The Perfect Place

More from my apocalypse survival guide. Which I’m really not sure what to do with. I still haven’t made a blog for it (as you may have noticed), but I don’t know how to make it work.

Anyway, like in real estate, surviving the apocalypse requires location-location-LOCATION. Pick a bad one, and you’re screwed.

The Mall

Pros:    Lots of stores means lots of supplies.

            Plenty of space for a lot of people.

            Can finally take everything you want without consequence.

Cons:   There are a lot of entrances you’ll have to guard.

            The amount of supplies you have access to depends on a lot of things, like how big the mall is, how well-stocked it is, and what kind of stores it has (you’re not very secure in a mall filled with clothing stores).

            There’s no electricity to power all the fancy stuff you steal.

Grocery Store

Pros:    Tons of food, which is the most important thing to have access to (besides water, of course).

            Should have plenty of water, too, so you’re good there.

            Not as much space as a mall, but still a lot.

            Smaller means fewer entrances and easier to defend.

Cons:   All that fresh meat and produce is going to go bad real fast.

            Plus there’s a bunch of things like cake mixes and spices that aren’t going to be much good.

            Seriously, everyone is going to try and raid the grocery store. You’re in for a tough fight.

Warehouse Club Store

Pros:    Basically a big grocery store.

            Has random things that can be useful, like clothes and tires, which could be useful.

            Some of these places sell guns.

Cons:   A lot of useless stuff (although not as much as a mall). We’re probably not going to need cheap phones and OPEN signs during the apocalypse.

            Another prime target for looters.

Survival Bunker

Pros:    Isolated can be good, depending on the apocalypse.

            You won’t have as many annoying people to deal with.

Cons:   There’s no one around to help you.

            Unless you’ve managed to become self-sustaining, you are going to have to leave for supplies at some point.

            You better hope you don’t get locked in.

Your House/Apartment

Pros:    Duh, it’s your house.

            Most people are going to hit stores first, so you should be okay for a while.

Cons:   There’s going to be some risk in going out for supplies.

            Depending on the type of apocalypse, your house might not be safe (it could get melted by lava or slide off into the ocean or something).

            Your house might not be secure enough to keep you alive in a lawless, post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Where will you ride out the apocalypse?

Future Tense

This doesn’t actually have anything to do with tenses—it’s not Thursday, so it’s not word time. It’s just a title.

I believe I have the idea that will turn into the book I write this year. It takes place in the far future and, shockingly enough, there’s not an apocalyptic (or post-apocalyptic) thing about it.

I can sense your shock. After all, this is me we’re talking about here. The last four books I’ve written have been varying degrees of apocalyptic. But not this one. Could it be…that I’ve finally run out of apocalyptic scenarios? What a depressing thought.

Anyway, while my not writing an apocalyptic story is clearly a tragedy, it does give me the chance to explore something else. Really, my new project isn’t all that different from my other works. It’s an action story with a sci-fi bent, just like four of the previous five (the fifth being an action story with a paranormal bent). There’s a little more sci-fi this time around, what with it taking place about five hundred years from now, but it takes place on Earth and there are no aliens of any kind, so it’s a far cry from hard science fiction. Plus, the biggest shocker of all, it’s not YA.

I know. Let that sink in for a minute.

I’m really having a lot of fun with it—a bit too much, since I haven’t been keeping up with all the things I’m supposed to be doing for REMEMBER. But I’m using being stressed out by querying as an excuse. It’s a lot easier to get lost in a new project than an old one.

What have you guys been up to lately? Do you stick to one genre, or do you like to stretch your writing muscles in other ones, too?

Apocalypses Now

[This is what I’m going for in my new Apocalypse Survival Guide. Any thoughts or critiques you could give would help a lot. Is it funny? More pictures? Does it need more than five list items?]

There are several types of apocalypses that could destroy the world. Zombies. Aliens. Turning the world into cake. Robots. No matter what the Armageddon, there will be some general rules that apply.

And for the record, this has nothing to do with the Bruce Willis movie, so get that out of your head right now.

Top 5 Rules for Living through an Apocalypse

5. Be sure to boil all your water before you drink it. Even if it’s from pipes, it’s not like the waste-treatment plants are running anymore. Boil it so you don’t get the runs, because do you really want to die from dehydration due to diarrhea? Do you?

4. Looting will be in effect, so be sure to get your butt down to the grocery store and start filling your cart with canned goods. Fill your house with them. Seriously. There should be rooms you can’t get into because they are stuffed to the top with cans of tomato soup. Or some other kind of soup. Or not soup at all.

