Academic Essay - Uniform Independence – How Indie Authors Toe the Line

So, as part of my master’s, I delved into the world of Post-Apocalyptic indie authors. As you probably guessed from the title, the results weren’t exactly glowing for current industry trends. This essay did okay, not as great as the Romanticism one, only getting a 2.

If you’ve an interest in writing a Post-Apocalyptic indie novel, and want to learn about the current state of the market, read on.

Uniform Independence – How Indie Authors Toe the Line

Publishing has changed drastically in the past decade, with independent authors able to break away from the big publishing houses to write the stories they want while interacting with and selling directly to their audiences. But, as with any period of rapid change, the bad must be taken with the good, and the unintended consequences of these rapid changes are often late to reveal themselves. Due to the hyperconnectivity in the age of social media, indie-authors are able to directly interact with their fans, as well as with one another, in real time, allowing indie-authors to learn and adapt to feedback from their readers. Through tens of thousands of indie-authors exploring the process together through trial and error, a streamlined path to success has been discovered. Over a decade in, and the corners of the self-publishing world have all been mapped out, and those wide-open vistas of creative freedom and potential now have a super-highway carved straight through them. Whether it is the stories within the books, the covers on the books, or the marketing done around the books, the entirety of the self-publishing process has been codified and formalized to a formulaic degree. While exploring the standardized self-publishing scene in the age of social-media, this essay will focus on post-apocalyptic narratives published by indie-authors.

1.     The Indie-Author Scene

Traditionally, the big publishing houses were the ones who decided which books were published and which ones were not. Authors would write their manuscripts before mailing them off to a publisher, sometimes waiting months or even years to find out if they had been accepted or rejected. More often than not, most traditionally published authors would receive little to no money for their efforts, their only reward being the joy of having been chosen (Morrissey 52). Those authors who gained enough success would get a literary agent, who would do all the backend work for them, leaving the author to focus on the art of writing. That all changed in 2008, when the publishing of e-book content took off with the development of e-readers like the Kindle, Nook and Kobo (Cutler 87). Through the combined rise of electronic formats as well as electronic distribution networks, the book production pipeline that was traditionally the domain of the old publishing houses was deconstructed and reassembled online. Layers of approval, control and wait times were dissolved as the gatekeepers were removed and authors were given access to a digital distribution pipeline (Bankhead 10). Though some, having previously seen the gatekeeping publishing houses as a form of quality assurance, feared that this direct access to consumers would result in the market being flooded with low-cost, low-quality books, the opposite resulted – it was a golden age for consumers (Waldfogel 196). Self-published books, long decried as the worst-of-the-worst dregs, scraped from the bottom of the publishing barrel, started to attract reputable titles that began to shift public opinion (Landgraf 44) This sounds like a great time to be a writer, but a golden age for consumers does not always carry over to the creators of the content they are consuming.

There are many ways of being an indie-author, as there are multiple sources from which the value of a literary work can be generated. For some, selling millions of books will legitimate their work, others want to generate cultural capital while others are simply happy to appear in print. (Eve 20) To make a living as an indie-author is, first and foremost, to be a small business owner. While there will always be an artistic element to the production of stories, in pursuit of making a career from writing the author must consider their story a product first and foremost. The frantic, anything-goes-style scene of early indie publishing continues to mature towards a more serious business space as the market stabilizes with self-publishers trending towards business-owners rather than just writers (Cutler 87). Far from the days of Victorian literature, where writing was considered an artform, indie-publishing has more in line with the early 20th century era of pulp fiction. The basics of putting together a good pulp story remain, all that has changed is the delivery system. The Kindle changed everything, and that spells opportunity for the writer who wants to make some money (Bell 8). The self-published stories that sell the most online are not high-art pieces of literature that will be remembered for centuries, they are escapist pulp stories that are designed specifically to be quickly produced and quickly forgotten.

Considering that being a successful indie-author is more about business than art, it is no surprise that the largest online group of authors, 20Booksto50k, is focused on sales, rather than craft. When it comes to their advice on craft, the one golden rule of writing an indie novel is “write to market.” Write to market is all about picking a genre that is not already oversaturated with content, then giving that market exactly what it wants (Fox 44). Being an indie-author is not about writing the stories you want to write; it is about writing the stories that other people want to read. Indie-authors want to write stories that their readers will love, but have also accepted that they are writing escapist fiction, connecting a series of mundane plot points, and not crafting the next Great American Novel (Allen 53). With aspirations of quality all but abandoned by the self-publishing community, indie-authors have instead reached for that other trait – quantity.

In the age of social media, with algorithms tailormade to spike an individual’s dopamine receptors with pinpoint accuracy as they simultaneously drain their attention spans, the only way to stay relevant is to stay present. While traditionally published authors can go a year or two (or thirteen) between releases, indie-authors are part of the ever-changing online media landscape and are thus required to release far quicker to stay relevant. Not only do trends change quickly, but audiences tend to forget online personalities unless they are interacting with their audience on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis. It is a given that indie-authors will have at least some kind of presence on at least one of the social media platforms, so that they can engage with their peers and audience. On top of this, group consensus suggests that the most efficient (and safest) method of reaching the fans is via a newsletter that they can subscribe to, which is a direct pipeline to the audience free from the potential risk of interference that social media platforms pose. On top of all of this remains the all-encompassing fact that indie-authors are content creators, and all their other efforts will be for naught if they are not releasing another book. While indie-authors can make a living off of selling stand-alone novels, it is easier to sell ten books to one person than one book to ten people. While there is a read-through drop off with each successive novel in a series, it is far more lucrative to continue writing books in a series that the audience is invested in. The best marketing for the first book in a series is the latest book in a series, as each release bumps up the sales of those that came before it (Martelle 152).

2.     The Post-Apocalyptic Genre

When it comes to traditionally published post-apocalyptic stories, the genre explores the full gamut of end-of-the-world scenarios. Mutants, doomsday weapons, demonic invasions, roaming black holes and other reality ending events, it all gets explored in traditionally published post-apocalyptic stories. The trends of the post-apocalyptic genre change over time because traditionally the post-apocalyptic genre is dependent on what is happening in the real world (Trevena 14). That is not the case with indie-published post-apocalyptic stories, however. When it comes books exploring the end-of-the-world by indie authors, the vast majority of the market is composed of preppers, and so this is the primary market that indie-authors can cater to. The prepper community is largely comprised of middle-class urban folks seeking rural, working-class knowledge because they have an abject fear of the collapse of civilisation (Beech 45). Preppers want clean and wholesome stories about realistic apocalypses (such as EMP, nuclear war, pandemic, coronal mass ejection events), that validate their way of life while also teaching them little titbits of survival knowledge. The (distant) second biggest audience that reads post-apocalyptic stories is focused entirely on zombie narratives. They are fans of the cult classic zombie horror films and are not interested in any post-apocalyptic story that does not have zombies. With these two markets being the best that indie-authors can choose from when it comes to writing post-apocalyptic stories, one can see why a lot of indie-authors choose to cater to the preppers.

One would think that the prepper market would allow for more variety in what the indie-author is able to write, considering that there is only so many ways that a zombie can bite someone. This does not turn out to be the case, however. “There are only two main plots in post-apocalyptic fiction: “The Road” and “The Siege.”” (Chase 85). Whatever end-of-the-world scenario that an indie-author chooses to write for preppers quickly fades to the background as the characters are entirely focused on either getting home, or defending their home. Preppers are not interested in the end-of-the-world scenario, they just want to see what happens when the prepper stand-in characters are forced to defend themselves from other survivors. It is why EMP stories are so popular, because the initial apocalyptic event wipes out the electricity grid, taking away modern technology, but then there is no lingering after effects beyond that. It is effectively a clean apocalypse, one that levels the playing field and allows the prepper stand-in characters to justifiably defend themselves from other survivors who were not as ready for the end.  

