Category Archives: TEOTWAWKI

Action, Adventure, Espionage, Military, Non-Fiction/Documentary, SHTF, TEOTWAWKI

The Shelter-in-Place Book Sale

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There’s a lot of stuff going on right now. Some of the “solutions” to COVID-19/the Wuhan Coronavirus are wrong, infuriating, and scary. In the short term, a lot of us are worried about our jobs–will they even exist once this mess blows over?

People around the world are worried about putting food on the table. For those in that position, I urge you to be as wise as you can with what resources you have.

For those who have food and water covered, but are bored and need something to do, Virtual Pulp is cutting the prices on our E-Books. I’ve suddenly got a lot more time to read than normal, and it’s one positive side effect of this crisis. Below are text links and image links (yes–you can just click on the book cover image to buy one from Amazon) for reduced-price E-Books. They’re available in all electronic formats and pretty much every online book store except Google Play.

Stay safe and keep your powder dry.

Buy all three Retreads novels from Amazon.
Buy the whole series from Amazon.

The entire Retreads series is available for a song at Amazon. Well, I don’t think they actually make you sing. But the three E-Books will cost less than a cheeseburger from the drive-through.

And, of course, the books are for sale individually, too. Hell and Gone was the series premier, my first bestseller, and still the most popular of all my books.

Buy Hell and Gone for the Kindle.
Click to buy on Amazon.

Buy it for the Nook on Barnes & Noble.

Buy it at the Kobo store.

Buy it at the Apple store.

Buy it at Smashwords.

The second retreads novel is Tier Zero. Many readers thought it was even better than the first book.

Click to buy Tier Zero for the Kindle.
Click to buy on Amazon.

Buy it for the Nook on Barnes & Noble.

Buy it at the Kobo store.

Buy it at the Apple store.

Buy it at Smashwords.

With the third book, False Flag, the series took a turn into SHTF (I believe the current term in use is “boogaloo”) patriot fiction.

Buy False Flag for the Kindle.
Click to buy on Amazon.

Buy it for the Nook on Barnes & Noble.

Buy it at the Kobo store.

Buy it at the Apple store.

Buy it at Smashwords.

Virtual Pulp contributor Paul Hair also has some work published you should look at.  It is not on sale currently, but still worth a read. You can find his short stories in the Appalling Stories series.

Buy the Appalling Stories bundle.
Click to buy from Amazon.

Or you can buy them individually. First, there’s the original Appalling Stories.

Buy Appalling Stories 1.
Buy it on Amazon.

Then the sequel anthology, Appalling Stories 2.

Buy Appalling Stories 2.
Buy it on Amazon.

Paul came back (and Hank added a story, too) in Appalling Stories 4.

Buy Appalling Stories 4.
Buy it on Amazon.


vv

Reviews, TEOTWAWKI

My Lai by David Dubrow – a Review

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Back in the postwar years, there were several science fiction movies with a theme that involved powerful aliens using mind control on humanity. If you grew up watching reruns of old TV shows (before there were a zillion 24-hour cable channels), then you may have noticed the old “invisible alien entity takes over the ship via mind control of the crew” plot used a few times in the original Star Trek and nearly every episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

My Lai has no concrete connection to the atrocity in Vietnam, so far as I can tell. It’s got a similar theme to those old science fiction dramas, but with a twist: the sinister force taking over Planet Earth is neither alien nor invisible. In fact, most of us have probably encountered this villain at least once. I can tell you that a young, bored boy growing up in the backwoods with time on his hands and a rock or other potential projectile within reach is very well acquainted with this particular villain.

(That’s right: bees. Throw something into a beehive and find out how fast you can run…or how many bee stings you can tolerate.)

Bees have decided that it’s time to take the planet back from humanity. Much like a demonic entity, they start by possessing the body of a human, and can then control it from within. The method of possession is rather grotesque, but is similar to how parasites perform mind control in the animal kingdom. Using one human host, the bees can entrap and infiltrate others. The human hosts then become drones, nurses, or queens, just like their tiny insect puppetmasters.

