Comments on: Dystopian Summer http://www.bookishdark.com/2008/07/dystopian-summer/ She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain. Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:54:27 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: The Road by Cormac McCarthy : Bookish Dark http://www.bookishdark.com/2008/07/dystopian-summer/comment-page-1/#comment-2812 The Road by Cormac McCarthy : Bookish Dark Thu, 14 Aug 2008 18:59:37 +0000 http://www.bookishdark.com/?p=265#comment-2812 [...] Dystopian Summer [...] [...] Dystopian Summer [...]

]]> By: Ken... Just Ken http://www.bookishdark.com/2008/07/dystopian-summer/comment-page-1/#comment-2759 Ken... Just Ken Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:50:56 +0000 http://www.bookishdark.com/?p=265#comment-2759 I realized when living at the Colorado Renaissance Festival campground for 2 months that, after a relatively short while, it stops being camping and becomes Homeless. I realized when living at the Colorado Renaissance Festival campground for 2 months that, after a relatively short while, it stops being camping and becomes Homeless.

]]> By: kaizerin http://www.bookishdark.com/2008/07/dystopian-summer/comment-page-1/#comment-2758 kaizerin Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:58:52 +0000 http://www.bookishdark.com/?p=265#comment-2758 In my personal post-apocalyptic fantasy, we have all survived and done well, due largely to Ken’s great living-outdoors skills and knife collection, along with our collective intelligence and talents—plus the library of DIY and Foxfire books I retrieved from the septic system. I like to check in on us far enough away from the catastrophe that we’ve got permanent shelters built, a small flock and herd established, burgeoning gardens, and have scavenged sufficient supplies to can and preserve the harvest to see us through winter. There’s a comforting cord of wood stacked up already, and we all add to it while the weather is fine, amongst our livestock-tending and garden-weeding and watch-standing in the lookout tower. When winter comes, we’ll probably have to move into the main community building, to conserve heat and wood, and we’ll have long days to fill: playing card games, inventing toys, improvising versions of implements we miss, writing down as much as we can remember, and telling stories out of the other books we saved and our own heads. And of course, we will knit, all day long—warm socks and sweaters and hats and mittens and wooly leggings and densely felted slipper-shoes. They’ll appreciate our knitting, come the apocalypse, oh yes, they will! (This explains why, when The World As We Know It ends, I’ll be looting the yarn store while everyone else is squabbling over canned goods at the grocery. If it felts, it’s MINE.) See? It’s not so much Last Humans on Earth as it is Super-Fun Camping Trip That Never Ends! :) In my personal post-apocalyptic fantasy, we have all survived and done well, due largely to Ken’s great living-outdoors skills and knife collection, along with our collective intelligence and talents—plus the library of DIY and Foxfire books I retrieved from the septic system. I like to check in on us far enough away from the catastrophe that we’ve got permanent shelters built, a small flock and herd established, burgeoning gardens, and have scavenged sufficient supplies to can and preserve the harvest to see us through winter. There’s a comforting cord of wood stacked up already, and we all add to it while the weather is fine, amongst our livestock-tending and garden-weeding and watch-standing in the lookout tower. When winter comes, we’ll probably have to move into the main community building, to conserve heat and wood, and we’ll have long days to fill: playing card games, inventing toys, improvising versions of implements we miss, writing down as much as we can remember, and telling stories out of the other books we saved and our own heads. And of course, we will knit, all day long—warm socks and sweaters and hats and mittens and wooly leggings and densely felted slipper-shoes. They’ll appreciate our knitting, come the apocalypse, oh yes, they will! (This explains why, when The World As We Know It ends, I’ll be looting the yarn store while everyone else is squabbling over canned goods at the grocery. If it felts, it’s MINE.)

See? It’s not so much Last Humans on Earth as it is Super-Fun Camping Trip That Never Ends! :)

]]> By: kaizerin http://www.bookishdark.com/2008/07/dystopian-summer/comment-page-1/#comment-2757 kaizerin Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:16:18 +0000 http://www.bookishdark.com/?p=265#comment-2757 Interviewed about "The Stand", Stephen King said something to the effect that stories about the end of the world are comforting to people, because everyone imagines they would survive, and get to keep all the ‘goodies’ for themselves. You know—we’d finally have time to read all those books we’ve been meaning to get to! (*I* can read without my glasses, fortunately.) Ken will kick me for taking his answer, but if you talk about post-apocalypse, “Lucifer’s Hammer” is the first thing that comes to mind. And it’s largely because of how in-depth the book gets about the survivors—who survives, and how, and what they do to go about rebuilding society. It’s a product of its time, so of course the women get the short end of the survivalist stick, but the ideas are very interesting. Every time the world gets a little too apocalypty, I immediately have the urge to triple-wrap my books in plastic and hide them down the sewage system (as one character in the book does, to keep them safe during the post-strike rioting and looting. He knows they—the information in them—will be vital to whatever society survives.) "Alas, Babylon" is another one I really enjoyed, sexist gender stereotypes aside AGAIN, and for the same reason—the bulk of the book is what happens after most of the world is bombed out of existence—how this one little town struggles back to its feet and tries to make something of itself. I loved "A Canticle for Leibowitz", though it was a titch dark about our chances for survival long-term. I don’t know, I guess I have a vicious streak that thinks if we are so stupid as to actually blow ourselves up, well, then we get what we deserve. It satisfies the same place in me that finds the Darwin Awards hilarious, I guess. The essential appeal of apocalyptic stories is they cut the world down to size. The stresses of the modern world fall into absolute irrelevance when you’re fighting for survival. The physical work is much harder, but the emotional work is vastly simplified. Choices become stark and clear-cut — and that is rather of comforting, as long as it’s just fiction. Interviewed about “The Stand”, Stephen King said something to the effect that stories about the end of the world are comforting to people, because everyone imagines they would survive, and get to keep all the ‘goodies’ for themselves. You know—we’d finally have time to read all those books we’ve been meaning to get to! (*I* can read without my glasses, fortunately.)

Ken will kick me for taking his answer, but if you talk about post-apocalypse, “Lucifer’s Hammer” is the first thing that comes to mind. And it’s largely because of how in-depth the book gets about the survivors—who survives, and how, and what they do to go about rebuilding society. It’s a product of its time, so of course the women get the short end of the survivalist stick, but the ideas are very interesting. Every time the world gets a little too apocalypty, I immediately have the urge to triple-wrap my books in plastic and hide them down the sewage system (as one character in the book does, to keep them safe during the post-strike rioting and looting. He knows they—the information in them—will be vital to whatever society survives.)

“Alas, Babylon” is another one I really enjoyed, sexist gender stereotypes aside AGAIN, and for the same reason—the bulk of the book is what happens after most of the world is bombed out of existence—how this one little town struggles back to its feet and tries to make something of itself.

I loved “A Canticle for Leibowitz”, though it was a titch dark about our chances for survival long-term. I don’t know, I guess I have a vicious streak that thinks if we are so stupid as to actually blow ourselves up, well, then we get what we deserve. It satisfies the same place in me that finds the Darwin Awards hilarious, I guess.

The essential appeal of apocalyptic stories is they cut the world down to size. The stresses of the modern world fall into absolute irrelevance when you’re fighting for survival. The physical work is much harder, but the emotional work is vastly simplified. Choices become stark and clear-cut — and that is rather of comforting, as long as it’s just fiction.

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