With such a large percentage of the post-apocalyptic market skewed so heavily towards such a narrow band of potential post-apocalyptic narratives, it is easy to see how the genre has lost a lot of its creative potential. With multiple online communities spread out across various social media platforms, all focusing on post-apocalyptic fiction, or at least its prepper sub-genre, most indie-authors simply cave-in and end up writing prepper fiction. The audience that currently exists for self-published post-apocalyptic stories is effectively stifling the market and causing the genre to stagnate. Paradoxically, the most creative and varied post-apocalyptic narratives are to be found in traditionally published novels.

3.     The Audience and their Author

As with any public facing figure, but especially like other internet celebrities, indie-authors are not so much leading their audiences as they are riding the wave of a passionate and fickle mob. Considering their entire livelihood is so dependent on catering to their audience, it is not too hard to see how a single misstep in terms of their online persona or in the content of their books could spell disaster for an indie-author’s career. Readers can be fanatical in their expectations, and woe betide any indie-author who dares break one of the very strict genre-specific rules (Trevena 18). Along with their books, the indie-author themselves, or at least, their internet persona, is as much a part of their brand as their books are. With this in mind, it is clear how indie-authors are quite susceptible to the phenomena known as audience capture.

A content creator is captured when they tell their audience what they want to hear, and is rewarded for doing so, and then they repeat the process until it spirals into a self-reinforcing feedback loop (Weinstein). In this manner, an indie-author can start out writing a story they do not particularly want to write but they are doing it to meet audience expectations (write to market), only for that story to be a success. They gain accolades, and an audience, and in order to maintain that momentum they write another story they do not really want to write while engaging with the audience they have garnered. Eventually, when they have an entire series in their backlog, and an audience that loves reading their work, they might try to write the book they have always wanted to write. But it is not received well, and their audience, all connected via social media, forms a unified front and turns on them. The audience does not want the book the indie-author has always wanted to write, they want the kind of books that got them the audience in the first place. This is (hopefully) when the indie-author realizes that their own audience is not actually there for them, but for the online persona that they have created and the content that persona has released. At this point the indie-author can either abandon the persona and probably lose most of their audience and financial stability in doing so, or they can choose to allow the persona to subsume them entirely.

When it comes to dealing with audience capture, there is really only three ways of handling the phenomenon. The first is for an indie-author to find the overlap between what they want to write and what sells. This may work out perfectly, as the indie-author might just happen to love writing in a genre that has a large reader base. But, more often than not, the indie-author will have to choose to write stories that are tangentially within the same genre as the type of stories they are passionate about writing. In this way, the indie-author sort of gets to write the stories they want to write, and the audience is getting what they want. The second way to avoid audience capture is for indie-authors to write under a pseudonym, which allows authors to write for different audiences without them cross-contaminating. If an indie-author has built an audience from their Clean Romance novels, that audience does not want to be getting updates about the indie-author’s latest Body-Horror project. Writing for two, or more, audiences is not just twice as many books that an indie-author needs to produce, it is also twice the newsletters and twice the social media engagement. It is not an easy path to walk, but it is one that more indie-authors are having to take in order to meet their creative, as well as financial, goals. Finally, the third way for indie-authors to avoid audience capture is to just write and publish the stories they want to write – regardless of what any particular audience wants. It is unlikely that they will ever gain a large audience, as they are not writing exactly what any one audience wants to read, and though it is unlikely that they will be able to make a living from their writing, they can take consolation in the fact that they will be able to write exactly the kinds of stories they want to write.

4.     One Cover to Rule them All

Just as stories have a set of genre conventions that they need to follow, book covers also have a series of genre conventions that they are required to follow in order to be considered effective. This is because a book cover is not just a piece of cool art, it is a message that you are sending to potential readers. If the book has an unappealing cover, it is not going to be obvious who the book’s audience is (DeWild 22). For this reason, investing in a professionally designed book cover is standard in the indie-author scene (Nelson 155). Traditionally, when browsing through a book store, where there are potentially thousands of other books, a book needs to be able to not only catch the readers eye but also convey what sort of story is within. This battle for the attention of potential readers has only gotten fiercer in the digital space. Online shopfronts not only have other books displayed, but also advertisements that are given top priority. Alongside all this interfering noise, a book cover has to catch the readers eye and convey what sort of story the book is, all while doing so as a thumbnail. In this way, as has ever been the case, the book cover is the first and most important aspect of marketing a book (Fox 41).

In conclusion, the indie-author scene has been around for long enough that the industry has developed a lot of standardized practices. Though there is nothing forcing any indie-author to follow any of these practices, they are tried and true and have led many indie-authors to financial success. These successes have not come without their negative consequences, however, as these practices have created an industry focus on a formulaic approach to writing. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the post-apocalyptic indie-author community, where the market is dominated by a large group with a niche interest. Though we are at a point in history where the corners of the self-publishing world have all been mapped out, and we can safely make the journey along a well-maintained super highway that was laid down by those that came before us, those wide-open vistas of creative freedom and potential still remain. All that is require is to step off the beaten path.

Works Cited

Allen, Jewel. Rapid Release: How to Write & Publish Fast For Profit. E-book ed. Jewel Allen, 2016. Kindle.

Bankhead, Henry. “E-Book Self-Publishing and the Los Gatos Library: A Case Study.”, Self-Publishing and Collection Development: Opportunities and Challenges for Libraries, Purdue University Press, 2015, pp. 5-20, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1wf4dpf.5. Accessed 3 Feb. 2024.

Beech, Jennifer A., and Matthew Guy. “CHAPTER FOUR: Fat Guys in the Woods Naked and Afraid: Rural Reality Television as Prep-School for a Post-Apocalyptic World.” Counterpoints, vol. 494, 2017, pp. 45–59, www.jstor.org/stable/45177653. Accessed 14 Feb. 2024.

Bell, James Scott. How to Write Pulp Fiction (Bell on Writing). E-book ed. Compendium Press, 2017. Kindle.

Chase, Jackson Dean, Writing Apocalypse and Survival: A Masterclass in Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction and Zombie Horror (The Ultimate Author's Guide Book 4), Jackson Dean Chase Inc., 2018. Kindle.

Cutler, Robin. “Ingram and Independent Publishing.” Self-Publishing and Collection Development: Opportunities and Challenges for Libraries, Purdue University Press, 2015, pp. 83-102 www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1wf4dpf.11. Accessed 3 Feb. 2024.

DeWild, Melissa, and Morgan Jarema. “Supporting Self-Publishing and Local Authors: From Challenge to Opportunity.” Purdue University Press, 2015, pp. 21-26, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1wf4dpf.6. Accessed 3 Feb. 2024.

Eve, Martin Paul. “Authors, Institutions, and Markets.” Literature Against Criticism: University English and Contemporary Fiction in Conflict, Open Book Publishers, 2016, pp. 11-42, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1sq5v00.6. Accessed 3 Feb. 2024.

Fox, Chris. Launch to Market: Easy Marketing For Authors (Write Faster, Write Smarter Book 4), CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017. Kindle.

Fox, Chris. Write to Market. E-book ed., Chris Fox, 2016. Kindle.

Landgraf, Greg. “Solving the Self-Published Puzzle.” American Libraries, vol. 46, no. 11/12, 2015, pp. 44–47, www.jstor.org/stable/24604302. Accessed 30 Jan. 2024.

