post-apocalyptic | CW Hawes

Cozy Catastrophe Review: The Rocheport Saga

The Rocheport Saga is my contribution to the cozy catastrophe subgenre. Freedom’s Freehold, the sixth book in the series, is available for pre-order, and the entire series is on sale for 99¢ per book until the 13th of June. Do get your copies now, if you haven’t already. They are available at the retailer of your choice.

Without even knowing what a cozy catastrophe was, I wrote about Bill Arthur’s attempt to preserve the accumulated knowledge of the human race in the wake of an overnight virtual annihilation of humanity. Taking as a general guide Stewart’s Earth Abides. And so it was quite by accident I incorporated all the features that make a cozy a cozy.

The Rocheport Saga is a sprawling work. It covers one man’s lifetime: from his late 50s to his death at 103. It is the second “novel” I wrote and the first after I came to the realization I was a pantser who had a liking for the “plotless” novel. By which I mean to say, The Rocheport Saga is very much like most of our lives: we have story arcs, picaresque adventures, but very little in the way of plot. Most of us, myself included, live from day to day. We don’t plot out our lives. Sure we have our plans. Most of those end up as merely wishes.

Kazuo Ishiguro, in his novel An Artist of the Floating World, summed it up quite well, I think. Most of us, at the end of the day, find ourselves to be, for all our dreams and efforts, ordinary people in extraordinary times. We give it our best to be great and usually fall far short.

That is why virtual life is so popular. Whether that virtual life be novels, games, TV, movies, social media, or a façade carefully maintained as though we were actors and actresses on a stage. Virtual life allows us to be great. It gives us the chance to be winners.

All literature, in my opinion, is ultimately fantasy. It is wish fulfillment. We want to be the hero who succeeds at the quest. Or to be the man or woman who finds true love. Or perhaps that one person to succeed where others can’t and thereby receive the recognition and adulation we know we are all entitled to.

The Rocheport Saga is no different. It is fantasy masquerading as science fiction. Because, let’s face it, what are the odds of a Bill Arthur surviving such a cataclysm and being able to guide and hold together such a rag tag group as that in Rocheport? Probably nil. And yet, we all would like to be Bill Arthur. I know I would.

Why? Because he is not like us. He is underneath it all an extraordinary man who gets to live in extraordinary times. He is the quintessential nobody who rises to the occasion when the occasion presents itself. Which is a key feature of the cozy catastrophe. He and he alone is capable of leading the people of Rocheport and ultimately of Missouri. The stuff of which dreams are made.

In The Morning Star, we meet Bill Arthur. He is searching for a home. The urban areas are too dangerous for his liking. Along the way, he meets Mert, Mel, and Sally. They are the beginning of his blended family through which his dream eventually comes to fruition.

Book 2, The Shining City, finds the inhabitants of Rocheport doing what it seems people do best: fighting. There is war and Bill’s group eventually wins, but not without loss. For war only comes with loss.

The losers of the civil war in Rocheport are very poor sports and in the next two books, Love is Little and The Troubled City, our hero has no end of grief in his attempt to ensure the group’s survival and accomplish his dream of a return to high technology and for everyone to live by the Golden Rule.

By Leaps and Bounds, Book 5, sees a turn. On his way to a libertarian republic and living by the Golden Rule, Bill disbands Rocheport’s communal way of life and makes everyone responsible for his or her success or failure.

In Book 6, Freedom’s Freehold, Bill, in the face of dangerous external and internal forces, as well as personal crises, continues his technological advance and his desire to implement a libertarian republic — that best form of government which governs not at all, as Thoreau wrote.

Just as Europe emerged from the Dark Ages to realize the world was a very large place, so too does Rocheport emerge from its isolation to find there are many little communities like itself.

Bill embarks on building a telegraph network to link together likeminded cities. He builds steam-powered cars and trucks for travel and trade. And for long distance exploration and trade, he builds a steam-powered airship.

The forthcoming books will chronicle the ever growing world in which Rocheport finds itself. The question always being will Bill and his dream remain in the center of that world and will Rocheport truly become the shining city set upon the hill.

The Rocheport Saga is the cozy catastrophe on a grand scale. I hope you enjoy it.

Comments are welcome, as always. Until next time, happy reading!

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Cozy Catastrophe Review: On the Beach

The human spirit thrives on hope. I think the King James translators put it best (if not a bit inaccurately) when they wrote: and on earth peace, goodwill toward men. Humans have wanted and longed for peace and utopia ever since one person set him or herself above another.

Persecution and oppression always produce in those persecuted and oppressed the hope that there will come a day when persecutions will end and oppression will be no more.

The Israelites created their Messiah. Marx envisioned a utopia with no state and no bosses. And for those of us who grew up in the ‘50s and ‘60s, we longed for a time when the atomic bomb would be no more and we’d wage peace instead of war.

The ‘50s and early ‘60s we’re especially fraught with tension. Nuclear drills in school. The H-bomb. The Korean War. The Vietnam war. The U-2 incident. The Cuban missile crisis. There was a subtle and constant fear that the human race would completely annihilate itself in a nuclear holocaust or a nuclear winter.

The book that perhaps best epitomized that fear is On The Beach by Neville Shute, first published in 1957. It is a novel of nuclear holocaust and how we might react to the impending annihilation of the human race.

There is very little plot in On The Beach and the story line is simple. A nuclear war has occurred before the book begins. The northern hemisphere is obliterated and the radiation cloud is slowly sinking southwards. The people there, in the south, have perhaps another year to live.

The story focuses on two couples and how they deal with their impending deaths. This is tragedy, pure and simple. The novel opens with impending doom, there is a brief moment of hope which turns out to be false, and then the unrelenting radiation cloud arrives and with it — death.

