Category: While We Still Have time
This is the New Plan giveaway
Today the review for John Xero’s book, This is the New Plan, went up (link here). Well, I’m excited to say that John Xero has been generous enough to offer one of our readers a free copy of the book (in e-book form)!
John wrote 33 stories for this book. (Well, 33 that he included in the book. I’m sure the original short list had quite a bit more stories.) Now, it’s your turn to get creative.
To win a copy of This is the New Plan, you will need to write a short piece of fiction. Really short–it only has to be 250 words long (or less). But! Your 250-word piece of creative genius must include the following words: zombie, evil space monkey, diving board, tipi, the Rapture, seventeen, contagion, telepathy, egg, Chevy.
To enter the contest, post your story as a comment. If you have problems posting, email your story to char(@)incaseofsurvival(.)com (but remove the brackets) and I’ll post it for you.
How will the winner be decided? Well, when I stopped editing I decided I was going to stop being the Crusher of Dreams, so I’ll leave this up to a vote. That’s right, people, YOU get to decide the winner of the contest! On voting day, go to the voting day post and leave a comment with your vote for the winning story. (The voting day post will go up on–you guessed it–voting day. Which is Thursday, August 30.) (This paragraph has the words “voting” and “vote” FAR too many times.)
The contest will run until 11:59 PM (Eastern time) on Wednesday, August 29. Voting will run from 12:00 AM to 11:59 PM (Eastern time) on Thursday, August 30. Any stories posted on Thursday will be immediately disqualified. Winner will be posted on Friday, August 31.
Got that? Good.
Now what are you waiting for? Get writing! And may the best story win!
This is the New Plan by John Xero
This is the New Plan by John Xero (available now)
Review copy provided by the author.
Amazon blurb:
This is the New Plan. Thirty three genre-blending works of fiction. Thirty one flash fictions book-ended by two short stories.
This is the way the world dies.
The way it is born. The way it lives and breathes. Our world, other worlds. The past, the present, the never, the future.
Discover endings and beginnings; hope and damnation; angels and demons; stolen futures… Gods, cowboys, zombies, witches, sci-fi samurai, psychopaths, little red men from Mars, and more…
Let me take you on a journey, let me show you wonders.
You may remember John Xero’s brilliant short story, “Ragestorm Requiem,” which was featured here on ICoS last year. If you enjoyed the story, you’ll probably enjoy his new book, This is the New Plan (conveniently available now).
The book is a collection of John Xero’s short stories and flash fiction pieces–33 in all. Which is a few too many for me to review individually, unfortunately–which means, of course, that you’ll have to read the book.
(Aw, shucks.)
There is a great variety of stories in the book, and a good chunk of them are post-apocalyptic in nature. All of the stories are well-written, and–in my opinion, anyway–work the way short fiction should: it makes you wonder what happens next, and lets you fill in the blanks.
I’d have to say that my favorite story is still “Ragestorm Requiem,” because it’s so poignant. Maybe it’s because I have kids, and I could empathize with the way the story’s main character does everything possible to let her daughter Molly “fly.” The fact that Molly is actually dead and in an urn makes the story all the more poignant. (While reading the story I kept thinking, “What would I do if the world went to hell and one or both of my daughters died?” And I could see exactly where the character was coming from.
)
Of course, that’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy the other stories in this book. I did–I enjoyed all of them. This one just stood out as my favorite.
Not every story is that sad/poignant/melancholy, of course; there are a lot of stories in the book. If poignant isn’t your thing, there’s bound to be something in there that is.
This book is great if you’re looking for short reads–these stories are the right length for a bus or train ride, or if you’ve only got five minutes here and there and don’t have time for a novel.
Overall, I highly recommend this book.
I truly enjoyed it–I don’t give out 5 out of 5 scores lightly, but I’m giving it to this book.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Book link (Amazon)
Xeroverse (author’s blog)
Osiris by E. J. Swift
“Nobody leaves Osiris. Osiris is a lost city. She has lost the world and world has lost her . . .”