Martelle, Craig. Release Strategies: Plan your self-publishing schedule for maximum benefit. E-book ed. Craig Martelle, 2019. Kindle Edition.

Morrissey, Ted. “PAST PERFECT: The Pedigree of Self-Publishing.” The North American Review, vol. 301, no. 2, 2016, pp. 52–52, www.jstor.org/stable/44601216.

Nelson, Elizabeth. “The Romance of Self-Publishing.” Self-Publishing and Collection Development: Opportunities and Challenges for Libraries, Purdue University Press, 2015, pp. 149-158, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1wf4dpf.16.

Trevena, A. How to Destroy the World: An Author's Guide to Writing Dystopia and Post-Apocalypse (Author Guides Book 2) E-book ed. A Trevena. Kindle.

Waldfogel, Joel. “How Digitization Has Created a Golden Age of Music, Movies, Books, and Television.” The Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 31, no. 3, 2017, pp. 195–214, www.jstor.org/stable/44321286.

Weinstein, Eric. “Audience Capture” The Portal, 06 Sep. 2021, https://theportal.wiki/wiki/Audience_Capture

Academic Essay - A Link Between Romanticism and Post-Apocalyptic Narratives

So, I’m doing my Master’s degree in Germany (it’s on hold atm on account of the new-born… and also I’m now in Taiwan) and I’m trying to find ways to explore the Post-Apocalyptic genre wherever possible within the course. Whenever I manage to write something that has links to my favourite genre, I’ll post it here after I get graded.

This piece was particularly fun to write, and I managed to get a 1.3 on the final grade, which is far better than I could have ever hoped. So, if you’ve got some free time, and the inclination - feel free to take a look.

A Link Between Romanticism and Post-Apocalyptic Narratives

A towering mountain range, a sweeping valley, a rolling thunderstorm over the sea, humanity has stood in awe of the destructive power and majestic beauty of nature since our inception. Humanity has perpetually existed at the fickle whims of nature, with our various civilizations being collective efforts to carve out a place within it. As these civilizations developed, and humanity was safeguarded from the threat, and beauty, of nature, we continued to find ourselves drawn from the safety of civilization to explore nature’s rugged allure. But what could happen if the walls of civilization were removed entirely, and humanity were trust back into nature? If Romanticism was the birthplace of the Sublime, then the Post-apocalyptic genre is where it now resides. This essay will explore the similarities between Romanticism and the Post-apocalyptic genre, focusing on Mary Shelley’s Romantic text Frankenstein in contrast to Cormac McCarthy’s Post-apocalyptic novel The Road, with particular attention to the literary concept of the Sublime via representations of nature and ruins.

1.     What is the Sublime?

Though it has lost much of its nuance in the modern day, the closest synonym we have for the sublime is the traditional meaning of the word “awesome”. When an encounter with something that is so overwhelmingly powerful, the viewer is left dumbstruck by the grandeur of it. The viewer is overcome with awe as their mind grapples with the beautiful terror of the sublime phenomenon. As a type of aesthetic appreciation, the sublime has elements of pleasure, attraction, and admiration, but there is also an element of fear (Cochrane 125). The contrast in scale, of the viewer and the sublime phenomenon, is a key element, as an encounter with the sublime reveals the vast disparity between the viewer and the phenomenon in terms of size, power, or time. The sublime, as depicted in literature, is a conveyance of this awe as author and reader enter an emotional resonance via the language of the text itself. Though it has an affective structure as well as a rhetoric, the sublime has a fluid movement across generic boundaries and so is not a genre itself (Ramazani 175).

1.1            Sublime – Nature

Nature itself has often been the subject of sublime depiction in literature, with the forces of our very own world being able to overpower any single one of us without resistance. There is a vast amount of beauty in the world, but it is a world that humanity have been forced to struggled to survive in for thousands of years. It is only recently that humanity has developed the technology that allows us to survive all but the worst that nature has to offer and even then there are natural disasters that continue to destroy everything and kill anyone they encounter. The illusion that we are in complete control of our own home planet is shattered all too frequently. 

            A rocky mountain that towers over the surrounding country side, its snowcapped peaks obscured by the clouds that hang high above, is a prime example of the sublime. Not only does its naturally formed structure dwarf anything that humanity has created, an avalanche that could result from its windswept peak could wipe out a town, let alone the potential destruction caused by any one of its rocky outcroppings shearing loose and tumbling down below. On top of its physical size and potential for wide spread destruction, the mountain itself is antediluvian in age. The mountain is so old that it defies human comprehension. As large as the mountain is at the time the viewer gazes up at it, that is all that remains after its millions of years of endurance. The mountain has seen epochs start and end, watched as species rise and die out, over and over, it has stood the test of time. As diminished as the mountain is from its initial form, a mere shadow of its original self, the mountain still towers over any collective human endeavour, let alone any individual human. A person who stands at the foot of the mountain can gaze upward and appreciate its beauty. They might be able to see its peak, but they will never be able to comprehend the forces that went into its creation, how long ago it was formed or how long it will remain after they are gone.

            It is more direct, if not easier, for a painter to depict a mountain and invoke the sublime in the viewer than it is for an author to write about a mountain and convey that same experience. An author can, with the proper combination of adjectives, create such a cumulative force that the reader is able to visualize some approximation of the mountain the author wishes them to visualize (Staver 486). The more talented the author, the more fine-tuned their selection of adjectives will be, resulting in a more accurate visualization on the behalf of the reader. The author cannot directly show the reader the mountain itself, but they can lead them towards summoning it forth in their imaginations, as well as the feelings of the sublime that follow with it, with the proper word choice.

1.2       Sublime – Ruins

Ruins are a core aspect of both Romanticism and the Post-apocalyptic genres. Far from simply interesting set pieces for the narrative to work within, ruin are sites of history, loss and potentially violence. Ruins symbolize long-gone grandeur, a melancholic representation of how fragile civilization is (Romantic Ruins). Often conceptualized as disjointed fragments, ruins elicit notions of mortality, the fleetingness of time and of the sublime (Scarbrough 448). Ruins are the physical remains of civilization, structures abandoned by humanity and taken back by nature. Structures are originally constructed to be both functional and aesthetic, but once they become ruins, having lost their functional purpose, they are merely aesthetic (Ziolkowski 266). In literature, ruins become symbols of decay, the transience of humanity and the power of nature itself. In the time of the industrial revolution, ruins would have been a nostalgic critique of modernity and industry. What use was all the efforts of urbanization when even the greatest structures of the past eventually fell to ruin? Was it worth despoiling nature, uprooting people from their ancestral homes and relocating them to the cities, if it would all fall to ruin and return to nature anyway? A powerful narrative symbol for Romantic writers, ruins could transfer deep emotions as well as historical information because they were not simple structures but were also imbued with the histories of their former inhabitants and events that occurred within (Lake 447). The Romantics found ruins to be the perfect vector for the sublime, as they were objects that brought to mind the inevitable decay of history, the callousness of nature and the inexorable march of time (Korsmeyer 431).