When the story opens, the bees’ plot for world domination has been wildly successful, but there is organized human resistance. One particular guerrilla band uses guns, flamethrowers, and Molotov cocktails to bring smoke on a hybrid colony of bees and their human thralls. Hoowah! The mayhem is quite gratifying. Their destruction of a hive/village would no doubt be considered equivalent to the My Lai massacre by the bees and those controlled by them.

I haven’t asked author David Dubrow anything about this story, but I’d be astounded if he denied that it is a parable–probably on more than one level.

The way the bees spread their control smacks of “the domino theory,” for starters. For regular readers of this blog who have seen me refer to our collective enemy as “the Hive Mind” (when I write about the left wing, the SJWs; or the institutions they dominate like Hollywood, academia, Big Tech, the DNC, etc.), you might see this for the perfect metaphor that it is. Once a person is melded into the Hive Mind, any potential or capability they once might have had for independent thought is subsumed by whatever The Narrative is during the Current Year.

(For instance: the Leftist Hive Mind once vehemently defended the First Amendment, in order to push pornography, junk science, and Marxist propaganda. But now that they’ve transformed the culture, brainwashed the masses, and secured power for themselves, they are trying to eradicate the First Amendment [with “hate speech” legislation, selective application of “separation of Church and State” arguments, etc.] so that no thoughtcriminals can challenge any aspect of their Narrative.)

This is an overtly politically-focused review (shocker, eh?). But My Lai doesn’t sledgehammer the politics at readers the way I often do on this blog. The political message is there if you want to notice it, but it’s not overbearing and there are possibly many readers who would miss it altogether…just like how the last few generations have been unaware of the underlying messages in mainstream entertainment.

My Lai is one thought-provoking story in Appalling Stories 4–an anthology that is well off the beaten path.

Military, Reviews, TEOTWAWKI

The End by G. Michael Hopf – a Review

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The subtitle says “A Post-Apocalyptic Novel,” and this book is the first in “The New World Series.”

The story is told in flashback via a surviving character in 2066 “Cascadia.” That character is in bookend chapters that frame the narrative. The main story opens in the suburbs of San Diego right before an EMP turns out the lights, permanently. A little bit of time is spent establishing that the protagonist, Gordon Van Zandt, is a dedicated family man with just enough soy in his diet to make him palatable to female readers. He’s an Iraq veteran whose little brother is currently in the USMC, hoping to become a scout-sniper.

In the author bio section of the Amazon product page, the author claims to be a USMC veteran. That may be true–there is at least some rudimentary military knowledge evident. Maybe he had a rear-echelon clerk/jerk MOS. There were a few details here and there that didn’t sit right, but not enough to make you toss the book aside, by any stretch.

The EMP strikes the USA, and Gordon goes into Scramble, Forage, and Protect Mode. (While doing so, he explains what an EMP is far too many times for a reader with reasonable memory retention.) His family-first instincts kick into high gear right away, which cause him to make some tough decisions that others are not yet ready to make.

The plot toggles between Gordon’s ordeal, little brother Sebastian’s story, and federal-level politicians. For the most part, the character interactions are believable, although there is a high Character Stupidity Quotient in effect–especially when it comes to Sebastian. Sebastian is such an idiot that, were he the star of the show, I probably would have quit reading. (Ironic, because toward the end, I found his story the most interesting.) I lost patience and began to skim through the sub-plots with the Speaker of the House-turned-President, his wife, Vice President, assistants and generals. Those segments resembled a literary soap opera that aren’t really even necessary for the plot.

Speaking of plot, this one does not suffer from predictability. I wonder how much of that was by design and how much was because the author was just making it up as he went along. I strongly suspected the latter when it came to Jimmy, Gordon’s neighbor. When first introduced, the reader gets the impression Gordon barely knew Jimmy; but as the chapters plod forward, a transformation takes place and the two neighbors have been great friends for years.

One of the most annoying personality traits of Gordon Van Zandt is his tendency to make promises he can’t keep. A lot of the dialog is amateurish as well, but then I guess this is the author’s first novel.