On The Beach has to be one of the saddest novels I’ve ever read. I found it to be a rather ponderous and slow moving read. Even boring at times. But Shute pulled out one of the most heart-wrenching endings I’ve ever read. I think the novel is worth reading. If for nothing else then to see a picture of the end of the world that isn’t met with hedonistic abandon.

Shute gives us a picture of ourselves at what might be called our finest hour: meeting our certain end with dignity and grace.

A modern riff on this idea can be seen in the movie Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World.

The question, though, in my mind is this: is On The Beach a cozy catastrophe? The novel regularly appears on list of cozies. The calm approach to impending doom, drinking tea and eating crumpets, is frequently cited as a hallmark of the cozy. However, I don’t think the novel is a cozy.

This putting of On The Beach in the cozy catastrophe camp bothered me because the world comes to an end. No one survives. Recently I watched the movie Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World. The story line of Seeking is simple. (Spoiler Alert) An asteroid is going to destroy Earth. A man and woman meet, eventually fall in love, get separated, get back together, and meet the world in each others arms. A doomsday story, pure and simple.

And so is On The Beach. It’s not the end of the world as we know it. It’s the end of the world for the entire human race. It’s doomsday.

For a cozy catastrophe to be a cozy, the earth must be survivable and there must be survivors. Neither is the case in On The Beach. The book is an end of the world story. Not a cozy catastrophe.

However, the book is worth reading. Contemporary audiences, however, may find the book slow moving. Be aware there isn’t much plot here. There’s a heavy emphasis on duty and civility and a fascinating insight into how we delude ourselves. And the heart-wrenching ending.

On The Beach is not a cozy catastrophe, but a great end of the world novel.

As always, comments are welcome! Until next time, happy reading!

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Cozy Catastrophe Review: Ray Bradbury’s “The Highway”

Good things often come in small packages. A surprisingly delightful cozy catastrophe can be found in Ray Bradbury’s short story “The Highway”, which appears in his 1951 short story collection The Illustrated Man.

The story is very short, only seven pages, and basically has no plot. However, don’t be fooled. Bradbury, by a masterful use of character portrayal, tells a very effective story. In fact, the story is a perfect illustration of Bradbury’s dictum: create your characters, let them do their thing, and that’s your plot.

I am going to forego summarizing the story because I don’t see anyway to do so without giving away the ending, which would be a shame if you wish to read this delightful and thought-provoking little tale. I will point out why I think this story falls into the cozy camp and in doing so give you a bit of a feel for the story.

The Catastrophe

First of all, the catastrophe is quick and there is little discussion of it. A nuclear war has occurred.

The Amateur

The main character, Hernando, lives on his farm with his wife near a river and a road. The road is a main north-south highway, but isn’t a freeway. From the description, we are safe to assume it is a two lane road. One on which lots of tourists travel.

Where Hernando lives exactly is not specified. But because Bradbury also makes clear Hernando’s first language is Spanish, we can again assume his farm is probably in Mexico or Central America.

Contrary to the so-called cozy stereotype, Hernando is not middle-class, nor British. It’s obvious he’s poor. He has a burro and a wooden plow. His wife grinds corn with a block of lava rock. Aside from his farm, the highway provides him with important things which enable him to live apparently somewhat comfortably. The highway provides him money from tourists who want to take his picture, it’s provided him with a shiny hubcap that he and his wife use for a bowl, and the highway provided him with a tire, which he cut up to use for the soles of his shoes.

Clearly, not all cozy catastrophes are about middle-class British blokes who hate the working class.

The Setting

The setting is recognizable. It is a rural place south of the US border. The story focuses on Hernando and his wife. He is going about his everyday tasks when the disaster hits. What tips him off to something going on, is the highway has no cars on it. Something big has happened.

A Survivable World

Suddenly, a stream of cars appears all going north and when the stream is finally gone a lone old Ford shows up that’s overheating. Hernando fills the radiator with water and finds out from the young people in the car a nuclear war has happened. And then the car drives off. What is obvious, there is no sign of the calamity where Hernando lives and we can assume his little corner of the world is survivable.

A New World

The only point I see which might disqualify the story as a cozy catastrophe is the hope of building a better world out of the ashes of the old. For Hernando and his wife, there are no ashes and life goes on. Which is a point Bradbury liked to make: our modern world is too complex and too fragile and isolates us from the simple pleasures of living an uncomplicated existence. So, in a way, for Bradbury, Hernando’s world is the desired new world.

One can, of course, argue something must be survivable for all the cars to have headed north into the war zone. If the US had been totally obliterated, why go there?

The story, though, is about Hernando and for him there is no other world than the one he has always lived in.

Conclusion

In this seven page story, master storyteller Ray Bradbury tells a tale which uses the cozy catastrophe format to tell us a story of the value of simple living.

The tale is very much worth reading and I encourage you to do so. Add a copy of The Illustrated Man to your library. You won’t regret it.

Comments are always welcome. Until next time, happy reading!

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Cozy Catastrophe Review: Earth Abides

The cozy catastrophe can have no better representative than George R Stewart’s Earth Abides. To the modern reader who is expecting a thrilling nail biter of a novel, oozing zombies at every turn, this is not the book for you.

However, if you are looking for a thought-provoking story of a person, a story of a person’s life, a story about a real person who is not always likable and yet has a vision that rallies people around him, a story of hope and inspiration — than this book is your cup of tea.

Earth Abides is about Isherwood Williams and his life after he survives a rattlesnake bite and a deadly pandemic that wipes out most of the world’s population. While the world of the ‘40s, ‘50s, and into the ‘60s quaked in its boots worrying over a nuclear holocaust, Stewart showed us there are other things about which we need to be concerned. Primary of which is our lack of concern about our impact on the natural world and its counter-impact on us.