Ruins are similarly positioned to be the perfect symbol for the Post-apocalyptic genre that they are considered a thematic keystone. While the Romantics only had use of all the ruins that had come before them, Post-apocalyptic authors also have access to those ruins, all the ruins that have appeared since then, as well as all the ruins that could potentially exist if modern society were to fall to an apocalypse. This layering of ruins, built by different people from from different eras, did not originate with modern Post-apocalyptic authors. Writings left behind by the Anglo-Saxons tell a tale of a culture that views itself, literally and metaphorically, built upon the ruins of previous cultures (Estes 61). The presence of ruins locks the connection between past and present, by keeping the remnants of the past in front of those who remain alive in the present. For the Post-apocalyptic genre, ruins could symbolize the comforts and excess of the world before the apocalypse, or they could symbolize the hubris that lead to the apocalypse itself. The potential symbolism of ruins also depends on the viewer, if they were alive before the apocalypse the ruins will represent the disparity between the past and the present, but if they were born after the apocalypse then they will only see remnants of a world more alien than any foreign culture. Ruins are given meaning by the viewer, acting as a canvas for speculative strategies that tell us more about the viewer than the ruin itself (Estes 62).

The type of ruins that appear in literature has also subtly shifted over time, but the repercussions of this are significant for the themes that are available to writers. In the era of the Romantics, the types of buildings that would have been available to become ruins was limited. Houses and other small structures, if built of stone, would have been in plentiful supply, but they were typically built less sturdily and were more likely to be repaired and reinhabited, or simply dismantled to aid in the construction of another near building. Castles, forts, churches and abbeys were grand structures that would have taken years to build and would have potentially stood for centuries, as they were typically made of solid stone. These structures are already laden with symbolism and meaning upon their construction; castles were home to nobility or even royalty, forts were sites of military conflict, while churches and abbeys were holy sites of faith that were typically built on consecrated grounds and sometimes even had accompanying graveyards. The original meaning and symbolism of these structures would still be there when they became ruins, but there would also be other layers on top of that. The splendour of the original architecture, however overgrown by nature, demolished by conflict or modified by subsequent inhabitants, still radiates from within (Zucker 130). Ruined castles stand forlorn, their once noble inhabitants fallen from grace and forgotten, ruined churches were once houses of god that now stand abandoned by the divine and are home only to the dead. The types of buildings that would have had the opportunity to become ruins for the Romantics are very different to the types of buildings that become ruins for the Post-apocalyptic writers.

Post-apocalyptic authors, while they do have access to most of the older ruins that the Romanics had access to, tend to focus on the ruins of the modern world.  Modern architecture does not fall to ruin like the architecture of old, modern materials do not decay in the same way as the simple materials of solid stone blocks and thick oak beams. The increased complexity of modern building materials allows for easier production, but at the cost of structural longevity. Modern buildings themselves decay faster, but the materials used to build them stay around longer. The ruins of modern architecture refuse to relinquish their stored culture to nature (Huyssen 20). Even in that fact there is meaning to be found, that structures built from man-made materials do not last as long as those built with materials taken straight from nature. It is a generally accepted fact, if an unconscious one, that long after the last skyscraper tumbles down, the ruins of ancient Egypt will still remain. Conversely, modern architecture is not without its symbolic opportunities. It is by mere fortune that a ruined city of skyscrapers tends to look like a graveyard of towering tombstones when all the lights are out and all the humans have left. Paved roads and concrete dams crack and break as the years wear on and they are no longer maintained, showcasing the constant battle between civilization and nature. Suburban homes sag under the strain of trapped rainwater, or are inhabited by wild animals that once again claim the streets as their own. Survivors travelling along broken and weed-choked roads is a central trope of Post-apocalyptic fiction (Kaup 226). Whatever modern architecture there was has fallen to ruin and decay, and the amplitude of nature seizes upon our abandoned efforts to return them to the colossal, spiritually charged landscape (Baker 304). All the technological advancements of humanity are revealed for what they are in the ruins of a modern building. Steel beams rust, glass shatters while concrete cracks and crumbles, humanity has spent its existence attempting to distance itself from nature but in the end it is revealed that we were never apart from it. Ruins are the intersection of the beauty of nature and man-made beauty, creating a sublime beauty that is greater than either when taken individually (Hetzler 54). 

2.     The Romantic Genre

Romanticism, as a literary movement, sprung from Europe in the late 18th and early 19tn centuries as a reaction the literary movement of Rationalism. Romantic texts focused on emotion, individualism, and imagination, while celebrating the beauty of the natural world and the subjective human experience. In a quickly industrialising world, the Romantics tapped into a nostalgia for more pastoral times in their depictions of the majestic beauty and raw power of nature. This yearning for a simpler time focused the Romantic’s attention on the past, specifically on medieval history and mythology, as well as the physical ruins of buildings. Overall, it is arguable that the greatest legacy of the Romantics is their codification of the concept of the sublime. In a world that was being destroyed and paved over by industry in the pursuit of profit, as masses of people were leaving their ancestral homes to move to the cities, the sublime was the answer to such wide-spread dehumanization. The transcendent wonder and overwhelming awe of the sublime, both thrilling and terrible, sparked emotions that many readers at the time had thought long buried by the modern world. Is it any wonder that these moments of the sublime were to be discovered in the remote corners of the natural world or in the ruins of the past itself, as far from the smoke-clogged, depersonalized urban present that the Romantics could reach?

            Another interesting aspect of the Romantic Literary movement was its focus on individualism, and the subjective human experience. With the enlightenment in full swing, science and rational thinking were filling in the corners of the map and erasing much of the mystique of the world. Despite the innumerable technological and social advancements that the enlightenment brought, the price of all this advancement and understanding was that it also made the world seem a bit more mundane. Society, as a whole, was forging ahead and it would have felt as though individuals were ether lost in the crowd or being outright left behind. Romanticism tapped into this by exploring the full gamut of emotionally charged narratives, with characters that bucked the norm and forged their own paths through life. Romantic protagonists were passionate characters who had high-highs and low-lows, as they often rebelled against the societies that surrounded them. Oftentimes these characters would leave the very mundane real world behind and step into a realms of fantasy, interacting the with supernatural. In almost every aspect of its creation and execution, literary Romanticism seems to have looked at the modern world of its era and decided that it had erred somewhere and was no longer fit for task.  

2.1       Frankenstein

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is the story of one man’s search for knowledge above all else, and the dire consequences of that all-encompassing pursuit of knowledge. Though Victor Frankenstein lives a blessed life, given the best education while surrounded by the sublime vistas of Europe, his exploration of the sciences results in an abomination that is simultaneously as horrific as it is beautiful. An old adage states that ‘you don’t know where the line is, until you cross it.’ In simpler terms, sometimes you do not know something is wrong until it is too late and you have already done it. Victor Frankenstein’s creation of the Monster, a supposed blasphemy against nature itself, was one such foray across the line of acceptability. Monsters, as fascinating and frighting as they are as outcasts from our system of self-definition, mark the boundaries of cultural values (Kirk 7) This so-called sin against nature, created outside the bounds of acceptable society, wreaks havoc on his creator before leading him on a chase to the furthest and most inhospitable reaches of the planet where humanity rarely treads.

            Just as the landscapes in Frankenstein are described to evoke the Sublime, so too is the creature itself. It is frighteningly powerful and hauntingly beautiful, both in a way that leave the viewer feeling a sense of unease and dread. Frankenstein knows that the creation of the creature was wrong, and so abandons his creation and hides its existence from society at large. In this way, created outside the norms of society, and forced to live outside its bounds, the creature has more to do with nature than of civilization. Subsequently, despite being a creation of man, the creature is more of a force of nature than of humanity’s civilization and reveals itself more of a sin against humanity than a sin against nature itself. The sublime is a transcendental impulse, one that is ultimately self-destructive to the point of being apocalyptic (Ramazani 171). The creature is eloquent and elegant, rugged enough to exist on its own, able to learn and survive in the harshest of wildernesses that would kill most humans. Part of the dread the creature inspires in people is the fact that it is superior to humanity in almost every fashion. Frankenstein’s ultimate reasoning behind refusing to create the creature a bride was the fear of what would happen to humanity if he did so.

