On The Civilizing Power of Disaster: “Researchers in disaster science have again and again debunked the idea that catastrophe causes social breakdown and releases the ugliest parts of human nature. Research from the past several decades demonstrates, as one report put it, “that panic is not a problem in disasters; that rather than helplessly awaiting […]
Post-apocalyptic writers take note Read More »
So spring is beginning in the Sonoran desert–this morning especially, there was just a feel in the air that made it easy to believe that.Yet walking with lnhammer yesterday, we saw the effects of this winter’s sub-freezing nights. The cardón cacti are so universally brown and yellow that it’s doubtful most of them will recover–doubtful
Reading Saci Lloyd’s The Carbon Diaries 2017 (I’m halfway through) right after Ally Condie’s Matched just might make my brain explode.It’s not as if I don’t have other subjects to blog about, but I suspect there are things to be said about the ways in which dystopias mostly tend to fall out as either highly
“Things fall apart, the center cannot hold …” Read More »
Proof, once and for all, that it’s the rare story that cannot be improved by an apocalypse … via rachelmanija‘s Yuletide recs this morning, a postapocalyptic reinterpretation of Goodnight Moon: Goodnight Room.The Old Lady is a hologram stuck on endless loop since the program froze. That is why she can only say, “Hush, hush.” The
“It is a bedtime story. It is an instruction manual.” Read More »
So in last night’s dream, I had some sort of advance warning of the world-destroying event to come, though not of its nature. Sensibly, I was working on booking it out of the place where this event would happen, trying to put as much distance between me and it as possible.Doing so seemed to require
It’s the end of the world as we know it and … shiny! Read More »
Been meaning to talk about Susan Beth Pfeffer’s This World We Live In for a while now.I loved Life As We Knew It, the first book set in this world. Loved it. In particular, I loved Miranda, who starts off as a somewhat self-centered ordinary teen who–after the world pretty much collapses when an asteroid
This World We Live In Read More »
A couple more thoughts, after some time and thinking and processing. Spoilers again, though not as huge as before.As before, please go over to the original post on livejournal to comment, as it’s too easy for spoilers to turn up in comments places reading this post via rss feeds, especially facebook.But first, I enjoyed malinda_lo‘s
More Mockingjay thoughts Read More »
I devoured Mockingjay in a day-and-a-half. So any other thoughts should be seen in that light. This book was compelling enough that it was a success for this reader. Enough so that I want to … talk about it.Any comments beyond this point will mostly be spoilers. Scroll over to read.Spoilers welcome in comments, as
Mockingjay preliminary thoughts … SPOILERS Read More »
kmessner‘s post on post-apocalyptic YA pointed me to this dystopic Auden poem, “The Unknown Citizen,” which she suggested reading in conjunction with pambachorz‘s most excellent Candor.Which got me thinking about my favorite post-apocalyptic poem–Richard Wilbur’s “Advice to a Prophet.” I first met this poem–of all places–on a sample AP English test in high school, and
Post-apocalyptic poetry Read More »
Read Catching Fire in a couple quick gulps yesterday. Maybe not quite as perfect as the first book, but I wasn’t exactly offering to put it down, either. Had lots of thoughts about it (including being pleased with myself for having kind of sort of almost seen the very ending coming), but this morning, I
Don’t think we’re going back to Hogwarts next semester Read More »