When Ish, as he is called, comes down out of the mountains where he has been hiking and discovers the world as he knew it had died in a matter of weeks, we see a person befuddled by the enormity of the tragedy and yet one who as a result develops the resolve to not let knowledge die. He gets a car and drives from his home in California to New York City and then back to California, taking in a grand tour of the devastated country.

What Ish learns is that people don’t know how to survive for the most part and secondly, they never knew what to live for. What really matters in life. Earth Abides is in part philosophy masquerading as a novel. The questions Ish asks himself and what he eventually demands of the group that collects around him are important questions we should all ask ourselves before disaster strikes us.

Ish discovers that the world of businessmen and middle-class values does not prepare one for the real stuff of life. Stewart contrasts a southern African-American family with a Euro-American couple in New York City.

The poor blacks know more of life than the prosperous whites. The African-Americans set about to create a family of survivors: a man, a woman, and a young boy. Ish finds the woman pregnant. They have collected some farm animals and planted a garden. They make Ish realize that is what he needs to do rather than simply scavenge the detritus of the dead world.

The white couple in New York, by contrast, have no children, drink booze all day, play cards, read mysteries, and eat their meals out of tin cans, sometimes to Chateau Margaux. They have not given one thought as to what will happen when winter comes. Ish likes them for they are not despondent over what happened, but he realizes they will not survive because they don’t know how to and aren’t capable of thinking beyond their urban middle-class box.

George R Stewart wrote Earth Abides in the 1940s, it was published in 1949. His language is a bit dated by our politically correct standards and his science is also. But Stewart’s vision of hope is timeless. He was a professor of English at UC Berkeley. He was educated at Princeton, Berkeley, and Columbia. Dr Stewart was something of a polymath and unfortunately is virtually forgotten today. He wrote widely on a great array of subjects.

Stewart’s vision of a possible future for the human race is an interesting one. In a time when blacks were largely ignored by the greater society, Stewart shows them to hold the future in their hands. They know how to survive. Ish, whose name is symbolic, Ish meaning man in Hebrew, and is white marries a woman, Emma, who is at least partly African-American. That in an era in which miscegenation was very much taboo. Emma’s name is also symbolic for it means whole or universal. Ish calls her “the Mother of Nations”.

The style of writing is a partial throw back to the Victorian third person omniscient, which I find to put a certain distance between the reader and the story. For the story is told to me by an all-knowing narrator. Earth Abides is somewhat in this style and therefore creates a certain distance between reader and story. If one can overlook the manner of the telling, then one will find the classic that this novel truly is.

The detractors of the cozy, and I’m primarily pointing a finger at Brian Aldiss and Jo Walton and those websites that repeat their criticisms, have so narrowly defined what the cozy is, as though it is solely a British thing, they have turned off readers to a truly great treasure trove of fiction that can stimulate the best in us in the here and now. Earth Abides busts wide open what very much appears to be the self-loathing of Aldiss and Walton. Their own dislike of their own middle-class existence.

In Earth Abides, we see a college student collect together a band of largely working class people and craftsmen. He draws inspiration from a class and race that was marginalized in his day and age. The main character breaks the old taboos in his quest for a better society, but realizes he can’t do it alone. Earth Abides is not a tale filled with thrills and spills. It is one filled with ideas and filled with hope for a better world. Something we all want. It is the classic cozy catastrophe.

Comments are always welcome! Until next time, happy reading!

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Cozy Catastrophe Review: The Time Machine

The Time Machine by HG Wells is a classic work of science fiction. The story is often classed as a cozy catastrophe. After recently re-reading the book, I’ve come to the conclusion not only is the work not a cozy catastrophe, it isn’t even post-apocalyptic literature.

I think it far more accurate to call The Time Machine a dystopian dying earth social satire.

So why review it? Because it is so frequently classed as a cozy catastrophe, I think it exemplifies the confusion about just exactly what is a cozy catastrophe. I think The Time Machine bears examination in order for us to clarify what elements are essential for a cozy to be a cozy.

Let’s take another look at the elements making up the cozy catastrophe subgenre of post-apocalyptic literature.

The Amateur
The Catastrophe
A Recognizable Setting
The Small Group of Survivors
A Survivable World
The Building of a New World
The Message of Hope

The Time Traveller, as the story’s main narrator calls the secondary narrator, tells a small group of his friends a story. The story is of his journey to the year 802,701 AD, where he spends approximately a week, and then travels on to a time about 30 million years into the future where he sees the end of the earth.

Even this briefest of descriptions gives us a clue that the story does not fall into post-apocalyptic literature, for there is no apocalypse. There is the Dying Earth and so we could put the story in that category. However, the journey to the dying days of our planet is a very minor part of the story. The focus of the story is that week The Time Traveller spends in the year 802,701 and that, in my opinion, firmly places the story in the dystopian social satire category of science fiction.

The Time Traveller discovers a beautiful land when he finally stops his machine. The land is inhabited by small child-like people who speak a language unknown to him and exist solely on a diet of fruit. They do nothing but eat, sleep, and play. They live in large buildings which are slowly decaying and which they probably didn’t build. They are clothed, but The Time Traveller sees no means of production.

During the course of the story, the Time Machine is stolen, he befriends one of the people, a female named Weena, and learns they are called by the name Eloi. The Time Traveller also learns there is another group of beings that live underground, whom the Eloi refer to as Morlocks. The Time Traveller deduces the Morlocks stole his machine and he makes a brief exploration of their underground world looking for it. In the process, he discovers the Morlocks run large machines and eat the Eloi.

The Time Traveller posits several explanations as to how the future world he briefly visited came about. None of them involve a catastrophe. This is where Wells’s socialism comes to the fore. The Eloi and the Morlocks are the result of natural degeneration due to class conflict. The conflict between the owners of production and workers.