Rising high above the frigid waters, the ocean city of Osiris has been cut off from the land since the Great Storm 50 years ago. Most believe that Osiris is the last city on Earth. Adelaide is the black-sheep granddaughter of the city’s Architect. A jaded socialite, she wants little to do with her powerful relatives — until her troubled twin brother disappears mysteriously. Vikram, a third-generation storm refugee, sees his own people dying of cold and starvation. He hopes to use Adelaide to bring about much-needed reforms — but who is using whom? As another brutal winter brings Osiris closer to riot and revolution, two very different people attempt to bridge the gap dividing the city, only to find a future far more complicated than either of them ever imagined.
Osiris [1. provided free by Night Shade Books] is a difficult book. It’s beautifully written, intricately plotted and has a well-imagined setting, but even with all those things, I’m not entirely sure that I enjoyed it.
Osiris is another slow starter, which I’m not opposed to in fantasy books, but it’s almost too slow. I kept finding myself excuses not to read it – not because it was bad, but because amidst the glorious prose and careful plotting, I felt a core of coldness, or lack. An emptyness. I just didn’t care. I didn’t care about Adelaide, I didn’t care about her brother, Axel, I didn’t care about Vikram or the uprising. I just didn’t care.
Which is not to say Osiris is a bad book. I cannot be more clear on this – it is, in fact, a very good book. There are a lot of things that I should have loved about it – decently written female MC! Prose that rises above the merely competent! Interesting and unique setting! Uprising and rebellions! I should have loved it. I should have been using this space to rave about it, to tell you to go spend your hard earned money on Osiris, I should have wanted a physical copy so I could read and re-read until the spine creased and the pages fell out. But I just didn’t.
I did manage to finish it, but it was because I requested the eARC myself and didn’t feel I could just stop. The ending is sufficiently satisfying and powerful – or it would be if I’d had a strong enough emotional connection to the book. It sets up nicely for future books in the series, as well, if that’s something that appeals to you.
This isn’t a great review – all I can do with a review is put across my own personal opinion, and in this case it’s quite simple. Osiris is a good book, but it left me cold. I don’t think it’s the fault of the writer. It’s not you, E. J. Swift, it’s me.
[Rating:2.75/5]
The Sacrifice Game by Brian D'Amato
The Sacrifice Game by Brian D’Amato
Release date: July 2012
Review copy provided by Penguin/Dutton
Amazon blurb:
The mind-bending, stunningly inventive sequel to Brian D’Amato’s In Courts of the Sun, in which one man holds the key to saving the world from the 2012 apocalypse foretold by the Mayan Prophecy.
In Brian D’Amato’s cult classic, In the Courts of the Sun, a team of scientists sent math prodigy and Mayan descendant Jed DeLanda back in time to the year AD 664 to learn the “Sacrifice Game,” a divination ritual that the ancient Maya used to predict the apocalypse on December 21, 2012. But after arriving in the body of a willing human sacrifice instead of a Mayan king, Jed’s experiences led him to the fateful decision that rather than avert the apocalypse, he must ensure instead that the world ends.
Using his knowledge of the divination game, Jed sets in motion a series of events that will bring about the destruction of humanity, ending the world’s pain and suffering once and for all. But before the plan can be completed, the organization that sent him into the past discovers his intention and devotes every resource to stop him.
Taking readers back to the dizzying action of ancient times, The Sacrifice Game is a breathtaking odyssey in which Jed must survive bloody wars, ruthless leaders, shifting alliances, and unspeakable betrayal to learn about the Game, before his time in both the ancient Mayan empire and the present day runs out.
All right. So. To avoid a possible drama-filled timesink like what happened with this book review, I’m just gonna come right out and say it: this book was a DNF for me. And this makes me sad, because I seem to be the only person on the planet who couldn’t get through it.
vN by Madeline Ashby
Amy Peterson is a von Neumann machine, a self-replicating humanoid robot.
For the past five years, she has been grown slowly as part of a mixed organic/synthetic family. She knows very little about her android mother’s past, so when her grandmother arrives and attacks her mother, little Amy wastes no time: she eats her alive.
