Recently in Apocalypse Watch Category

At the beginning of the year I said that I was going to read twelve post-apocalyptic books, inspired by John Joseph Adams' Wastelands anthology and the associated reading list.

I've done pretty well so far, I've read eight (two reviews outstanding!), the most notable ones that I haven't read so far being A Canticle for Leibowitz and Wastelands itself, which sold out at Amazon and missed being bought for my birthday :-( .

Enter the Octopus has a few more suggestions, some of which are non-fiction:

and A World Beyond Healing” by Nicholas Wade (which has no cover picture on Amazon).

Interesting, I shall investigate.

That post was, by the way, inspired by Cory Doctorow's post Post-apocalypse without the militias: The Outquisition, leading to a post on worldchanging.com, which talks about "super-networked post-apocalyptic Peace Corps who respond to the Great Fall by figuring out how to put it all back together". Sounds good to me. It's interesting stuff, and worth reading.

I should however point out that not all post-apocalyptic books are full of Mad Max style militia and violence and gloom (although most have doom, by definition). Some of the books I've read this year are in fact filled with hope in particular the wonderful Earth Abides and the fantastic Alas, Babylon.

On the Beach by Nevil Shute (UK / US) is one of the strangest and most depressing books that I have ever read. To understand why I make that statement I will have to talk not only about the plot but also the very end of the book. Take that as a spoiler warning.

The first thing that struck me is that the language in the book seems very old fashioned, and a bit stilted in places, having not read any other books by Nevil Shute I can't ascertain whether this is a deliberate attempt to invoke the age of the story, or the author's style. (The book was first published in 1957).

The story follows a handful of characters living in Melbourne , Australia, after a nuclear war. The Northern hemisphere has been decimated, and the Southern hemisphere tries to survive. However it is gradually revealed that the fallout has crossed the equator and is moving south in a final cloud of destruction.

It's not only the language which is stilted at times but also the characters actions. This, I'm fairly certain is deliberate, and conjures up images of "stiff-upper-lip" and extreme naivety. The characters carry on their every-day lives, either ignoring the impending doom by not believing it, or casually dismissing their inevitable demise by saying things like "we've only got a few months".

I thought the plot was going to take off at one point when a submarine is sent on a mission, up the coast of the USA. But no, because there is no escape, no hope, nowhere to run. Instead the plot just plods relentlessly towards the apocalypse.

What I found unbelievable was the apparent lack of chaos in the remaining cities. There are mentions of drunk people in the streets, but it's all glossed over, as if the worst that people would do is drink themselves towards the oblivion. It's a very optimistic view of humanity. Maybe it's correct? Even when the end is ever nearer people take their own lives in a dignified manner, choosing it almost matter-of-factly as the best choice. A farmer worries what will happen to his cows when he dies. A submarine commander feels he should go down with his ship. A sailor jumps ship to spend his days fishing, despite dangerous radiation. People go Salmon fishing in the mountains. Someone restores an old racing car. And so on.

The only horror is very near the end when the family we have been following become ill, baby included. And then there is disbelief, and grief and worry. And agonising over whether to take the baby's life. By this time I had become used to the language and the flow, and the horror cut through the disaffectedness very acutely.

And then everyone dies. Everyone.

It's a depressing sermon on the horror of nuclear weapons. It's the exact opposite of Alas Babylon. There's no hope, and because of this I didn't really enjoy the book. But I can appreciate it. I can't even imagine the impact it would have had if read on the year of it's publication, in the early years of the cold war, when destruction loomed at the press of a button.

Worth reading, but do it on a sunny day with your favourite things to hand.

My only encounter with David Brin's novels before The Postman (UK / US) was Sundiver (UK / US), which I didn't like very much. I had however seen the Kevin Costner film adaptation, which I thought wasn't too bad. Either way it was on my Apocalypse Watch reading list, so I read it.

 

Irwin Redlener, MD has tips on surviving a nuke. I knew that boy on the roof in Jericho was doing the wrong thing! Not sure about number 2 though, duck!