That is the basis for The Time Machine being classed as a dystopian story with a heavy dose of social satire, which takes a side road down Dying Earth lane.

The only cozy elements are those of a survivable world and the recognizable setting. Other than that we have a process of natural devolution in which the human race separates into the roles of predator and prey — with the satire being that the descendants of the working class now literally prey on the descendants of the owner class. There is no catastrophe, no group of survivors, and no desire to rebuild civilization. The Eloi are ignorant of their past and desire nothing but play. The Morlocks apparently clothe them and eat them. No desire to change things there either.

I found The Time Machine, first published in 1895, to be cluttered with Victorian tropes and to be rather dull reading. At least for me, page after page of description with little conflict is on the dull side. True there is the stealing of the Time Machine and the effort to get it back. There is the conflict with the Morlocks, marred by the typical strong man suddenly too easily exhausted and subject to fainting. The science of the possibility of time travel is historically interesting but very dated.

Where the story makes its mark is in the popularization of the concept of time travel as a scientific reality instead of a product of magic or dreams.

I recall the TV show The Time Tunnel, from 1966-67. For me very exciting stuff, even though it didn’t make it to a second season. It’s an example of our love affair with time travel. Along with such movies as Looper, The Time Traveler’s Wife, and Back to the Future. And the current spate of time travel romance novels.

The Time Machine, for all its faults as a story by today’s standards, is still worth reading. While it isn’t the first time travel story, it is the story that made time travel a staple of science fiction and started us thinking about the real science of time travel.

The Time Machine isn’t a cozy catastrophe, but it is very dystopian and does give one reason to pause and think about the growing disparity between the haves and the have nots.

Next week we’ll continue our survey of cozy catastrophe literature with the book that resulted in the coining of the term cozy catastrophe. Until then happy reading! Comments are always welcome.

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Cozy Catastrophe Review: After London; or, Wild England

The Victorians were a materialistic lot. I should say the middle and upper classes were. The mass of laborers, those in service, and common tradesmen didn’t have much, if anything, and certainly didn’t have much to look forward to. Appalling working conditions were the lot of factory workers and miners. Those in service worked long hours for very little pay. The common tradesmen had the poor for his customers and while he might have been somewhat better off than those he served, it was only somewhat.

So when we speak of the Victorians, we do need to keep in mind we are primarily speaking of the upper end of society. The ones with money. Perhaps not rich, but they did have money and the annual holiday at Brighton.

Richard Jefferies, born in 1848 and died from tuberculosis in 1887, was a writer and a naturalist. He was opposed to the big city and rampant industrialization, both of which he felt destroyed nature and humanity’s relationship with it. One can see this view rather dramatically portrayed in his somewhat mystical autobiography The Story Of My Heart.

In 1885, Cassell and Co, Ltd published After London; or, Wild England. It is and early example of the ecological disaster that destroys civilization as we know it story. The book is also perhaps the first cozy catastrophe.

The novel is divided into two parts. A nameless future historian tells us, in the first part, a great disaster befell England and by implication the world. But in true cozy fashion, the disaster is not dwelt upon nor even described. Humanity was simply gone and nature was now free to move on unfettered and unaltered. No more the plow. No more the woodlands felled for houses, factories, and farms. Nature was once again unhindered, as it was before human beings existed.

Much like the TV series Life After People, the unnamed narrator tells us of the changes that took place “after London ended”. How the remnants of humanity relapsed into a state of barbarism, how the great city of London collapsed in ruins, and how a great lake arose in the center of England.

The narrator tells us “at the eastern extremity the Lake narrows and finally is lost in the vast marshes which cover the site of the ancient London.” The narrator goes on to describe nature’s destruction of the city and how there is nothing left of it. Nothing that is except for the noxious pollution and a vapor so fatal “no animal can endure”. The water over the site is black and is covered by “a greenish-brown floating scum, which for ever bubbles up from the putrid mud of the bottom.” The poisonous vapors form a “miasma” and “it becomes visible as low cloud which hangs over the place.”

We don’t know what killed off the people, but Jefferies paints a clear picture that humanity messed up nature and what people built, though gone, still pollutes the land.

For the Victorians, London was the center of the world. Jefferies was telling his contemporaries their greatest accomplishment was in fact nothing more then a noxious and toxic cesspool. And by extension, he tells us the same message. A simple life in harmony with nature is humanity’s proper home. Not some stinking city, belching forth pollution and reducing humans to a state less than human.

In the second part of the book, the narrator tells us the story of Sir Felix Aquila, the eldest son of a baron who is not especially wealthy.

English society has returned to feudalism. Brawn is favored over brains. And the new focal point is not London, but the vast lake that now exists in the center of England.

Sir Felix is a bookish man in a society that does not value books. He is excellent with the longbow when it is prowess with the sword that gains respect. Sir Felix does not fit in. A theme that is common with the cozy catastrophe. The hero is nothing spectacular, an ordinary joe, and is very often a social outcast.

However, after the catastrophe, the hero suddenly blossoms and becomes the savior, as it were. In Sir Felix’s case, the catastrophe happened long ago and so his blossoming occurs after a trip of exploration on the lake.

After London has all the elements of the cozy catastrophe. In particular, it’s message: we, our materialism, our disregard for nature, brought about the catastrophe. Yet it is the very destruction of our world that provides the hope we can do it right the second time around.

I didn’t find After London a particularly enjoyable read. The omniscient narrator seemed to suck the life out of the story. I found the book rather boring. Nevertheless, we find in After London the progenitor of a science fiction sub-genre that came into its own some sixty-five years later.