I made the decision to buy this book after reading some of the complaints by the one-star reviewers that there wasn’t enough GRRRL POWER on display. Sure enough: there was a lot less feminist garbage than you get in the average novel–whatever side of the aisle the authors fall on. I was thankful for that, but I was hoping (if there was any evidence of author worldview at all) that the author would turn out to be a patriot or full-bore, unapologetic, firebreathing right-winger. The overall flavor, however, is Log Cabin NeoCuck. By the second novel it becomes blatantly obvious, but I’ll say more if/when I review the sequel.

I guess the only full-bore, unapologetic, firebreathing right-wing authors on the cultural landscape these days are under Virtual Pulp’s umbrella.

Reviews, TEOTWAWKI

War For the Planet of the Apes – a Review

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First of all, the title is a bit deceptive. There is a war brewing between apes and men–like it was in the last movie or two, but this one doesn’t depict a war.

There is a cheesy firefight scene at the end, and an ambush of sorts at the very beginning, and that’s about the extent of the combat. The bulk of the film is a psychological profile of Caesar. Woody Harrelson (doing his best Colonel Kurtz) murder’s his wife and son, so Caesar is tempted to adopt tactics and methods that are just as ee-veel as those used by the bad guys (humans).

In this ongoing reboot of the franchise, the film makers evidently intend to erase generations of history. The apes haven’t even taken over the planet yet, and they’ve already introduced both Cornelius and Nova.

The cinematography was the best aspect of the  film. Otherwise, meh.

Adventure, Reviews, SHTF, TEOTWAWKI

“Another Excellent Novel”

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There are downsides to having a bestseller. It gives your book more exposure, which is certainly a net gain; but it also draws plenty of wild cards.

As in all businesses, customers are probably about 75% more determined to make their opinions known when they have a complaint than when they find a product satisfactory. In the book biz, you also have some jealous, petty and vindictive authors prowling Amazon to size up the competition who, I guess, assume they can elevate their own work by trying to make other author’s work look bad. And then there’s controversial books like False Flag, which are gonna trigger sheeple and SJWs, even when they are warned up front that a particular book will not be their cup of tea.

Case in point: shortly after the post about Roy Moore went live on this blog, somebody posted the first-ever one-star review for Hell and Gone, admitting within the “review” that they hadn’t read the book. Up until then, my debut novel had never drawn less than four stars from any Amazon reviewer. I smell a motive for this drive-by, but who knows.

So the vigilant haters have managed to drag False Flag‘s cumulative review score down to 4.2 stars, but comments like the following tend to improve morale:

Another excellent novel by Henry Brown

First of all let me state that this is the third novel by Henry Brown I have read featuring “Rocco’s Retreads” a group of different special warfare operators who are mostly retired from different branches of the active duty military.


It’s a direct follow up to Tier Zero– the novel where Native American lawman and ex spec ops warrior Tommy Scarred Wolf and some of his friends and family set out to rescue a group of females from the nearby Rez who had been kidnapped in a foreign country.

This time around, Tommy and some of the Retreads have been targeted by a sleazebag Statist DHS spook and his underhanded operators- including several who are basically Manchurian Candidate Brainwashees.
Tommy is now the Sheriff in the town where the nearby Rez is located and his friends are scattered to the Southwest. Rocco, Leon and Carlos are now operating a shooting range and firearms sales and supply shop; Mac has gotten involved with a sleazy race-card baiter in Federal Law Enforcement and Josh has retired to the life of a modern Mountain Man.


Essentially Josh and some of the others find out that Rocco’s Retreads have been flagged as Domestic Terrorists by the dirtbags from DHS and worse- the same scumbags are planning on a False Flag attack on a peace rally in Amarillo Texas following the senseless beating of an African American motorist.


Talk about being ripped from the headlines.


As the NeoFascists in Federal Government see it, by attacking the rally and pinning the rap on “Right Wing Militia extremists” it will give them the justification among the McSheeple to go after the Internet and gun owners.