Okay, these are actually beer, but imagine that it's food. This is what your spare room should look like.

3. Find a doctor. Just stick around him/her all the time, keep them and their family alive, give them food and stuff so when you’re appendix bursts you’re not being operated on be a laid-off factory worker with a medical book.

2. Gas has an expiration date. You might think you’re smart by filling a swimming pool with gas for your generator, but it’s only good for a couple of months. Then you have a pool filled with poison that can’t be used for anything. Yes, this means that something about The Walking Dead is unrealistic besides the characters.

1. Get used to eating rats, squirrels, small birds, and dogs that can’t be used for hunting. Think about it. Is a giant Marmaduke dog better at catching small game, or making a Sunday dinner for the whole family?

Look at that. That could feed your family for a week, minimum.

Apocalypse Log

Do any of you remember those posts I did about preparations for the Rapture? It was in 2011 after that guy was talking about how the world was going to end in May although I don’t think it did. I suppose it’s possible we’re all hallucinating this at the same time. Really, it would explain a lot.

Anyway, I (just) got to thinking about making that a regular thing, maybe a completely separate blog about survival guides for various apocalyptic scenarios. For example, there’s been a zombie outbreak. While the general wisdom is to shoot them in the head, who’s to say that would work? It didn’t in Return of the Living Dead.

Plus, there are other possible apocalypses. What if there’s a robot rising? What do you do (get lots and lots of magnetic strips)? What don’t you do (time travel and mess causality up so much no one can keep it straight)? Let’s not forget a possible The Stand-like contagion, or invading aliens (you really shouldn’t trust germs to kill them seeing how they evolved on a completely different planet and Earth bacteria would have no effect on them). People could be dying out there without any survival guides for these scenarios.

What do you guys think? Do you have any other apocalyptic scenarios? What apocalyptic books/movies/television shows do you know about?

Speculative

As I’m sure I mentioned, I started on a new project and instead of being apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic, it’s urban fantasy (gasp!) with an apocalyptic twist. Now, I’ve written urban fantasy before, but that was a long time ago, before I had a good grasp on writing. I’m still getting a feel for the story, but I like how it’s going. Plus I realized that it was still speculative fiction, which is most definitely my forte.

But “speculative fiction” is a funny title. Yes, what I’m writing is pretty close to what I usually do, but why are fantasy and apocalyptic under the same classification? If you look at something like LORD OF THE RINGS, you’re not going to mistake it for THE HUNGER GAMES. They’re nothing alike.

It happens that speculative fiction is basically the catch all term for any genre with things happening that don’t really happen. Or, as in the case of alternate history, didn’t really happen.

Then you can get into the subgenres and things get even more complicated. The family tree I posted up there hardly encompasses all the speculative offshoots. Science fantasy, dark fantasy (horror fantasy), and all the crosses with non-speculative genres. Suffice to say, it’s one incestuous family tree.

Really, as a name, speculative fiction doesn’t say much. Science fiction is speculative. Horror is speculative. But science fiction isn’t necessarily horror, nor vice versa. Unless the genres are deliberately joined, like the sci-fi horror movie Alien, they are separate creatures that for some reason share the share a genre.

Sometimes I wonder if speculative fiction is needed at all. The term, of course, not the books. I think we all know how important those are! But why such a broad classing? Is it necessary? Or useful? I’m not so sure. What do you think?

Genres

A conversation with Andrew brought something to light for me: dystopian and post-apocalyptic are separate genres. Previously I took post-apocalyptic as a sub-genre of dystopian since if you look it up in the dictionary, it’s defined as “a society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding”. Post-apocalyptic societies, at least the ones I’m familiar with, generally fit the bill.

But! The literary definition of dystopian is different from the definition of the word. A literary dystopia is a place where a governing body enforces a warped idea of perfection. YA Highway had a really good post about the difference between the two.

So while I thought it was this…

It’s really more like this…

With examples! All YA of course.

I think THE HUNGER GAMES really is both—after an apocalyptic event, a dystopian society rose up. Although they don’t enforce perfection as much as they do obedience, I think it fits.

Anyway, post-apocalyptic does not equal dystopian, although I think it would make sense if it did. That is all.

Dystopianites, Unite!...s.

It bothers me that Dystopian isn’t considered its own genre in most places. If you go on AgentQuery, a favorite of mine, you see they have genres of Horror, Adventure, Thrillers/Suspense and Science Fiction…but no Dystopian or post-Apocalyptic. Military/Espionage warrants its own listing, but not Dystopian. It’s the same on QueryTracker. They don’t even have a listing for Speculative Fiction!