And for me what is most important about After London is that it’s not about some white middle-class Englishmen sitting around having tea and crumpets celebrating the demise of the working class. Which is what the detractors of the cozy seem to think is the point of the sub-genre. The book is an exploration of our abuse of nature and what might happen if that abuse ended. The book is a celebration of brains over brawn. A celebration of the social outcast, the wallflower, who, when the time is right, shows the world he or she can indeed dance the tango. The book celebrates the little guy and gal and tells us that salvation does not reside in some monolithic governmental authority, but in ordinary people.

Most of all, After London is a novel of hope, as are almost all cozy catastrophes. The world is not a dark and miserable dystopia. The catastrophe unleashes human potential, makes possible our dream of a better world. Richard Jefferies made that message key in After London — and it still defines the cozy catastrophe some 130 years later.

We will continue our examination of the literature next week. Until then, happy reading!

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The Apocalypse and After

September 2000, Muslyumovo, 40 km from the Mayak nuclear complex, Ural mountains, Russia: Former main street in Muslyumovo, near the Techa River, which has been severely contaminated with radioactive waste. © 2000 - Greenpeace/Robert Knoth GREENPEACE HANDOUT-NO RESALE-NO ARCHIVE — September 2000, Muslyumovo, 40 km from the Mayak nuclear complex, Ural mountains, Russia: Former main street in Muslyumovo, near the Techa River, which has been severely contaminated with radioactive waste.
© 2000 – Greenpeace/Robert Knoth
This was one of the worst nuclear disasters in history, occuring in 1957, and the region around the Mayak plant is still the most polluted on the planet today.

The Apocalypse and After

The Conspiracy Game (Justinia Wright, PI #4) is available on a pre-publication sale this week only for 99¢. That makes for 7 Justinia Wright mysteries I’ve published. Three novels, a collection of 3 novellas, and 3 short stories. I love Tina and Harry and find their stories the easiest to write. However if all I wrote were mysteries, I think I’d become bored with writing. As the old adage goes: variety is the spice of life.

And so now I switch gears and turn my attention to one of my other loves: the post-apocalyptic tale. The Rocheport Saga currently has 5 volumes in the series and I’m working on number 6. It is the story of one man’s attempt to create paradise out of the disaster that has almost totally wiped out the human race.

The original manuscript for The Rocheport Saga is a monster over 2200 pages long. Normally I do not rewrite. I follow the practice of writers such as Lester Dent, Isaac Asimov, Robert E Howard, Robert Heinlein, and Dean Wesley Smith — get the story written and move on to the next one. Unfortunately with The Rocheport Saga my technical knowledge of surviving such a holocaust and what is possible has increased a hundred fold since I first wrote the manuscript. Therefore, rewrite I must.

The Rocheport Saga is a cozy catastrophe and I’ve written previously on the cozy catastrophe. You can find those posts here, here, and here. Over the next few weeks I’m going to present more detailed thoughts on and examples of this sub-subgenre of speculative fiction.

Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic stories are very popular and their popularity shows no sign of abating. The current spate of zombie apocalypse tales is proof this subgenre isn’t going away anytime soon. We are fascinated by what it takes to survive. Will we survive?

I grew up in the ‘50s and ‘60s when the threat of nuclear war was very, very real. I still have those old civil defense pamphlets they handed out in grade school. To this day, I can’t figure out what hiding under a desk will do. But, hey, desperate times call for desperate measures. Right? For me the possible end of the world as I knew it was something I lived with every day. Sure it wasn’t in the forefront of my mind. After all I was a kid. But it was there, subtly, in front of me everyday implied in the newspaper, on TV, in books, and in those civil defense drills. One day, most of us might be wiped off the face of the earth.

The apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic tale is nostalgia for me, at least in part. Probably why I’m not keen on the flood of zombie apocalypse stories hitting the market. That stuff is pure fantasy. If it is fantasy I want, then I prefer the original zombie of Haitian folklore: an undead being created by the evil magic of a bokor. A supernatural being. The mindless slave of the evil wizard or witch. Robert E Howard was a master of this kind of zombie tale. “Black Canaan” being a classic zombie horror story. In fact, I class the zombie apocalypse as a horror tale and not a true apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic story. And, for me, I find the modern zombie story a laughable joke compared to the likes of “Black Canaan”.

The apocalyptic tale and the post-apocalyptic tale are different things, even though they are usually lumped together. The apocalyptic story deals mostly with the cataclysm and the events leading up to it. A classic example is the novel When Worlds Collide and the movie 2012. The emphasis there is on preparation to survive what is coming. The story can be plot or character-driven.

The post-apocalyptic story takes place after the cataclysm. Often the disaster comes upon us suddenly and we have no time to prepare for it. As in the BBC TV series Survivors and the classic sci-fi novel Earth Abides. The focus is not on the disaster, but on the survivors of the disaster. How they cope and what they do to survive in a sometimes radically altered world, such as we find in the Mad Max series, The Road, I Am Legend, and The Book of Eli. In other post-apocalyptic settings the world the survivors face is not radically different. We see this in Earth Abides, Survivors, and After Worlds Collide (where the survivors are on a very earth-like planet). Here, the story is usually character-driven and perhaps that is why I prefer it over the apocalyptic tale.

There are many apocalyptic scenarios, each one affecting the possible direction humanity and civilization might take. My favorite is the cozy catastrophe because the catastrophe is often environmental or the result of scientific interference with nature. The term was coined by Brian Aldiss to pejoratively describe a style of post-apocalyptic literature popular in post-World War Two Britain, made famous by John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids. On the American side of the pond, the most famous example is probably Earth Abides by George R Stewart.

In the cozy catastrophe, the disaster is not dwelt on. It happens rather rapidly and wipes out most of the human race; leaving the world essentially as is, minus the human population. The focus is not on survival so much as it is on re-building civilization and doing a better job of it this time around.