In an often-overlooked element of the narrative, Frankenstein could be viewed as an apocalyptic text. At the end of the text, Frankenstein’s creation states that it will flee to the furthest reaches of the world and self-immolate, but there is no guarantee that he follows through with this promise of suicide. Furthermore, alongside the countless sightings of the creature across the continent, there is the documentation of the very text itself. With verifiable proof that the creature did in fact exist before, all an aspirational scientist with questionable morals would need to do is follow the clues left in Captain Walton’s letters that tell of Frankenstein’s journey in order to replicate the process in the creation of another inhuman creature. There were no shortage of conflicts in the late 1700’s that would warrant the scientific research into the creation of such a powerful abomination. Were the narrative to continue beyond the original text, it is not difficult to see how thing in the world of Frankenstein would quickly begin to unravel. With the proverbial genie out of the bottle, it would be impossible to get it back in, and Victor Frankenstein’s sublime transgression against human civilization could spell doom for the human species long after his own death. The letters he sent could have been published by Captain Walter’s sister, the originally intended recipient, in a recognizable England, or they could have been published by another creature in a wholly new society bereft of its human creators.

3.     The Post-apocalyptic Genre

An exploration of the world’s end is innately sublime, however it plays out. The sheer immensity of the apocalypse, once the domain of the gods alone, is awe-inspiring in its significance. A baseline definition of Post-apocalyptic fiction is narratives that focus on the depiction and exploration (literal and metaphorical) of globalized ruin (Hicks 6). Up until the 19th century, grand disasters were attributed to the divine, awful and sublime acts of god where the difference between life and death was a matter of fate, but during the 20th century, humanity was horrified to realize that we could be agents of our own demise (Nye). This shift in public perspective caused most authors to move their focus from the Apocalyptic genre to the Post-apocalyptic genre. The primary difference between the two genres is that the Post-apocalyptic narrative casts the apocalypse as an origin, as the beginning of a new story rather than the more obvious end of another (Brent 57). After the Second World War the world was a ruin, a shadow of what it once was, because the apocalypse had already come and gone, and representations of the apocalypse were now a matter of retrospection (Berger 389). Post-apocalyptic narratives can have scenarios that are more realistic and plausible in nature, all the way to fantastic and supernatural. Whatever form these stories take, they share an aesthetic and geographical focus with post-industrial ruins, delivering a form of Anthropocene-porn (Lorimer 130). After the old world dies, those few that survive to sift through the ruins are forced to find new ways to live in a world that is irrevocably changed, just as they themselves are changed. The mere fact that an individual survives the end of the world while billions of others die, often by luck alone, is itself a brush with the sublime. The Post-apocalyptic genre, in its depictions and exploration of unimaginable destruction and aesthetics of ruin, can be considered the epitome of the sublime (Hicks 110) The core element of every Post-apocalyptic narrative, the ruined civilization of humanity brought back to nature, is a manifestation of the sublime.

Post-apocalyptic narratives are almost universally set within the ruins of our own earth. The shock of seeing recognizable monuments and buildings brought to ruin necessitates an earth-based narrative (Brent 60). As an individual would be shocked to see their home in ruins, regardless of where that home is, this requirement of setting Post-apocalyptic stories on earth is for the readers, rather than the characters within the narrative. A fictional world only ever depicted in ruin was never whole to begin with, but a depiction of well-known real-world locations is much more evocative in its disparity between fiction and reality. A Post-apocalyptic story asks its readers to imagine their world, but to imagine a version of it where they, and everyone they know, is dead, or where all the buildings they are familiar with are laying in ruins. Beyond the off chance that a version of themselves is present within the text, a Post-apocalyptic narrative asks its readers to imagine a world where they are longer present. Whatever the particulars of the apocalyptic scenario that played out in the narrative, all the generational efforts of human endeavour were not enough to stand in the face of it. When the collective resistance of humanity crumbles in opposition to the overwhelming power of the apocalypse, what hope does an isolated band of survivors, or lone individual, have of surviving the aftermath? Not only are characters in a Post-apocalyptic narrative faced with the physical and moral struggles of day to day survival in a ruined world without modern civilization, they are burdened with the fact humanity as a whole failed.

It can be said that the only real difference between an Apocalyptic narrative and a Post-Apocalyptic narrative is that some characters survive the apocalypse in the latter.  This is because when it comes to the end of the world, from Norse Mythology to the Bible, there is usually just enough survivors to allow for an honest chance of a new beginning (Lisboa 53). While the survivors find themselves physically surviving to live in the ruins of the old world, their metaphysical lives, of who they were in the old world, are just as ruined as the rubble around them. Living on after the end of the world is a radical break that requires a transformation into a new model of selfhood (Kaup 11). As lucky as they are to survive the end of the world, these survivors are still products of the old world and thus bring with them old-world problems. Whatever form the new world takes, its foundations are often flawed with prototypes of the same mistakes that brought the old world to ruin, allowing the process to repeat indefinitely (Lisboa 54).

In this way, the Post-apocalyptic genre has more in common with Romanticism than one might initially think. Stories from both genres carry within them an innate notion that something about the modern world is wrong, that modern society has taken a misstep somewhere and forgotten itself. While Romanticism remedies this notion by focusing on the corners of the world that remain untouched, or by exploring the fantastical, Post-Apocalyptic narratives deal with it by destroying the modern world and getting back to basics. While the Romantics want to get at the heart of what it means to be human, the Post-Apocalyptic authors make the claim that the essence of humanity is revealed by the apocalypse (Berger 10). While Romanticism focuses on the impassioned individual and their emotional experience of life as they chafe under the restraint of modern society, Post-apocalyptic literature showcases what happens to the masses who lack individualism and are too reliant on modern society when it is ripped away. Narratives in both genres are open to the inclusion of the supernatural, though neither are reliant on its presence. Both genres have a nostalgic element to them, Romanticism has a fascination with an idealized past, while Post-apocalyptic literature instead focuses on the luxuries that were lost in the apocalypse. Characters in Romantic narratives often rebel against tradition, feeling constrained by the established norms of society, but characters in a Post-apocalyptic narrative are liberated from society, in a sense, when it is upended by the apocalypse. The focus on the exotic present within Romanticism is represented in Post-apocalyptic narratives by the new and strange cultures that have emerged in the wake of the apocalypse. Characters in both genres find themselves abandoning the superficial trappings of modern society in favor of focusing on the essentials of life. Finally, the sublime plays an active role in both genres as characters are exposed to the elements where they witness awe-inspiring phenomena and take part in terrifying experiences that are beyond mere-human understanding.

3.1 The Road

The Road, written by Cormac McCarthy, is a story about a father and son, known as The Man and The Boy, travelling across a post-apocalyptic United States of America. They are travelling southward because in the ruined world, the weather is growing harsher by the year and the father thinks their best chances of survival lay in the south. Far from the action-packed tales of other Post-apocalyptic narratives, The Road is a haunting narrative about maintaining a moral core amid the depraved decline of humanity. Though the story is one based on a realistic depiction of earth, the narration follows the lead of Romantic writers and dips into fantastic elements of dreams and interpretation which add a surreal element to the story. It is never revealed what exactly caused the apocalypse in The Road, but the widespread aftermath is clear and all-encompassing. The world itself seems to be dying around them, and each step they take they encounter a landscape that is decaying, as though some spiritual aspect of nature is dead. But McCarthy does not just lament the loss of the natural world, for there is a tenderness to his depictions of man-made remnants of civilization, too (Hardwig 44). There is a sense of loss for both civilization as well as nature, and The Road treats their passing with all the sombreness of a eulogy.