Now she carries her malfunctioning granny as a partition on her memory drive, and she’s learning impossible things about her clade’s history – like the fact that the failsafe that stops all robots from harming humans has failed… Which means that everyone wants a piece of her, some to use her as a weapon, others to destroy her.
vN [1. provided free by Angry Robot. Full disclosure, I am a member of the Robot Army, making me an official reviewer for the company.] is an interesting book, exploring the nature of sentience and the ethics of inbuilt slavery and rebellion against your role in life.
If that’s making you go ‘Oh, no thanks, I just wanted to read a story’, well you don’t need to worry about that. It’s also a very good book.
Amy is a vN, a humanoid robot capable of self-replication. In an effort to help her grow up as a ‘normal’ child, her parents – her human father and her identical, vN mother – have her on a diet designed to slow her growth. Thanks to this choice, when her malfunctioning grandmother attacks her school, she eats her. And in doing so, she absorbs her grandmother, personality and all. A sereis of events leads her to realise that she can absorb the programming of any vN through consuming them. She’s a new breed, and her failsafe, the thing that prevents her from harming humans no longer works.
And there are other vNs that want to be able to do the same.
The book is a slow starter. I was a good 20% of the way in before I started caring about the plot or the characters, and I was actually considering giving up and calling this a DNF review. But then, around that mark something changed. The stakes got higher, or I connected with Amys character a little more, I don’t know. All I know is I stayed up till 1 am to get to the half way point, and then finished it off in one sprint the following morning.
It’s powerful. It really is. vN discusses slavery, the future of robotics, the nature of humanity and sentience and does so without preaching or lecturing. It merely tells you a story and lets you come to your own conclusions about the theories it advances. Parallels are drawn between the fate of the vN and the fate of other opressed peoples within society. You’ll end up feeling sympathy for the ‘bad guys’ and maybe even rooting for them. They’re sentient: shouldn’t they be able to protect themselves and others from harm? Should their programming force them to love humans even when the human is a monster? Shouldn’t they have that free choice?
It’s not really a high-action piece. It has action scenes, but the tone and feel is thoughful and considering. For much of the book Amy is mentally a little girl discovering that the limitations she thought she had aren’t real, and that leads to an almost philosophical style to the narrative. Ashby is a capable writer, her prose effective and competent, but rarely lyrical or beautiful.
Perhaps it’s not, strictly speaking, apocalyptic, but the back story of how the vN were created is close enough for me, and the fact that it’s a series indicates that it may go somewhere dystopian or apocalyptic later, and I wouldn’t be surprised.
I strongly recommend picking up this book.
And I have to admit I enjoyed the irony of a book about angry robots being published by Angry Robot.
You can buy your copy (available in print or as an eBook) by clicking here.
[rating:4.5/5]
Revolution is not Jericho 2.0
A show set in near-future, post-apocalyptic, mid-western America about survival, family and fighting for what’s right? No, not Jericho. NBC‘s new show: Revolution.
I keep seeing comparisons, complaints, and accusations about how Revolution is a rip off or retry of Jericho. However, if you dig a little deeper, look just a bit closer, you’ll see these are very different stories.
In Jericho we saw an immediate reaction to not only a loss of electrical power, but also social power. Jericho was the parable of being doomed to relive the history we refused to learn from. At the genesis of society’s reboot there was constant competition between the old way and some possible new way that might work better. Fear, confusion, and order were everyday challenges for those living in Jericho’s post-apocalyptic world.
Every time normalcy was established in Jericho it was under threat, be it from their neighbors in New Bern or from the sketchy new corporate government in Cheyenne. They couldn’t really settle into a lifestyle because the world hadn’t settled yet.We see fear, confusion, and order conquered in Revolution. The story is set about 15 years after the blackout and anyone who was going to survive has survived. Community and sustainable lifestyles have been established.
There’s a massive difference between surviving for a few months, or even a couple of years, and doing it for a decade or more.
There’s a comfort in normalcy, even if it’s the new normal created out of necessity.
Revolution removes the option characters had in Jericho to run away or pity themselves. Unless their people are somehow worse off than the people elsewhere, their situation is what it is.