Of course what I just wrote is a broad overview and exceptions abound. But in general, I find the cozy catastrophe on the whole positive — emphasizing the hope we hold on to that we can make the world a better place in which to live.

Over the course of the next several weeks, I’ll delve into more detail as to what is and what isn’t a cozy catastrophe.

As always, your comments are welcome!

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Still More on the Cozy Catastrophe

I’m shifting gears. Moving from private eye fiction to, once again, the cozy catastrophe as I’m getting ready to send the fifth book of The Rocheport Saga out into the world.

I’ve written about the cozy catastrophe before back in May 2015. You can find those posts here and here. Just click on the links. Today, I’d like to take another look at this venerable sub-genre that focuses on people and the natural course of events and not monsters or the supernatural.

The cozy catastrophe, by force, focuses on people. The genre is character-driven and perhaps that is what draws me as a reader. The story deals with the inner mind of the protagonist, how he or she copes with the aftermath of the apocalyptic cataclysm.

Some cozy catastrophes are set in the future. A future significantly altered from the logical course of events due to the cataclysm having thrown humankind into a re-creation of some ancient era. We see this, for example, in the quasi-medieval setting of England in Richard Jefferies’ After London Or, Wild England.

In this form of the cozy catastrophe, we often see the protagonist as being out of step with the world in which he or she finds himself or herself. A person marginalized, on the rim of society. Which, by the way, is a characteristic of cyberpunk.

Whether set immediately after the cataclysm or at some distance in the future, the protagonist is usually nobody special. Just an ordinary person thrown into extraordinary circumstances. There, in those circumstances, the person’s hidden wisdom and strength shine. And often as not, the protagonist was not aware he or she possessed such wisdom or strength. But freed from the restraints of society, the protagonist blossoms and becomes the savior of the world. Or at least makes a valiant effort.

Of course the above is a generalization and not all cozy catastrophes end happily. On the Beach being a notable example and also Terry Nation’s Survivors. Earth Abides by George R Stewart, is another example where at least for the protagonist all he worked for he watches come to a bittersweet end. Nevertheless, life goes on. Save for those unfortunates in On the Beach.

My own cozy catastrophe series, The Rocheport Saga, follows the same pattern as its predecessors. Very ordinary and very unassuming Bill Arthur suddenly finds himself the leader of a band of contentious survivors. His personal mission is to stop civilization from regressing to a hunter-gatherer society and to return “home” to the 21st century technologically. However, on the social front, Bill hopes to create a society that is free and open, tolerant and accepting. A society that values liberty and personal responsibility and eschews control of others. A society very unlike the one destroyed on “That Day”, which Bill saw as sliding down the slippery slope of totalitarianism through the wielding of excessive presidential authority and the repression of freedom due to the “war” on drugs and terror. A society where group think was valued more highly than individual thought and the tyranny of social and political correctness was smothering freedom of expression. And the valuing security over liberty was eroding the Bill of Rights.

What Bill Arthur quickly discovers is that you can take people out of 21st century America, but you can’t take the 21st century out of the people. Bill becomes embroiled in a never-ending battle with those who wish to force their opinions and strictures on others in the name of some greater good, people who value control over freedom, people who have little tolerance for independent thought.

One of the things I find so appealing in the cozy catastrophe is that it gets me to think about what I value, what truly makes life worth living, and what are unproductive constructs which hinder me from living life to the fullest. For me, the cozy catastrophe is an opportunity to explore the maxim of Marcus Aurelius: Life is what you make it.

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The Rocheport Saga

The Troubled City (The Rocheport Saga #4) is now LIVE!!! Check out My Novels page for the links to the vendors who carry it.

In addition to The Troubled City joining the ongoing saga of Bill Arthur and the Rocheport crew, I’m running a sale on the first three books of the series. Now is the time to get a copy if you haven’t previously.

The Morning Star (Book 1) is 99¢.

The Shining City (Book 2) is $1.99.

Love Is Little (Book 3) is $2.99.

The sale prices are good through October 4th. Check out My Novels page to see the vendors who carry the books.

If you want to know about the series, I blogged a bit about it in my September 22nd post.

I hope you enjoy reading the series as much as I did writing it!

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The Troubled City (The Rocheport Saga #4)

The Troubled City (The Rocheport Saga #4) is coming in a few days to an ebook vendor near you!

Below is the cover and first half-dozen pages to pique your interest.

The Rocheport Saga was the first “book” I wrote after learning about the “plotless” novel. That is important, because I can’t plot the story out before hand. Try as a I might, I just can’t do it. Plotting for me is not unlike the old woman who sang a folksong to a song collector back around the beginning of the Twentieth Century. When she was finished singing and he recording, she said the song was now dead. Plotting kills the story for me.

Hence The Rocheport Saga is a massive, sprawling manuscript (over 2200 handwritten pages) and has no real plot. It is the fictional autobiography of a man after the world as we know it has come to an end. There are story arcs, but no real plot per se. Just the plot we all live out every day of our lives over the course of our lives.

Each book in the Saga, is edited from the original manuscript. I clean up the text, sometimes add new elements from things I’ve learned since writing the original, and work the manuscript into a conveniently sized novel. I’m guessing there could be up to 10 books in the series.

I’m considering putting in a cast of characters, because if you pick up a volume other than the first and start reading you will probably not understand who is who and what is what for at least some of the book. Other parts will become obvious after some reading. That is one advantage of self-publishing, I can tweak things to make the book better whenever I want.

The novel is in the form of diary entries. In The Troubled City, we start with the hero, Bill Arthur, the leader of Rocheport, going on a month long exploration to see what is out to the west of the little town of Rocheport, Missouri. What becomes quickly apparent is that there are three factions: one opposed to Bill, one supporting Bill, and those in the middle. When Bill returns to the city, he finds it slowly sinking into chaos and discovers no matter what he tries he seems incapable of stopping Rocheport from imploding. That is until he finds help from a person who will dominate the central books of the series.