            The Man is the primary guide and protector of the Boy, whom he sees as an object of purity and goodness in a fallen world. The Man is not only protecting the Boy because he is his son, but also because he sees his son as one of the last remnants of untainted purity and goodness left in the world. Despite the horrific bleakness of the world that is dying around them, filled with roaming gangs that have given in to their bestial natures, McCarthy manifests the sublime through The Man’s descriptions of The Boy, regarding his beauty as being equated with inherent moral goodness (Wilhelm 135). Much like the Romantics, McCarthy paints an idealized vison of the past. The Man is plagued by his life from before the apocalypse, a world that is cast as Edenic in comparison (Edwards 58). Despite the fact that the seeds of the apocalypse are already buried in this Edenic view of the past (Edwards 58), The Road’s suffusion of the sublime into the pre-apocalyptic world suggests an acknowledgment of our luck of living on this side of the apocalypse (Hardwig 49).

Despite this bleak view of the present given to us in The Road, there are still moments of peace to be found in the decay. Amid seeing burning forests collapse under their rotting weight, running from cannibals, and finding the bodies of those who lost the will to carry on, there are moments of physical and spiritual respite for The Man and The Boy. A scene where father and son are able to bathe in a waterfall, and another where they find some morels growing in a dead orchard nearby, are pastoral and sublime (Walsh 53). But these moments of respite do not just come from the natural world, they also find a storehouse of food and safe place to sleep. As well as this, when winter is setting in and things are looking bleak, they find a house, where they are able to trim their hair, change their clothes and take warmer blankets from a deceased couple who still lay on the bed. Far from seeming like moments of deus-ex machina, these strokes of good fortune come across as a hand guiding the pair through the darkest of days. Despite the Man’s death at the end of the book, The Road suggests that this is part of a grander plan as The Boy is able to join a wandering family and is never left alone in the world. The world of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is so bleak, but it is written so in order for the seemingly mundane moments of light to shine all the brighter in contrast.

4.     The Apocalyptic Sublime

There is a horrific peace to be found in the widespread destruction of all life on earth. Post-apocalyptic narratives offer readers a sublime experience, in that they open the door for them to contemplate the end of time on a human scale (Horner & Zlosnik 57). As with Romantic authors, Post-apocalyptic authors are tapping into an often unspoken notion held by the public at large that something has gone awry with civilization, which is why these narratives resonate with so many readers. No more bills, business meetings, university assignments, family dinners or taxes, all the non-essential noise of the modern world would be stripped away and life would recede back to the basics. Who would you become in such a scenario? Freed from the constructedness of modernist foundations and put into a state of instability, the sublime experience of the apocalypse is potentially liberating (Gunn & Beard 284). It should be noted that there is no guarantee of a better life after an apocalypse, merely a chance to start again with a radically different playing field and a new set of rules. For individuals who have not ended up with the life they would have wanted in this world, it is no stretch of the imagination to see why they might find this radical paradigm shift an acceptable trade. What are billions of deaths in comparison to a legitimate second chance of achieving happiness? This is why thoughts of the apocalypse can create surprisingly alluring feelings of uncomfortable pleasure, it is the promise of transformational change that has traditionally been unachievable (Alexander). A Post-apocalyptic novel shows what life could be like were all the worst parts of society to be swept away, the so-called villains of the world would be brought out into the light for the protagonists to tackle head on. Post Apocalyptic novels are a form of wish-fulfillment, a manifestation of the if-only daydreams of a lost generation who escape into fantasies of exploring a ruined world bereft of humans, discovering hidden communities of survivors and fighting off one’s neighbours (Brent 50).

            Just as nature is a focus in Romanticism, so too does the power of nature reassert itself in a Post-apocalyptic narrative. People may think that humanity is secure in its domination of the planet, but it only takes some severe weather to reveal how tenuous that control is. Civilization is itself a bulwark against the more extreme aspects of nature, while every other species on earth adapts to its environment, humanity has spent generations modifying our environment to suit ourselves. Bereft of the protective layers of insulation that civilization brings, humanity is thrown back to the stone age in terms of combatting the elements. A blizzard that would have been a minor inconvenience in the old world, with central heating and a working power grid, now threatens the lives of everyone in the region. Wildfires rage across the countryside unchecked, cyclones arrive without warning, a drought ruins crops for years, earthquakes topple already failing infrastructure. Packs of wild dogs, no longer man’s-best-friend but returned to the ways of their own lupine ancestors, stalk the weed-infested streets. Without the countless generations of defences against nature, humanity is reduced to little more than cave-dwellers, hiding out in abandoned buildings, and waiting for the manifestation of nature’s wrath to pass. While this would no doubt be an issue of grave concern for anyone actually going through such an appalling scenario, for those reading about it in a Post-apocalyptic novel it is nothing if not riveting. Getting to live vicariously through a protagonist with modern sensibilities, who is forced to combat the elements in the ruins of our own civilization, is simultaneously familiar yet also alien. That juxtaposition is one of the places in which the Post-apocalyptic genre manifests the sublime, that disconnect between what was and what now is. Looking out a high-rise window on a rainy Friday night, watching the near-infinite lights of the city flash, is mundane. Camping on the top floor of a skyscraper to avoid predators, listening to the wind howl through the shattered windows as you look out over the deserted and overgrown city is sublime.

In conclusion, Romanticism and the Post-apocalyptic genre have a lot in common. Both the Romantic and Post-apocalyptic genres stem from times of great social upheaval, and at their cores they are both explorations and critiques of modern society. The Romantic literary movement was a response to enlightenment values, rationalism and a quickly industrialising world. The Post-apocalyptic literary movement was a response to horrors of World War II and the burgeoning notion that modern society is not as stable as we would like to believe, but also that life might continue onward after such an apocalyptic event. Both genres have a focus on nature and ruins, as was explored with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Both genres depict nature as a sublime force that is simultaneously powerfully destructive and majestically beautiful, a force that humanity has been attempting to insulate itself from for generations. Ruins are the remnants of such attempts at insulation from nature, the remains of abandoned structures that stand on the previous frontiers of society. These ruined structures are representation of the sublime, carrying it in their metaphorical themes of isolation, the transience of human endeavour, and the decay of both time and history.  Both Romantic and Post-apocalyptic literature have the potential to be narratives of deep and layered meaning, and their capacity to house and represent the sublime is a link that should not be overlooked.

Citations

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Prepper Fiction

I’m an Indie-Author who focuses on Post-Apocalyptic fiction, but one that finds himself at odds with the broader Post-Apocalyptic Indie Author/Audience scene. Most successful Indies who write Post-Apocalyptic fiction actually only write within a very narrow bandwidth of the genre, focusing on what should be it’s own sub-genre of Preper Fiction. It’s fine if you want to do that, but it’s really not something I want to do. I’ve known I don’t mesh well with the broader PA-Indie Author scene for a while now, but it’s always been hard to nail down why. But I just got into a brief, but revelatory, discussion with an Indie who is far more successful than I am - and now I think I know why.

Prepper Fiction, as the name suggests, focuses on Preppers - which also reveals their protagonist’s key aspect - they’re prepared. The implications of this were only made crystal clear to me during this discussion with the other, far more successful (I cannot stress that enough) Indie. To summarise his rather long point, he basically said -

“My character was a good guy, smart, popular, successful, helped out in the community and church. He almost did everything right… but he never asked ‘what if’? and so his unperparedness for a tomorrow that wasn’t like today lead to his downfall. I want people to think about this character, and not be like him.”

