suspect this habit may have begun on the Sunday evening before that fifth grade State report assigned at the beginning of the year was finally due. Why did I pick North Dakota?! Since then, when things get rough, the bills are due, I didn't get that job, or it’s someone’s wedding, I tend to engage in a bit of Catastrophic Dreaming. It happens a lot, even when I’ve got a few minutes to kill on the road. For example, I give you this happy accident: Just a few days ago I was driving to downtown Los Angeles. It was a Saturday and all the freeways were jammed. Eventually the 710 slowed to a crawl and the traffic report blared that things didn’t look so good for the 5 and 101 interchange. So, taking the path less traveled, I cut up Firestone Boulevard all the Way to Alameda, turned right, sighted the towers and office buildings of downtown and made a straight dash for my destination. A word of note here, this area is Rodney King Riot Country. Since 1992, it has been a place you don’t willingly enter. So I hadn't, ever in fact. It wasn't altogether safe, but it wasn't as bad as my imagination had envisioned it in all those years of driving the 710, and when I turned onto Alameda, I found Post-Apocalyptia.
I found a long line of salvage yards ringed with barbed wire. Tall concrete warehouses with few window openings. Wide spaces to see your enemies coming. All in the southern shadow of the heights of Downtown Los Angeles.
I thought, as I usually do when dreaming up global destruction, how would this place hold up given the end of the world? When I’m at Anthropolgie watching my wife shop, I usually find the answer is, not well. Malls, the obvious 1980’s B movie screenwriters’ choice for setting the end of the world tale, in my opinion won’t hold up too well. Hard to defend, obvious targets, too many entrances. Or if I’m watching my favorite player not hit homeruns for the Angles, I think, wow, Anaheim stadium would be like a Post-Apocalyptia Castle sitting astride two freeways, like some medieval fortress from which a minor warlord might torment the local population.
Back to the salvage yards south of downtown Los Angeles - great places. Already set up to defend their loot. Lots of scrap to construct armor, both personal and vehicular. Off the beaten track. A great place to hunker down and plan your next move.
This is Post-Apocalyptia. This is PA fiction. The thrill is in the setting. Envisioning the ‘what if everything I know doesn't work, burns down, or I must flee from’. Regular Science Fiction and Fantasy ask you to envision sometimes impossible landscapes. So unless you’ve been to Outer Mongolia and Death Valley, I don’t think anyone’s got a really firm picture of Mordor. And I still can’t even get my mind around Alastair Reynolds’ Glitter Band from The Revelation Space Novels. But my neighborhood two years after a viral doomsday. The skeletal remains of New York City. A burning IHOP surrounded by zombies. I can picture that.
And therein lies the special thrill PA readers seek when delving wastelands both suburban and desolate. The thrill of what happened at the mall. The airport. The deepest depths of The Wasteland. PA readers want to see what End of the World tricks the writer can play with these places we live in, pass along the highway or have seen in the movies. It’s fun.
What will become of this place?
What will become of me?
Nick Cole is the author of The End of the World as We Knew It.
"In the future, an artist specializing in historical records creates a piece of art based on three separate accounts of the Pandemic. What follows is a patchwork tale of survival and horror as two lovers struggle to survive the undying dead and the collapse of an America turned charnel house. Told as memos from Ground Zero, and later in the journal of a Dark Tower-like quest by train and foot across a nightmare landscape of ruined cities and raving corpses, the three accounts reveal more than just the grim realities of society’s collapse. The Notebook meets The Walking Dead in this stained glass depiction of the end of the world as we knew it.'
Get it here:
http://amzn.to/1JgW5Fq