The cover art is done by my wife. Enjoy the sample and look for the novel later this week!

The Third Year After That Day

March 23rd

From the diary of Melanie Hanks:

Dad and Mert said goodbye early in the morning (Merty even gave me a hug and a kiss) and rode out of town on their horses through the north gate, with Andy and Kayla. Most everyone was there to say their goodbyes. Mom, Helena, Ash, George, and I waved until they disappeared from view. That’s when the dogs started whining, especially Asta. Mermaid nuzzled Helena’s hand to get her to pet her.

Just two days ago we were all standing in the same place, saying our goodbyes, and waving until they disappeared from view. Only to have them all return yesterday with two dozen people from Boonville, who decided they wanted to move to Rocheport for a better life. Now, Dad, Mert, Andy, and Kayla have left us again and I have a feeling this time we won’t be seeing them so soon.

There were lots of tears, today. I think others were thinking the same thing. Mom and I wiped our eyes and cheeks. Rain and Raine were crying. Emma, too. Cassie tried to hide it, but I saw her wiping her eyes. Reverend Rhonda’s cheeks were wet. We might never see them again and that scares me. Dad tried to make light of that fact, but it is true. The world is a dangerous place. Merty has always been there and now he’s my only family. Well, my only real family. I love Bill and Sally and call them “Dad” and “Mom”, but they aren’t my real parents. If Bill and Mert don’t come back, I guess I’ll have to love Sally, Helena, Ash, and George all the more. They’ll be all I have.

Not everyone was sad. I noticed Billy-Rae Thornpot was smiling and Reverend Powers didn’t have that mean look on his face. Steven Crane was even laughing. I think Harry Wirtz is going to have his hands full.

Our friends made sure we knew they’re here for us. Rhonda, Harry, Jerry, Jocelyn, Ralph, Cheryl, James, and Mary are good people, as my real dad would have said. I think they really will be there, if we need the help.

The Wrodkowskis walked home with us and Mom said they could stay, if they wanted, we have plenty of room. Rain and Raine were very happy and accepted the offer.

We and the Wrodkowskis went to Reverend Rhonda’s church service and afterwards, at the community dinner, that’s when the crap hit the fan. Reverend Powers found out there are a bunch of Catholics in the Boonville group and even a priest. He like totally lost it. Even Rachel, his wife, had a tough time getting him to calm down. And Steven Crane had to be right there all totally psyched out. It was Billy-Rae Thornpot who finally got them quieted down.

I felt so embarrassed. I mean like what are all these new people going to think? We’re all a bunch of psychos? Sometimes adults act so dumb.

After dinner, everyone helped the people from Boonville get settled. Billy-Rae even got Reverend Powers to help. He didn’t help the Catholics, though. Just the Baptists. I heard Harry Wirtz grumbling about “selective treatment”. “People are people,” he said. Apparently Reverend Powers doesn’t think so.

Most of the new people are older. There are a couple kids and three teens. There’s Zibby. Kinda hard to forget a name like that! She’s tall, like five-ten, and pretty too. She has long, kinda frizzy red hair and a few freckles. She acts like she totally knows what she’s doing. Her full name is Zibby Pandora White. She’s eighteen. Grace and Blair are the other teens. Grace is nineteen, about my height, with brown hair and eyes. Blair is eighteen. He’s kinda cute. Tall and broad shouldered. Blond hair and blue eyes. I’d like to get to know him.

From the diary of Bill Arthur:

We rode west and instead of going to Boonville, turned north to New Franklin. There are somewhere between twenty and thirty people living there. Mostly along the river. They greeted us warily and we decided it would be best if we moved on.

North of New Franklin is Fayette. Home of Central Methodist University and Morrison Observatory. The town itself is pretty much abandoned. The survivors having moved to the east shore of Rogers Lake and built a small village of shacks and tents surrounded by a palisade. There are around eighty survivors: fifty former students, the remaining being townsfolk.

They were quite friendly and eager to learn about the world beyond their doorstep. We ended up sleeping in the city park because things are very crowded within the palisade.

The people of Fayette seemed to be a harmonious group. At least they didn’t admit to any infighting and I didn’t sense any. They were growing their own food, hunting, and fishing. It’s nice to know there are people who can get along.

What I found disheartening was that while the former students might have been on their way to being prepared for life in the world before That Day, they were totally unprepared for life in the world after That Day. The ones enabling the community to survive are the older folks. The ones who grew up in the ‘30s, ‘40s, and ‘50s. The ones who have some idea of how things work. Practical knowledge learned on the job or from their parents.

I suggested they glean what they can out of the college library. Preserve any books which tell how things work. They are the key to the future. The leaders of Fayette appreciated the suggestion.

March 24th

From the diary of Bill Arthur:

In the morning we bid farewell to the people of Fayette and rode west to Glasgow, a small town on the Missouri River. We found the people very friendly and eager to learn any news we had to share. They use bicycles to get around and have a couple horses which they use for farming.

Thirty-one people call Glasgow home and appear to be doing okay for themselves. Unlike us, they seem to have avoided large scale turmoil and strife. Makes me wonder how effective a leader I am. The people of both Fayette and Glasgow working together for everyone’s mutual benefit, while we are constantly fighting and bickering.

The surrounding countryside was farmland which is now reverting to grassland and forest. What was once covered in crops, is now giving birth to stands of saplings. We’ve seen no one in the open countryside. My guess is the solitaries have either died, been killed, or joined with some group.

