post-apocalyptic novel reading club
sastyk | January 10, 2011Just an update - all the copies of Prelude in circulation are presently going 'round, but if past experience is any guide, the books should have at least one more cycle before the end of the month. So watch here for the next announcement.
In some ways I'm not the optimal audience for Kurt Cobb's _Prelude_ in that I generally hate thrillers. I find the "ordinary person caught up in a chase sequence" thing silly, and while I can read science fiction and suspend belief long enough to believe in wormholes and colonization, or mysteries, and believe that the town of Whateverville experiences a…
sastyk | January 7, 2011Just a reminder to everyone that we'll be starting Kurt Cobb's _Prelude_ on Monday. I have several people who have copies available for circulation, so if you'd like to read along with the group, please drop me an email at jewishfarmer@gmail.com and you'll get a copy in the mail, with only the requirement that you pass it on if more people want it! Kurt is going to be able to participate in our discussion as well! But first, I promised a discussion of sex and gender in The Witch of Hebron.
I said I'd write another post about _The Witch of Hebron_, this time explicitly addressing the sex…
sastyk | December 31, 2010Hi Folks - Happy New Year, everyone! Just a few admin things. First, I still have several spaces in my January apprentice weekend, coming up MLK weekend. This is an adults-only weekend in which we'll talk about everything, practice the winter skill set - late season preserving, goat care and milking, winter livestock care, cheesemaking and dairying, herbs, garden planning and seed starting, or whatever the group wants to learn! In addition, we'll have a mini-adapting in place class as well.
The event is at my house, by donation (whatever you consider fair for the experience), and I also…
sastyk | December 7, 2010First of all, let me start with what I like about Jim Kunstler's writing in _The Witch of Hebron_. The thing I enjoy most is that he navigates the shoals of post-apocalyptic fantasy extraordinarily well. He neither falls into the masturbatory apocalypticism of something like _The Road_ nor the "good vs. evil fantasy" so common in PA novels, in which our heroes stand for good, light and humanity against cartoon bad guys who respond to the crisis in cartoon ways (lots of these, think _Lucifer's Hammer_ or _Dies the Fire_.)
Kunstler's post-apocalypticism comes in shades of grey - his…
sastyk | November 29, 2010Two updates for the Post-Apocalyptic Novel Reading Club. First, I realized that I have scheduled two things for the first of the upcoming month - my "Anyway Project" updates and the first discussion of _The Witch of Hebron_. This is far more than I am likely to accomplish, so I've decided my PANRC will start on the 7th - so you all have an extra reading week. In both cases, the dates are slightly fungible given that your blogiste is a bit of a slacker - if they fall on a Shabbos, holiday or something else important, it will simply be the nearest possible date. But for this month, Anyway…
sastyk | November 16, 2010PANRC, by the way, is the acronym for "Post-Apocalyptic Novel Reading Club" pronounced by those in the know (ie, the person who just made this up 3 seconds ago) as "Panric" ;-). And while December's selection (we'll start on 12/1), Jim Kunstler's _The Witch of Hebron_ has been out for a bit, Kurt Cobb's _Prelude_ (which is, in fact, an immediately pre-apocalyptic novel) is now out. YAY!!!!
I've read _Prelude_ and besides the fact that I think it is fun and readable - a peak oil novel someone might actually read for fun - I think what Cobb is doing is important and I want to support it.…
sastyk | October 31, 2010With November coming 'round tomorrow, I realize my chances of re-starting the post-apocalyptic reading group for November 1 are probably pretty faint ;-). Again, this is pretty much a reflection of where my brain is these days. I *meant* to get us started for ummm...tomorrow. But while I realize my readers are a brilliant and uniquely talented bunch, probably obtaining and reading the novel by tomorrow is a little unfair. I would, of course, never suggest that your genius blogiste couldn't do it.
So, here is my official announcement - we're getting started again as of December 1, and I…
sastyk | August 20, 2010On ye olde blogge, in 2008, I ran a post-apocalyptic novel reading club for about six months. Why, you ask? Well, why not? When you deal with real doom, mocking (or praising on the rare occasions when it is good) fictive doom is theraputic - and fun. All of us, I suspect, have a secret stash of these books - so why not come out and talk about them here? I've had tons of requests to bring it back. Well, requests granted - it is coming back! I'm shooting for the first read to be ready at the beginning of October - meanwhile, does anyone have any suggestions for a first book? I'm pretty…