Tommy, Josh and the majority of their friends and family decide to try and stop the False Flag attack.
When they call in a phony bomb threat and the “proper authorities” refuse to evacuate the facility…well, it’s time for Tommy’s pals in the Native American Militia to step forward and stop the slaughter of innocent people and try and save the country from the insidious forces within the corridors of power who see Freedom as a threat to their own lustful power grabs.


The book is sobering at times and downright funny at others. The descriptions of some of the peripheral characters (looters and so forth) reminded me of some of the more razor-sharp satirical Destroyer Novels written by the late great Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy as both rednecks and looters get scalded by Brown’s pen.


I would love to see these books made into movies someday. However they are so politically incorrect that its’ mostly a pipe dream at this point.
If you enjoyed the Destroyer novels or the old Phoenix Force and Able Team books the Retreads series is right up your alley.

If you’re willing to take just a few minutes to make a small-but-significant impact in the culture war, and you’ve read one or more of my books, why not drop a couple lines into a review and counter some of this sabotage? Amazon isn’t yet as bad as Twitter, Facebook, or Wikipedia, but they’ve proven to me they are sympathetic to these SJW trolls. They took down a review I posted (it’s long-winded; sorry) even though it was obvious I read the book, and I hadn’t violated any of their published guidelines; but they won’t take leftist hit pieces down, even when it’s obvious the troll hasn’t read the book. There’s not much I can do about that. By posting an honest review, however, you could dilute this well-poisoning.

Action, Crime, Reviews, TEOTWAWKI

Speed Week Plus: Mad Max – a Review

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Motorized Mayhem Down Under! Time to take Speed Week Plus south of the Equator, to a continent comprised entirely of one country–and into the future, where civilization is on the verge of complete breakdown.

Imagine an Australia populated with butch, entitled women; supplicating nancy-boy males considered “men;” oppressed by a draconian police state hell-bent on gobbling up more power until farting in the privacy of your own toilet is a crime punishable by death…

Oh, wait. No need to imagine–Australia is just about there already. Imagine instead an Australia saved from that dystopian present by a nuclear holocaust and utter economic devastation. Whew!

That merciful cataclysm seems to be underway at the beginning of the original, unfeminized Mad Max.

I should clarify something up front: I won’t be including Beyond Thunderdome for Speed Week Plus, and probably never will review it or the more recent Mad Maxine.

So the “thin blue line” Down Under has become razor thin, fighting a losing battle to keep civilization from toppling. Amoral, perverse gangs rule the roads, stealing whatever they want, raping whoever they want (which is pretty much anyone), and more than willing to murder and destroy in order to do it.

On the side of good is the MFP: Main Force Patrol. Just as our police have come to be known as “cops,” originally “coppers” because of the badges worn by New York policemen, these Aussie lawmen’s badges were made from a different metal, hence they are slurred as “the bronze” by the villains in this film (as well as the hero in Fast Cars and Rock & Roll, which pays homage to many films, including this one).

A very young Mel Gibson plays Max, the MFP’s star patrolman, who’s considering quitting the force and taking his family away from the madness. To bribe him into staying, the MFP makes an unofficial gift to him of “the last of the V8 Interceptors.” It’s a black-on-black Australian Ford Falcon, supercharged, with “Phase IV heads” and “Nitro.” By the end of the movie Max deputizes the Falcon Interceptor to run down the gang that murdered his family and made a vegetable of his friend Goose.

Mad Max Poster

By the way, the clutched supercharger on the Falcon was a pure fabrication sold via the magic of film editing. But Hollywood has plagiarized it with their own clutch-driven blowers in movies like My Science Project.

Director George Miller was fascinated with medical apperattus and you’ll see some on display in Mad Max and its sequel. He must have been equally obsessed with Catholic symbolism.

But the appeal of this movie is the high-octane action, and it’s got a lot. The speed scenes were undercranked to exaggerate the velocity of moving vehicles, yet it was accomplished with a subtle touch so that it doesn’t make everything comical.