The citizens of Jericho not only trying to stave off conflict, they were also constantly trying to plan for the next situation be acid rain, winter, or food shortages.In Revolution we’re introduced to a world that’s accepted its fate, survived it, and lived in it. Unlike in Jericho, no one was excluded. We, the audience, get to see from the introduction that this is not an isolated issue. No care packages are coming and there’s no safe zone to be thankful for.
In post-apocalyptic Revolution, people might want to migrate away from winter and they might need to deal with the local power-mad warlord. Personally, I think a power-mad warlord, unlike a starved and desperate neighbor, is somewhat their own damn fault. It’s their community and their responsibility to stomp that noise out at its inception or suffer when it comes to fruition.
In Jericho we say a civil war where the winner got to survive. In Revolution we see a bully with an agenda and an army. While the solution to both problems is to band together, it’s a different and scarier kind of stand that needs to be taken when it’s a moral imperative rather than a life or death one.
I encourage you to watch both– at least a little. Jericho because it’s awesome and I can’t say enough good things about it. Revolution because it might be awesome if you give it a chance on its own merits.
Official site: nbc.com/revolution
Official twitter: @NBCRevolution
LiveBlog: Black Sheep.
Inspired by the success of my live-tweeting the so-bad-it’s-good The GraveDancers, I have decided to liveblog Black Sheep today, at about 3:00 pm GMT.
A little bit about Black Sheep: It’s made by a New Zealand guy, and it’s effectively about genetically engineering sheep so they become flesh eating, virus transmitting monsters. It’s a zombie-werewolf film. With sheep. Yes, I am doing this to myself out of choice. Why? I have nothing better to do.
Oh, and so the joke is out of the way RIGHT at the start… It’s a Ewepocalypse. Yes, I went there.
See you at 3:00. If you have a copy, why not join in? Put your reactions in the comments.
[liveblog]
Well, that was a thourougly ridiculous film. But I enjoyed t. Some wonderful moments – sheep farts saving the day, and some clever lines. But overall I found it kind of bland.
Your thoughts?
Tavia will be at PAX PRIME 2012!
I’m packing up my bug out back and traveling to Seattle, because In Case of Survival well be covering all things video game related and apocalyptic, dystopian and fringe for your pleasure.
Is there anything you definitely want us to cover for you at PAX Prime?
You’re our friends, we give a shit if you get what you want.
Check out the site and hit us up with comments: http://prime.paxsite.com/
Finally, if you hear about something awesome (for example, I got a free copy of Rift at PAX East) that I should make sure to snag for a giveaway or review, let me know in the comments or on twitter @ApocalypticLife.
YAY!
(While you’re here, check out our gaming archive)
What if the world already ended?
Every now and again, I watch the news on TV. I don’t usually watch the news because it tends to be worrying and depressing and makes me wonder the hell the world is coming to when every other story is about a murder, a bombing, a shooting, or some other neighborly thing like that.
Anyway. While recovering from a session with my personal trainer last week, I sat in the women’s locker room and watched CNN. (Before you ask, the locker room TV was tuned to CNN, I didn’t actually change the channel.) CNN was showing a segment about the Colorado movie theatre shooting (which, unless you’ve been living under a rock or possibly on Mars, you’ve heard about). The newscaster was talking about previous mass shootings, such as the one in Arizona that injured former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Virginia Tech, and, of course, Columbine.
All that positivity had me thinking, “What if the world has ALREADY ended?!”
No, really. Bear with me here. Remember last year, when Harold Camping predicted that the Rapture would happen on May 21? And then nothing happened and he was all “WTF?” and the world was all “Bahaha loser.”?
BUT. What if something DID happen? What the Rapture actually WAS on May 21, 2011, and NOBODY WAS SAVED?! (Yes, I’m well aware I probably just offended half a million people with that statement. Sorry, Bible Belt.)
What if we’re currently in the middle of the Tribulation?
Just a thought.
And now I’m going to go hide from all the really mad Christians who are offended because I suggested they weren’t good enough to be Raptured (luckily, I no longer live in the Bible Belt).