Via Boing Boing

I've said here before why I like Jericho, even though half way through the season I didn't think I should. I've just finished watching Season 1, so now what to I think?

I like it.

For all the reasons previously stated. The last few episodes, telling the tale of the war with New Bern, were the most disappointing for me in Science Fictional terms, but I can't deny that they were entertaining, and by then I really cared about the characters. It was less SF because it had basically devolved into a Western, with frontier towns and lawlessness overtaking the importance of living in a post-nuclear country.

I was also worried that the Hawkins plot would evolve into a sub-standard 24, all thriller with no heart and no SF, and it remains to be seen how that will play out in Season 2. But Hawkins did add an urgent plot amidst the struggling for survival and normality stories.

If Jericho had ended after Season 1 I would have been satisfied, the final episode ending in a blaze of guns and a black screen was very Butch and Sundance, but actually quite satisfying. After all the struggle against nature it comes down to man fighting man for survival.

I'm looking forward to Season 2.

The only Ballard I had previously read was Cocaine Nights, which though entertaining and weird was not exactly Science Fiction. So I was looking forward to The Drowned World (and yet another apocalypse).

What hit me first was the evocative writing, it's really dense, and provides a great image of what the world has become: a flooded, steamy jungle. The reason for the apocalypse is never explained, there are hints: a larger sun, a mention of Russia and America; but otherwise it's a mystery. And it's not a recent sudden apocalypse, with stories of populations shifting northwards and gradual flooding, giving the impression that the human race tried to fight, but in the end were overcome. It's all very trendy given the current concerns over the planet warming up.

The main plot follows Kerans, a researcher, as he slowly comes to realise that he doesn't want to return north from the expedition they are on. I found the plot quite weak, atmospheric yes, but not driving enough. I needed to force myself to read on, and despite the novel being thin (a mere 175 pages), it's taken me ages to finish it. I think this is because I just didn't care about the apathetic characters. But their apathy is part of the plot, they are regressing back in time to prehistoric creatures, who can do without social company.The arrival of a boat full of pirates (with alligators in tow) livens things up a bit, and there's a nice set piece that arises out of this, but overall the plot is subservient to the mood.

As for the message, it left me confused. Give up and adapt? Or you can't fight evolution and the memories buried in your genetic past? I don't know.

So, it was interesting, but not gripping.

I should also note that the most recent reprint has a recent interview with Ballard included at the end, along with an article from the sixties; which are interesting.

Earth Abides, by George R Stewart, is the story of one man, Isherwood Williams, who survived a viral apocalypse that wiped out most of mankind. Except it's not just the story of Ish, it's the story of a tribe that forms around him.

It took me a while to get into the book. The character seemed cold and distant, scientific and analysing. I wanted to know why he didn't panic more, fear more. And yet the story ends with intense emotion, Ish being a character that I deeply cared about, and the journey that Ish takes to get there is wonderful.

In many ways it's a great complemetary novel to Alas, Babylon, which tells the story of a year after an nuclear war, as opposed to a lifetime after a disaster. It's interesting to see how the focus can shift when the time length of the novel is elongated. Also in Earth Abides, there are fewer survivors in a larger city, which affects the populations survival methods quite drastically. There's a single sentence that mentions how (in later years) everyone has a tin opener, which is a lovely restrained way of making the reader realise how the scavenging becomes a normal way of life.

The story left me with hope, but also feeling a strange flavour of depression: that questioning feeling, the wondering of what is this all for. Jobs, houses, money, cars. The world. Life. It's a book that has set me off thinking deeply, and feeling deeply.

There are so many questions dealt with in the novel, and maybe they are not original, or even mind blowing on their own, but they accumulate throughtout the story, build and build, until by the end I was left longing for a simpler life.

Truly brilliant. Stay with it through the detached start of the story, it's part of the masterplan, and you will be rewarded.

Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank was published in 1959, in the time of The Missile Gap where the US assumed that the USSR had far greater nuclear capabilities than itself. It's hard to imagine now: Russia were the only country to put something in orbit, America didn't have ICBM's. The Cold War was in full force.