That’s not to say there aren’t some laughable moments (dig that Roman Candle in the exhaust pipe)–if you watch the version with overdubbed American voices, it’s downright groan-worthy. So I recommend getting the version with the original soundtrack.

“We remember the Night Rider! And we know who you are.”

Action, Adventure, Reviews, TEOTWAWKI

Speed Week Plus: The Road Warrior – a Review

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Mad Max cannonballs through the wasteland in a world devolving back to the Iron Age.

Mad Max cannonballs through the wasteland in a world devolving back to the Iron Age.

 

You think you’ve seen road rage before? Let’s cruise on over to post-apocalyptic Australia for a high octane killing spree!

Mad Max was such a cult action-adventure hit, the film makers came back with a bigger budget for the sequel. In addition to launching a young actor named Mel Gibson into superstardom, it also inspired too many doomsday visionaries to count…including another film maker who would produce a time travel thriller a couple years later about a killer cyborg sent back from a future similar to this one, to assassinate the mother of a resistance movement’s leader. You may have heard of that flick. It’s called The Terminator.

In the roar of an engine he lost everything…

 

roadwarrior1

 

In the first movie, Australia was on the verge of societal collapse. As this story begins, that collapse is a done deal. Max, once a good cop and happy family man, is now a lone drifter with no ambition beyond surviving in the New Dark Ages.

What we have here is actually a sort of post-apocalyptic western. Max is the jaded gunfighter who is numb to death and has nothing to lose.

The vermin of the wasteland (I guess I’ll call them VOTL for short) have tried to bushwhack him before, but he’s a little too much for them to handle. The prize they’re really lusting after, though, is a strange outpost of civilization in the wilderness.

A small community which still clings to the mores and values of non-barbaric society occupies an oil refinery, defending it with flamethrowers and pneumatic dart guns from the perverse savages who rape and murder any who attempt to break through the siege and run for freedom.

After defeating (then taking captive) a snake-charming gyrocopter pilot, Max encounters this situation just as two would-be escapees meet their gruesome fate.

The alpha-dog ruling over the VOTL barbarians is a buff baddie called Humongous. Don’t ask me where he finds his vitamins, energy drinks and steroids out there in the post-apocalyptic desert. And though he probably has plenty of time on his hands, where he finds a gym to work out in is also a mystery.

Humongous’ go-to lieutenant is an acrobatic Sodomite who puts his crosshairs on our hero early when he gets wounded during road combat with Max. Later he comes totally unglued when his butt-boy is killed by a razor-edged boomerang that belongs to “the Feral Kid.”

The R rating is strictly for the violence…plus some brief non-titillating nudity. I don’t believe there’s any cussing at all. But the violence is on an epic scale for 1981–dished out with a mixture of Medieval weapons, improvised munitions and fast machines. There are only two firearms in the film–one owned by the hero; one by the villain. The ammo supply for both is extremely limited.

 

Those fast machines are what makes this movie required viewing for Speed Week Plus. Not only is Max’s Falcon Interceptor back (with the Hollywood clutched blower) but there are other Australian musclecars and some vehicles that look like hybrid dune buggies or sand rails.

The Lord Humongous…the Ayatolah of RocknRollah!

One of the suicide machines has two engines. One of them has a crude nitrous system (“noss” for those of you who acquired all your automotive knowledge from watching the Fast and Furious flicks). Add to all that horsepower the added boost of camera undercranking , and the result is insane speed for the chase sequences.

The Road Warrior has its flaws, which become more obvious over time and repeated viewing, but it’s still a great action adventure movie that requires no more suspension of disbelief than most of the CGI/green screen enhanced claptrap Hollywood’s been churning out in the new Millennium.

This is perhaps my favorite post-apocalyptic movie. What’s yours?

Non-Fiction/Documentary, TEOTWAWKI

Dialog at Twilight’s Last Gleaming #2

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This conversation took place during the New York demonstrations against the results of the election.

 

SILVER SPOON BLACK WOMAN: This country was built on the oppression of dark people!

