I’ve written over 30 novels, mostly fantasy, until meeting a prepper years ago in a tavern with a cold beer and a quiet table. He explained that EVERYTHING depends on farmers and trucks carrying food to us. My last six or eight novels dwell on that one theme, no matter if the cause is volcanoes erupting, social breakdown, or an upcoming war. When the food is scarce…well, that’s the background for books I enjoy.
This 1962 novel was the first I read of this genre, and it stuck with me. While somewhat dated (a lot), it held my attention again a few years ago. Not many can hold up for so many years, and what it relates still resonates today.
In this profound ecological fable, a mysterious plague has destroyed the vast majority of the human race. Isherwood Williams, one of the few survivors, returns from a wilderness field trip to discover that civilization has vanished during his absence.
Eventually he returns to San Francisco and encounters a female survivor who becomes his wife. Around them and their children a small community develops, living like their pioneer ancestors, but rebuilding civilization is beyond their resources, and gradually they return to a simpler way of life.
A poignant novel about finding a new normal after the upheaval of a global crisis.
I can’t help but think a woman wrote this, and the viewpoints are slightly different. Her focus is more on the people than the events, but she writes so well a reader is drawn into the story from the start. Again, this is out of the general books like this—and better for it.
What lines will you cross to survive?Three months after an EMP attack destroys the U.S. power grid, starvation and disease have killed millions. With the end of winter finally in sight, the town of Fall Creek, Michigan balances on the precipice of collapse.They have suffered and sacrificed. But to forge a future worth living, they will have to face the darkness within themselves. Each must decide--will they retain their humanity or choose survival at any cost?Get the penultimate installment in the Edge of Collapse survival series now.When the country goes dark, ordinary people find themselves facing the end of the…
I both read and listened to this book! The first of three in the series with a “mere” 54,000 reviews, almost all wildly in favor of it. I found it a little long but noticed that I didn’t put it down. A couple of years later, I got an audio and listened again while on vacation in Mexico, so much so that my wife still hasn’t forgiven me.
Off the coast of Antarctica, a research vessel discovers a mysterious structure buried deep within an iceberg. Entombed for thousands of years, it can't possibly be man-made. But a secretive and ruthless cabal think they know what it is... and what it means.
The Immari have spent millennia preparing for the return of humanity's ancient enemy. Faced with an extinction-level threat, they believe mankind's only chance of survival will mean sacrificing 99.9% of the planet's population. It's a price the Immari are prepared to pay.
Geneticist Kate Warner and intelligence agent David Vale…
Another book that I both read and listened to, this one with 28,000 reviews. I liked the upfront personal point of view of what the common man would do in extreme circumstances. He spent time on the physical failings of technology and that the average person in today’s America isn’t ready to survive. Some will. Most won’t.
A post-apocalyptic thriller of the after effects in the United States after a terrifying terrorist attack using electromagnetic pulse weapons.
New York Times best selling author William R. Forstchen now brings us a story which can be all too terrifyingly real...a story in which one man struggles to save his family and his small North Carolina town after America loses a war, in one second, a war that will send America back to the Dark Ages...A war based upon a weapon, an Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP). A weapon that may already be in the hands of our enemies.
The first of nine books in the series, I liked that the main character lived alone and protected his land, along with the graves of his wife and child as company. His survival preparations were far more than just shooting others and taking what they had. This book has compassion, which many others lack. It leads naturally to book 2 and beyond.
HE THOUGHT HE WAS PREPARED. HE THOUGHT HIS FAMILY WAS SAFE. HE WAS WRONG. Five years after a pneumonic plague killed two-thirds of the world’s population, army veteran Marcus Battle is isolated. He’s alone with his guns, his food, and the graves of his wife and child. Unaware of the chaos that’s befallen everything outside of his central Texas ranch land, Marcus lives a Spartan life. If anyone steps onto his property he shoots first and never ask questions. But when a woman in distress, chased by marauders, seeks asylum, Marcus has a decision to make. Does he throw her…
Most of the books in these genres are about the devastation and the actual events. However, other themes have been explored less. What about nine years after, or two, or five? How has the US changed? What are the issues, and how are they handled?
I slip in a little sly humor, but I am trying to write more about the characters than the events. The people who live next door. What about him or her? Someone else can write about the superheroes.
My book recommendations reflect an abiding passion for Japanese literature, which has unquestionably influenced my own writing. My latest literary interest involves Japanese poetry—I’ve recently started a project that combines haiku and prose narration to describe my experiences as a part-time resident in a 1300-year-old Japanese hot spring town that Bashō helped make famous in The Narrow Road to the Deep North. But as a writer, my main focus remains novels. In late 2023 the second in a planned series of novels set in Ishikawa prefecture will be published. I currently live in Kanazawa, but have also been lucky to call Sapporo, Akita, Tokyo, and Fukui home at different times.
Emmitt’s plans collapse when his wife, Mirai, suddenly backs out of purchasing their dream home. Disappointed, he’s surprised to discover her subtle pursuit of a life and career in Tokyo.
In his search for a meaningful life in Japan, and after quitting his job, he finds himself helping his mother-in-law translate Kanazawa’s most famous author, Izumi Kyoka, into English. He becomes drawn into the mysterious death of a friend of Mirai’s parents, leading him and his father-in-law to climb the mountain where the man died. There, he learns the somber truth and discovers what the future holds for him and…
In Kanazawa, the first literary novel in English to be set in this storied Japanese city, Emmitt's future plans collapse when his wife, Mirai, suddenly backs out of negotiations to purchase their dream home. Disappointed, he's surprised to discover Mirai's subtle pursuit of a life and career in Tokyo, a city he dislikes.
Harmony is further disrupted when Emmitt's search for a more meaningful life in Japan leads him to quit an unsatisfying job at a local university. In the fallout, he finds himself helping his mother-in-law translate Kanazawa's most famous author, Izumi Kyoka, into English.