Alas, Babylon is the story of that American fear, a pre-emptive nuclear strike by Russia. The novel follows Randy Bragg, who lives in a small town in Florida. It is the story of how people cope with a nuclear attack, and how they survive in a town that is cut of by contaminated zones.

Again, it's hard to imagine the affect that the novel had when it was published. Nowadays we know the post-nuclear stories, we know about radiation and fallout, we know that hiding under your table is useless, we can imagine losing power and food. Alas, Babylon spells out these facts from a late fifties point of view. Suprisingly it's not bleak, but infused with hope. The main characters change as they struggle to create a new life, and change for the better. Although they encounter some lawlessness civillisation attempts to reassert itself upon the situation.

I thought the bank manager failing to cope in a world without money was a telling jab by Frank at the US's obsession with capitalism. The bank manager realises that all he has is paper: bonds, money. Nothing worthwhile. In the buying frenzy that follows the attacks the shop owners make a fortune in dollars but are left with no supplies themselves. That realisation is handled very well.

The story focuses on what you would need to do to survive: finding food, keeping healthy, managing petrol, managing the battery for their radio. How you would live in isolation from the world.

Only one line jarred with me, right at the end, when someone asks "who won the war?". It didn't quite work for me.

Overall it's an intelligent, interesting novel, and one that believes in hope after the nuclear apocalypse. Highly recommended.

The Road begins with brief sections, sometimes just a paragraph, highly descriptive, very evocative, like blinking: each time opening your eyes to see something new. The overall feel of the novel is cold, bleak, scary, harrowing. It is post-apocalyptic in a generally unspecified way: there is ash, and a burnt landscape and cold and dark. The plot follows a journey of a man and his son, to somewhere, anywhere.

It captures the hopelessness of an apocalypse better than anything I have ever read. Forget electricity, there is not even food. And fire is sometimes avoided so as to not attract unwanted attention. No one can be trusted. Everywhere is abandoned.

I read most of it with a knot in my stomach.

There is no hope. Just fear. Perhaps the ending is supposed to provide hope, to illuminate the good in some of mankind. It just left me depressed.

Undoubtedly great writing to make me feel so much. But not pleasant.

Jericho is up to episode 15 on ITV4, and I'm really enjoying it. But somehow I feel like I shouldn't. In an attempt to explore those tensions as shall do what has become traditional on blogs, and make a list...

5 Reasons I Should Hate Jericho

1. It's not original. Small town survival after a nuclear apocalypse has been done by Alas, Babylon (Pat Frank). Multiple nukes exploding throughout the USA has been done by The Wild Shore (Kim Stanley Robinson). And that's just the two that come to mind, there's probably lots more.
   
2. Its too American. All that small-town stuff is so cheesey. Hokey is I believe the word. It's so foreign and false and UnBritish. Every small town I've been to in the USA was more like Twin Peaks.
   
3. There are mistakes. Logical mistakes, probably deliberate and used to drive the plot e.g. Hawkins uses his computer inside, then for some reason opens a big dish outside, just so that Jake can see it.
   
4. It reminds me of Dawson's Creek. Or maybe Echo Beach. One of those airbrushed soaps aimed at teenagers where relationships are off and on and off again.
   
5. One of the main characters is / was "the mayor". It just doesn't translate. Have you seen an example of a British mayor?
   

5 Reasons I Like Jericho

1. It's set today. Which means that there are modern twists on surviving the apocalypse. When they go to the library to find out about nuclear fallout they discover that all the books were written in the 50's.
   
2. It concentrates in survival issues. Keeping warm, maintaining electricity production, getting food, all the basic apocalyptic things that need to be taken care of.
   
3. It steals the good bits. Okay, it's not original, but it takes the cool bits from all the compost of previous apocalyptic fiction and pulls out some golden flowers. Sometimes they're just little references ( e.g. the mass migration to warmer climes), but I like them
   
4. There's something bigger going on. It's all still a mystery. What actually happened?
   
5. It's a nuclear apocalypse! And you just can't beat that.