To which my reply was -

“So, basically, what you’re saying is - “Jack was a really great guy, but he wasn’t a Prepper… so he died.”

The conversation jackknifed and he denied my synopsis of his longwinded post and suggested I read his book, which I kindly refused. But it did get me thinking about his argument, and where I’d heard it countless times before.

Back in the good old days, where the biggest concern in society was how annoying the Christians could be, they always had this weird argument about heaven. It was basically that it didn’t matter how good a person you were, if you didn’t follow Christ then you’d go to hell. You could house the poor, care for the sick, donate blood and save puppies, but if you didn’t adopt this one particular lifestyle, then all that was in vain and you’d suffer the consequences.

It’s the same argument…

It’s no suprise that the biggest readers of Prepper Ficiton are American Christians, they’ve been freaking out about doomsday forever. They spend their entire lives preparing for the Day of Judgment, when all the non-believers who didn’t think like them will finally understand that they were fools and ohhh if only they’d listened to the ever so wise and saintly Christi-I mean, Preppers.

It’s the exact… same… argument.

I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to figure it out, but this throw-away discussion with one of my betters has laid out exactly why I hate Prepper Fiction. Imagine having the audacity to think you could prepare for the end of the world? Imagine staring down zombies, nuclear war, EMP, coronal mass ejection or an actual pandemic (because those are the only scenarioes they deal with) and thinking, “yeah, I got this.” It’s the exact same audacity that allows people to walk around thinking, “anyone and everyone who doesn’t follow my way of life will burn for eternity, but I’m going to be rewarded for eternity.”

For the most part, beyond the inciting incident, the apocalypse doesn’t even play a role in Prepper Fiction - it’s just there to kick things off and break the world order we’re currently stuck with. This is because Prepper Fiction is simple wish-fulfilment - of a world where everyone who doesn’t think like the reader dies and the slate is wiped clean. Any antagonists who manages to survive the end of the world in Prepper Fiction are either evil “heathens” to be killed or unprepared “atheists” who should’ve listened and prepared while they had the chance. Prepper Fiction isn’t about people surviving the end of the world, it’s about people prepared for the end of the world surviving, and being proven right.

But the thing is - the apocalypse is the end-of-the-fucking-world, it doesn’t take sides and it doesn’t give a shit how prepared you are. A meteor is going to kill millions, the resulting tsunamis will kill millions more and the subsequent famines will kill billions after that. Fuck your little cabin in the woods and collections of bullets and beans. You’re not going to be rebuilding shit after that, certainly not your little utopian light of civilization you think you’re carrying. You’re gonna hide out in your cabin in the woods for a few weeks and then wonder why you’re suddenly getting sick. As you start firing blood from both ends you’ll remember that there’s nobody to run the nuclear powerplants and so they’ve all gone into meltdown and they’re spewing radiation all over the country side. The last thing you see, as you die scared and alone, is your bug-out-bag full of expensive gear.

I was never a Christian, and I’m not a Prepper, and even though people can and do make bank by catering to this audience, it’s just not something I’m interested in… but fuck me if this link between the two wasn’t a massive reveal for me.

Female Space Marines

Trigger Warning - I have nothing unique to say. This piece will not solve the issue. I’m an impotent commentator, just like you.

Fans (and tourists) of Warhammer 40k have been raging about the topic of Female Space Marines for a while now. Despite the digital vitriol that’s being spat over the topic, I feel like the conversation has mutated beyond the issue itself to become just another field of battle for the culture war. People have chosen their sides and dug their heels in, and they’ve pre-emtively decided to ignore everything the other side says. Hell, a few tragic souls have crafted their entire online personas around this issue… they’re so invested that they literally cannot give it up, or they will cease to exist.

On the surface it seems as though there are two unified sides to this issue, those for Female Space Marines and those against Female Space Marines. (Also, I’m just going to write FSM from now on… fuck off, I’ve got other shit to do.) While both sides of the conflict are factious, they do the usual thing where they steelman their own position while strawmanning their opponent’s viewpoints. Totally mature and reasonable antics. Who would’ve guessed nerds with toy soldiers could be so immature?

As far as I can tell, these appear to be the factions that comprise each side in the conflict.

For Female Space Marines -

Why not? - These people don’t really care, they just can’t think of a good enough reason to not have FSM in the story. They’ve probably got enough of a liberal mindset that the lore reasons against it aren’t that big of a deal to them. They’d be fine with FSM as long as it doesn’t wreck the narrative too much.

Feminists - These people, men or women, generally see something that men have but women don’t, and want to create equality. The established narrative of Warhammer 40k matters less than an having a level playing field in terms of men and women, and they’re willing to bend the former to reach the latter.

Chicks who want to be Transhuman Super Soldiers - Remember the days when “Tomboys” were a thing? Some women just want to run and gun with the boys.

Anti-Right - These fans picked this side simply because the Right mostly picked the other.

Progressive Subversives - These people see the reach and influence that Warhammer 40k has and they want to twist it to their ends or destroy it. If bringing in FSM works, then they win, but if it destroys the franchise then they’ll write it off as burning down a safezone for their ideological enemies. Once they get FSM in, they’ll keep twisting the franchise to their own ends until it’s barely recognizable… and when it breaks, they’ll move onto the next opportunity without looking back.

Against Female Space Marines -

Why? - These people are fine with the setting just the way it is. They don’t hate women, they don’t think that only men deserve to be heroes, they’re aware that everything sucks for everyone in 40k. They see the presence of Sisters of Battle and female Imperial Guard (as well as all the other female models from other factions) as enough representation to qualify as “inclusive.” They’re fine with the setting as is, and don’t see enough of a need to change it.

Cannoneer - Equality doesn’t even factor into the equation with these people, the canon says there’s no FSM so there’s no FSM. If it were the other way around, they’d be fine with that too.

No-Politics - Remember the days when “No religion or politics” was a thing? These people just want to escape the real world for a bit and enjoy a game or two of Space Bugs vs Metal Skeletons. Real world politics ruins this escapism for them and so they’ll do whatever it takes to avoid it.

Anti-Left - These fans picked this side simply because the Left mostly picked the other.

Conservative Subversives - These people are actual assholes who view women as lesser and would never dream of accepting FSM and while they’re at it they would love to see the Sisters of Battle removed. Most of this group are people who’d love to go back to the days when all the space marines were white, and since they’re all white why don’t we just make the clubs for whites only as well? They look at the theocratic fascist Imperium and think unironically “yeah, I’d do well there.”

Both sides -

“Influencers” - There are influencers on both sides of this debate and they’ve built their entire brand and following off of their stance on the issue. If they change their minds, they lose everything. If they try to bridge the gap, they lose everything. If the issue is resolved, they lose everything. These people have built their entire online existence atop this issue and so have a fundamental interest in making sure the conflict rages bright and hot for as long as possible. They will argue the point till their dying breath, day after day, not because they care but because it is all they have.

Like I said, as far as I can tell those are largely the factions that make up each side of the FSM argument. There could be more, they could be different, I’m just a guy who’s not getting paid for this so wtf do I know? As you can see, though, there’s more than one opinion on each side and some are more reasonable than others. Sadly, I don’t think this argument is going away any time soon. As long as most people have too much free time and not enough real problems, and a few people are intrinsically invested in the topic, we’re going to be stuck with it.

Where do I stand on the issue? Why did I wait this long to actually mention where I stand on the matter of FSM?