WORKING CLASS WHITE MAN: First of all, slavery was brought over here before there was a United States of America. Second, we fought a war to end slavery. We fought and killed our brothers and cousins to free the slaves, because we’re “so racist.” Slavery lasted about 80 years here. Care to compare that to another country? Take your pick: Africa, Asia, Europe, Central or South America…pick your continent.

SSBW: Slavery wasn’t as brutal  in other countries. It was more like just being servants. It’s America that made it such a dehumanizing thing.

WCWM: (Scoffs) You’ve been watching too much TV. African slaves in Latin America were treated much worse than in the USA.

SSBW: That’s just what you say. You don’t know that.

WCWM: I study history because I want to know the truth. You should try it. The information’s out there. You read a few memes on Facebook and assume you know everything there is to know.

SSBW: And so what if you ended slavery? That’s nothing to pat yourself on the back about. The fact is, you still did it. And you took this land from the people who were here before, so it’s hypocritical to want to keep other people from coming in and taking it away from you.

WCWM: Can you name one country where the territory wasn’t won by a group that displaced another group? Why is nothing bad unless Americans do it?

SSBW: I’m talking about this country. This is the one I live in. And just because other countries have done something doesn’t make it right when America does it.

WCWM: So the standard for America is perfection, but every other country can do whatever, and are superior in your eyes?

SSBW: I didn’t say they are superior.

WCWM: You want to make us just like them. And you act like I’m wrong because I don’t want their invasion of us to continue. Why is that?

SSBC: The point is, this is a racist country, and you’re too blinded by your white privilege to understand what I go through as a person of color.

WCWM: I understand. You’re given scholarships for nothing but being born your color. You’re given hiring preference for nothing but being born your color. All by oppressive, racist America. You poor victim.

SSBW: Those things are just compensation for what we have to go through every day in life just because of the color we were born with.

WCWM: Oh yeah, I keep forgetting how oppressed you’ve been. Your parents weren’t allowed to work any job except maids or butlers; you weren’t allowed to live in a well-to-do suburb; you were denied an expensive education and you weren’t given a six-figure job right out of college.

SSBW: I had to work for all those things!

WCWM: Ah, so you’re a victim because you have to work for something? They should have just handed it all to you because you’re black?

SSBW: (Under breath, grumbling) People who never experience prejudice just can’t see it.

WCWC: Now you’re assuming I’ve never experienced bigotry, and you assume it because of my skin color. That’s textbook prejudice, right there.

Military, Non-Fiction/Documentary, SHTF, TEOTWAWKI

Dialog at Twilight’s Last Gleaming #1

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There’s some notable conversations taking place in “flyover country” these days. I think I’ll document some of them.

NGV: I know (our co-worker) has a family to provide for, but stealing from the company…pissing off the customers…I don’t see how they wouldn’t fire him.

RAV: I don’t want anybody to lose their job–especially in this economy. He needs to go on welfare or something, because he’s damaging our reputation.

NGV: I feel bad for his family, though.

RAV: Yeah. There ain’t that many jobs out there, and frankly, depending on what happens in this election, there might not be an America for much longer. It could be a lot more like Brazil or Venezuela pretty soon.

NGV: Speaking of that, when the shit hits the fan, you’re welcome to bring your family and follow me to (redacted) in Idaho.

RAV: No kidding? (Wow, he’s a lot more prepared than I thought.)

NGV: Yeah, seriously. If all you’ve got is your bug-out bag, that’s cool. Ammunition won’t be a problem, either–we’ve got plenty to share.

RAV: Oh yeah? (Holy cow, he’s blowing OPSEC all to hell. Doesn’t he realize we’re talking on cellphones?) I don’t know where I’ll be when the day comes, or what my travel options will be, but I really do appreciate that. (I just wish you’d be wiser about what you say on an unsecured line.)

Pet Peeves, SHTF, TEOTWAWKI

Random Musings on Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Entertainment

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CATEGORIES

TEOTWAWKI or “The End Of The World As We Know It” is a brand which has been traditionally applied to post-apocalyptic movies, games, and books. In such narratives, the story begins AFTER some cataclysmic event has forever altered life on Earth.

