TEOTWAWKI

[warhawke]

Michael, Michael, Michael I am afraid I must comment on the podcast. I don't want to harsh your mellow or anything, but as a lifelong survivalist and the son of a survivalist this is a subject near and dear to my heart.

Wolf and Iron was after a Socio-economic collapse not a Bio/Nuke event.
I have a funny story about this book, I was in a book store and saw someone looking at the original book "In Iron Years" (the story of the boy and his wolf was one of several short stories in that edition) and commented that they should pass on it. The person said "What is wrong with it?" I replied that it "Was what happens when the profit motive overcomes an authors artistic ability". The person did not take it well, it was Gordon R Dickson! Another person who hated the original book was U of M Professor and chair of the Psych dept. Harry Frank who hated the wolf depictions. Doctor Frank contacted Mr Dickson about it and ended up helping Mr Dickson write Wolf and Iron as well as writing the foreword. It is one of the best books in the genre in the area of survivor psychology.

Pulling Through (which has been reissued along with several related stories as "The Rackham Files" by Baen books) starred Harve Rackham and his best friend "Spot" a hunting CHEETAH, not Leopard. As for the Lotus, well Mr Ing has always given society more credit than it deserved when it comes to using advanced technology. I don't know if the new edition has the nuclear survival section with the KMF home fallout meter, air filters or other items but I sure hope so.

Lucifer's Hammer is a great book too, but I have issues with some of the stuff in it.

I have not read Patriots, which I should as I am a contributer to Mr Rawles Survivalblog.com (albeit an infrequent one). Nor have I read "Dies the fire", but I'm not a big Sterling fan and I tend towards stories which a bit more likelihood of happening.

I am aghast however that you did not mention the original survivalist book, the one and only "Alas Babylon" by Pat Frank. Written in 1959 (with a certain flavor which comes from the pre civil-rights era) it was the first novel written about the aftermath of a nuclear attack and still stands up well today. So well in fact that a new edition was printed in 2005, which was it's 50th edition (IIRC). In fact it is responsible for my fetish over fire-starters and salt, over which my wife has given me so much grief. If you have not read this book you should, I recommend it right behind "Untended Consequences" as a book everyone should read.

For those who are not survivalists, these are not the usual, The Day After, "Oh crap, we're all gonna' die" Hollywood pieces of bovine feces that we have been subjected to over the years. These are serious works about normal people surviving disasters and working to build a better world. These are books about hope and the human spirit, not depressing propaganda written by idiots who couldn't survive a bartenders strike.

I do thank you for bringing up the subject Michael, in this day and age people need to think about these issues more than ever.