I feel a bit neglected. Dystopian works are pretty serious contenders these days. Yet almost anywhere you go, it doesn’t merit its own genre listing.

I know, all of these books, as well as the ones I write, can also be considered YA. But to me, YA has always been more of a secondary genre, an audience I’m trying to connect with. I write Dystopian. It just seems to come out YA. Not that there aren’t important adult Dystopians out there. But these days, YA is where most of the fire is coming from.

Fellow YA Dystopian writers, what do you think? What would you want to come first, the YA or the Dystopian (or both equally?)? And what genre do you write?

Holy Crapture II: Post-Rapture

So you have been left behind after the Rapture. But thanks to yesterday’s preparations, you’re safe and snug in a shelter, hiding from the worst of the carnage! Have you figured out what to do next?

Fear not. Here is a handy-dandy guide to various post-apocalyptic scenarios.

It’s entirely possible that the world will end in “fire.” This might mean a nuclear war, or it might mean the burning of all the world’s cities, or it might mean something we haven’t considered. Regardless of the specifics, destruction of the world by fire is the least survivable of scenarios. It doesn’t take strength or fortitude to survive explosions. If you’re hit, that’s it. If not, you might not be able to leave the shelter without killing yourself. It was for this reason I recommended a lifetime supply of food and water. Unfortunately, this isn’t feasible unless you’re alone and really don’t mind beans and water three meals a day for the next forty to seventy years. Even then, it requires a lot of space and the ability to entertain yourself. If you have a fixed food supply, you can either do the Survivor Type method or take the big exit. But if you have companions…well, if you aren’t picturing them as pork chops, they’re picturing you.

Ice—namely a new ice age—is a possible apocalypse, despite the inaccuracies of certain movies. Most likely, the approach of a new ice age would be very slow, as in well after our great (x100) grandchildrens’ lifetimes. In this case (and if there were no further apocalyptic problems), we would be able to resume our normal lives, sans the Raptured. If, somehow, it turns out that Roland Emmerich was right, than grouping survivors together is definitely the best solution. We will have to pool our resources together and learn how to keep warm in constant winter. Keep your head covered at all times, as you lose eighty percent of your body heat through your head. Layering clothing is recommended. If you’re performing strenuous activity, you want to be able to shed layers rather than disrobe completely, which invites frostbite. Remember to wear a waterproof outer layer, as melted snow on our bodies will be our worst enemy.

Flood is a problem for shelter dwellers, as there’s no way to avoid water. Any boat will do in this scenario as long as it floats. If you own one, move your supplies there as soon as the rain reaches ankle deep. If you don’t, it might take a lot of bargaining to join one. Make sure to keep the terms of your passage up front and unalterable. Captains may require unwavering fealty or sexual favors. If you haven’t agreed to this and the captain threatens to throw you overboard, make sure you have the backing of the rest of the crew before instigating mutiny. Finally, remember that the rainwater will require purification/desalinization if you scoop it up from our new water world. If desperate, use a tarp to collect it before it hits the ocean.

The last scenario we’ll be covering is demonic rule/rise of the dead. There may be those out there who protest grouping these two together, but the general survival method will be the same for both. First of all: weapons. If you’ve been underground a long time, it isn’t recommended you keep weapons with you (remember THE SHINING example from yesterday). But keeping them close by, maybe buried in a lock box a mile down the road, is a good idea. Be sure that the weapons are practical for you to use. If you’ve never fired a gun before, you don’t want your first time to be while running from the legions of hell. Guns usually recoil upon firing, and that will throw you off balance if you don’t know how to handle it. Next, be aware that the undead might not be the slow, lumbering zombies of Dawn of the Dead and the demons might be able to bend the rules of reality. Firing a weapon or the traditional zombie decapitation may not even work. Be sure to be prepared for the event that they do not. It’s probably best to avoid confronting the fiends all together. Keep to the shadows. If it’s demonic rule, avoid long, empty stretches. Always avoid closed spaces or locations with poor vantage points. If you can’t make it to the zombie-proof tower in Japan, try to meet up with other survivors. Small groups that work well together are preferable as large communities will be more likely to attract attackers.

Well, that’s all for post-apocalyptic survival methods as I have to go fight off the hellspawn attacking my lifetime supply of beans. Remember: if you think someone is going to kill you…you’re probably right.