SHTF or “Shit Hits The Fan” stories are about, or take place DURING the cataclysmic event. (Most “patriot fiction” fits inside this genre.)

It occurred to me we’ve been throwing everything under the TEOTWAWKI umbrella (including my own latest novel). Because I review so much work in the genre, I have now made a SHTF category and moved all (I hope) the relevant posts into it, for ease and accuracy of navigation.

UNFINISHED STORIES

I’ve been consuming a lot of SHTF and TEOTWAWKI entertainment lately. Recently I’ve tossed two books aside before finishing them. That has prompted me to create a new category called “Pet Peeves,” and this is my first post to be categorized that way.

There are a few different tropes that often annoy me enough to quit watching or reading whatever incorporates them. As regular readers of Virtual Pulp can probably guess, left-wing propaganda is one of them (explaining why I rarely go to movies anymore, and never watch TV). Another nauseating trope is the obligatory “strong female character,” which in action/adventure manifests as the obligatory Amazon Superninja.

Another deal-breaker for me is excessive stupidity, in whatever form. Going back to TEOTWAWKI, this is why I didn’t get very far watching the Jericho series on Netflix. It started out with a lot of promise, but smacked me out of my suspension of disbelief too many times to even be engaged by the point where we discover the EMP was caused by the Right Wing Boogeyman (egads! What a surprise!).

I recently picked up a handful of books on free promotion, for my Kindle. One of them featured a rare (for the SHTF genre) protagonist: an extremely naive civilian suburbanite victim of normalcy bias. I know too many people like this guy in real life (throw a rock in North America, and you’ll hit one), and find them a real challenge to engage with on any meaningful level. Yet, for me, it was a unique storytelling perspective (and perhaps overdue), and I guessed he would have to wise up in order to survive.

The character did show signs of maturing over the course of several chapters, and I gritted my teeth through his Pollyana attitude/reactions. I even held my peace, with an eye-roll or two, at how cash was still accepted after the economy, infrastructure, and even government itself were all rendered moot.

Then I came to a scene in which the protag and his companions are waylayed by literal highway robbers. Our hero is armed. The villains are not. He has some supplies he and his pals will require to survive along their journey. The bad guys want to take it.

So he lets them take it, in an alleged compromise (they won’t rape the girl traveling with him).

You have to wonder why some people even have guns, if they’re unwilling to use them even in matters of survival. The sad part is, this character is all too real, and the “compromise” is too perfect a metaphor for how we’ve allowed our freedoms, our government, and our country to be “compromised” away from us. Real life and its stupid people are more than enough, thank-you. This story and character is too much stupidity for something I read voluntarily and sacrifice time for.

OVERHAULING STRAIGHT AMERICA

The population has been so relentlessly conditioned that it’s hard to escape from the malignant sodomiphilic echo chamber even in indie fiction.

Another book in the genre was also from a suburbanite perspective. There were some trace amounts of the “all men are rapists” attitude in this one, but it wasn’t so “in your face” as to make it unreadable. I had finished reading about 90% of the book before the author sucker-punched me by revealing a character as homosexual.

The reaction to this by one of the main characters was how all reasonable, “open-minded” people are supposed to react: immediate support, equal or surpassing what a “straight” individual should get. Just in case there are still some dirty brains still out there, the efforts to wash them are ubiquitous and never-ending.

No thanks. Pass. I have no interest in reading the remaining 10%.

THE ROAD/JOURNEY PLOT

This really should have been pondered long ago, but only lately has it really become a point of fascination to me that 95-99% of post-apocalyptic tales depict a journey of the protagonist. Most often, the journey is taken in order to reunite with family.

On the one hand, this makes a lot of sense. When the SHTF a lot of people will be separated from loved ones by varying distances. They’ll be away on a business trip, or at the office, grocery store, etc., when disaster strikes. So it’s a valid plot.

It’s also a grossly overused plot. So overused that I’m now rethinking a few sequels to False Flag, and a zombie parody I had in mind.

That’s all for now. Happy weekend.