We’re two and a half years into our new age and the survivors are clustering together, forming new communities out of the old. Doesn’t mean renegades and bandits aren’t about. There’ve always been Vandals, Huns, Vikings, you name them — the ones who’d rather take the fruits others have planted instead of planting their own. Today is no different. Mostly because people are people. That Day didn’t change who we are.

March 25th

From the diary of Melanie Hanks:

At the town hall meeting tonight, Reverend Powers, as usual, was a pain. We sang our anthem and even sang “Love is Little”, but when the time for new business came up Reverend Powers stood and demanded to know why the community wasn’t consulted concerning the Boonville people.

Harry Wirtz, who’s the leader while Dad is gone, looked really mad, although you couldn’t tell it from his voice. “Bill made the decision based on what he saw and what those people needed.”

Powers didn’t give up. “He should have discussed their situation with the community first.”

“Well, he didn’t. And since Bill isn’t here, we’re going to sit on this until he gets back,” Harry said.

Steven Crane jumped up. “What if he doesn’t come back?”

“We’ll deal with the issue then,” Harry answered.

From the look on their faces, Reverend Powers and Steven Crane didn’t like Harry’s answer but they didn’t say anymore about it. Good thing the Boonville people weren’t at the meeting.

March 26th

From the diary of Melanie Hanks:

At breakfast this morning, the Wood family and four others were sitting with Reverend Powers’ group. That doesn’t look good. The last thing we need is for more people to join Reverend Powers.

Zibby asked if she could sit with me. I said sure.

“I hear your dad is Bill Arthur, the guy who invited us to come here.”

“Yes. He’s my adopted dad.”

“Oh, sure. Lucky for you. No one took me in. I’m by myself. Some of the people back in Boonville helped me. Mostly, I just help myself.”

“I’m sorry. I mean not having anyone and all.”

“Thanks, but I’m okay. Your dad’s the one in charge, right?”

“He’s the leader.”

“Cool. I like you, Mel. We’re going to do alright.”

We talked about stuff and then went to school.

At dinner, Zibby, Blair Novak, and Grace Parchette sat with our family and the Wrodkowskis. The four of us were at one end of the table. I found out Zibby and Grace are Catholic, although Zibby doesn’t really believe it anymore.

Zibby said, “Blair, Grace, and Michael — he’s over there — and I kinda hung out together back in Boonville. We got a house together here.”

“You all live together?” I asked.

“Yeah, now we’re going to,” Zibby said.

Grace added, “We aren’t boyfriend or girlfriend. Just friends. No sex.”

“Oh, I see,” I said.

Zibby laughed. “I hear you guys have some crazy arrangements over here. At least that’s what John Wood said. He got it from that Reverend dude. The nutso.”

I practically snorted my milk at Zibby’s description. “Yeah. Powers is a pain in the butt. Doesn’t like anything. He and Dad don’t agree on much and if Powers doesn’t agree with you, look out.”

Zibby didn’t say anything. The look on her face suggested she was filing the information away. Grace and Blair just shook their heads and said it sounded like their group in a lot of ways.

We went on talking. What I didn’t like was how Zibby kept wanting to get into family stuff. Like she was prying. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t have a family? I don’t know. I just didn’t like it. When dinner was over, Blair said he was glad he made the move and was looking forward to getting to know everyone. He made me feel kinda mushy inside.

From the diary of Bill Arthur:

Glasgow is thirty-six miles away. I think it a bit much to hope for regular trade and communication with them. The travel time has to be measured in days now and there is so much to do. To spare three or four people for several days is something of a luxury and yet I don’t want to not follow up on our contact. At some point we are going to have to reach out and begin trading with other communities and sharing information and technology.

Of course we don’t have to be limited to horses. We could start making steam-powered automobiles and trucks. Or expand Jerry’s still and make more alcohol. The alcohol could be directly used in modified gasoline engines; combined with soybean or sunflower oil, maybe even corn oil, to produce biodiesel; or used in external combustion engines to produce steam. Because we have plenty of solid fuel, I’m inclined towards building steam-powered vehicles fired by solid fuel, rather than liquid. To produce liquid fuel from grains, seeds, and beans requires a lot of work. That is why we didn’t have it in the old world. It wasn’t overly cost effective. But we do have plenty of internal combustion engines around and we don’t have to fuel all of them. So it is an idea. This could be a community project. The Costigan’s Needle for Rocheport.

That science fiction novel keeps sticking in my mind. Those people stranded in another dimension, stopped their infighting by focusing on building the machine that could get them back home. We can’t go back, just as it turned out they couldn’t go back. But we can focus on the future. I want cars, not horses and buggies. Maybe building our own cars and trucks could be what pulls us together.

One valuable piece of information we got from the folks in Glasgow was confirmation as to the location of two salt licks. Eleven miles south of Glasgow is the famous Boone’s Lick site and across the river is Saline County, which was so named for the numerous salt licks that were once very actively used. The only ones that are easily identifiable are those in the Blue Lick Conservation Area, south of Marshall. Although the Glasgowites thought there were a couple others not too far to the west of them. They were not aware of anyone currently processing salt.

We bade them farewell, wished them luck, and rode west. The first town we came to was Gilliam and it was abandoned. Rusting cars. Houses slowly falling into ruin. The surrounding farmland was like all the other farmland we’ve seen. Slowly returning to forest.

Riding farther west we came to Slater and like the people in Fayette the Slater survivors had relocated to the shore of Slater Lake. Forty-some people form the community. They’ve built two dozen huts and have four tents surrounded by a wall of cars and logs. Hunting, fishing, and some extensive gardens are enabling them to get by. They invited us to stay and eat with them, which we did. Afterwards, they let us pitch our tents within the compound. We exchanged news about our respective areas. They’ve had turf wars with the people in Marshall over hunting and scavenging areas. Their own community has been pretty stable. Some leadership issues early on, but they were able to get them resolved.

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