I waited this long, “buried the lead” as the totally respected and still relevant journalists say, because if I opened with my position then half the potential readers would’ve checked out then and there. Call me a milquetoast fence-sitter all you want (which already reads as fascist to some) but I’m against the inclusion of FSM, with conditions.

First of all, I’m an storyteller. That’s what I am. For all you people out there who identify first and foremost as a member of some sort of gender, religion, politcial party, or racial group… get the fuck away from me you boring ass piece of shit. If the most interesting thing about you is your opinion, skin tone or what you like to rub your junk against then you’re a fucking loser. Go get a life.

I write stories, I care about how they’re crafted and what they can do for people. Crafting an emotional experience and connecting with another human being, potentially hundreds of years after I’m gone, that’s what I’m about. 40k has over 10,000 years of canon - all of which states that FSM can’t be a thing. I’ve got nothing against women but I’d rather keep all that lore in-tact than break it for the sake of forced and superfluous inclusivity.

And don’t come at me with that “Everything is canon, not everything is true” quote - it’s a throw-away line meant to allow and compensate for the mistakes and course-corrections of the dozens of authors who’ve worked on this setting for the past 40 years. 40k is an awe inspiring work of craftsmanship, the only other setting that comes close is Star Wars… and that’s only before Disney got it’s paws on it.

I have female warriors in my older books, I have a literal genocidal fascist female space marine in my latest book, and my next series has a group of female only super soldiers. I have nothing against the idea, it actually offers many interesting narrative opportunities, but it’s been established that they’re not a thing in 40k and so for me the matter is closed.

Now, if 40k were to be rebooted, like Age of Sigmar is the reboot of Warhammer Fantasy, then I think you could include them then. Get some great FSM characters in on the ground level, in a new setting, and build from there. I think, for most people, that would be a reasonable compromise - original 40k gets to stay as it is, while new 40k gets its FSM. Nothing gets broken and you get that diversity, it’s the best of both worlds. But then the problem is never the reasonable people, the problem is always the extremists.

The Progressive-Subversives would say that it’s not about creating an alternative setting, it’s about changing the current setting. They don’t just want to include FSM, they want to break the other side’s game and take it from them. The Conservative-Subversives would refuse to acknolwedge, let alone play, the new game. They’d call it woke, say it’s not “real 40k” and they’d grow bitter that Games Workshop sacrificed the old for the new.

You can’t win when there are extremists in play, they’re always the loudest, they get the most attention and they live for this sort of conflict. As much as everyone will hate reading this, there are actual Communists and Nazi’s involved in this debate and their presence does tend to set the tone of the side they’re fighting alongside. While you just want to relax and have a game, these people are battling over which kind of authoritarianism will be ushered in.

And so the extremists can’t allow you to simply have a good time, because while they may be the loudest they’re also the fewest in number. They need to rile up enough people to fight their battles for them, and that’s you. Just as you like to move your little toy soldiers around on the tabletop, the extremists on your “totally right and valid” side like to play you off against the other extremists’ “useful idiots.”

So the next time you’re at the club, instead of trying to suss out where the other person stands on the “absolutely pivotal, lynchpin issue” of FSM, maybe just relax and enjoy a game of 40k? Or maybe go punch them to impress that Influencer you have a parasocial relationship with… what the fuck do I know?

The Land of Long Shadows - Released!

Well, after a whole lot of fucking around… The Land of Long Shadows is finally published.

Thanks to everyone that helped out along the way. I had a whole lot of help from people who put up with crackhead brainstorming sessions and an endless stream of strange queries that raised more than a few eyebrows. Writing this book was a challenge, but if early reports are anything to go by then it’s all been worth it.

If you’re into Post-Apocalyptic ficiton, or just something a little outside the norm, then you can check out The Land of Long Shadows - here.

Finally… I can move onto something else.

New Post-Apocalyptic Novel - The Land of Long Shadows

It took me much longer than expected, but I’m finally releasing my next post-apocalyptic novel!

Just look at that cover. You know some crazy shit is about to go down.

The basic gist of it is that I drunkenly set things in motion that rippled out like a cascading cluserfuck and consumed most of my creative energies for the past few years. But, it’s finally complete and ready to be ejected out into the world… like a stinking turd, or a demonically possessed stillborn.

“Why would he phrase it like that?!”

Because, my nonexistant interlocutor, I want to set your hypothetical expectations in order. The Land of Long Shadows, to put it mildly, is not a nice story. It is a story about the worst of the worst that humanity has to offer, stuck in a crapsack world without any hope in sight. There are no heroes in The Land of Long Shadows, and the day cannot be saved.

Just as it isn’t a short read (coming in at 142,000 words), it’s not a straight-forward read, either. The literal world has ended on a fundamental level, and there’s some reality warping, timey-whimey shenanigans going on. Just when you think you soul can’t take the strain from all the horrible characters, your mind will start to crumble from trying to get a grasp on the plot and setting. Transgressive Ficiton really can be a certain kind of fun, sometimes… from the right angle… under the proper lighting… at the exact time of year.

Anyway, I’m aiming to release The Land of Long Shadows on August 12th, 2023, just two weeks away from the time of writing this. With all this prep for release going on, I’m already hard at work on the sequel as well as a few other post-apocalyptic projects. So, stay tuned for all that.

Life Imitating Art

I started writing this particular post way back at the start of the pandemic, while living in Taiwan, and I had every intention of picking up blogging again - but as you can see from the time stamp on my recent posts, that clearly didn’t happen. Needless to say, any promises of consistency at this point are meaningless, so I’ll just dive right in by adding some things to this already written blog post and then we’ll see where we end up.

I published Days Too Dark back in December of 2017, and since that time I moved to Taiwan, to teach English, and subsequently moved to Germany… then back to Australia… and finally back to Germany, where I’m doing my Master’s degree in Literature! I’m a far cry from running about the Post-Apocalyptic ruins of Brisbane, Australia, but you’d be surprised at how many similarities popped up over my years abroad. Enough to weird me out, and enough to write a blog post with such a title, at any rate.

A Stranger in a Strange Land

Days Too Dark - Mars makes a comment that he’d like to move to Japan, or China (eww) and just live in a world where nobody could ever talk to him. He had a desire to see the world, just without the people, but ended up getting stuck in Australia after the world ended.

Reality - I actually ended up moving to Taiwan (which is a country) and loved walking around not being able to talk to anyone. All the other foreigners I started teaching with went through home sickness or culture shock, but neither really hit me. Obviously I had lots of conversations at work and with friends I’d made, but there’s something to be said about people just leaving you alone.

Brown Outs

Days Too Dark - the power grid is crumbling, and even if this weren’t the case there’s not enough power plants to power all the houses of those who remain. Brown Outs are a common occurrence in the early days of the story… before the lights shut off for good.

Reality - I don’t know what it was, but a while back I was walking home and all the lights along the street were strobing, and the power boxes were just humming and churning. Pretty weird night, but uneventful in the grand scheme of things. Along with this, my building was grand but old, and elevators dying was a frequent occurrence. Having to walk 28 floors down an abandoned stairwell, and ending up in a random construction site is about as post-apocalyptic as it gets.

Keeping My Distance

Days Too Dark - Mars has lost a lot of people, some have left, others have died, and a way of coping with this is by not getting to know anyone until they’ve been around for a while. He plays it off as having high standards but really he’s playing it safe to avoid getting hurt.

Reality - During my three years teaching English, we had four foreign teachers flee the country in the middle of the night without warning. A fifth decided that it wasn’t for him, and broke contract and left early. The situation was pretty grim for a while, and it got hard to trust people to stick around. It’s the nature of the business though, bringing in native English speakers and hoping you can entice them to stay… it’s certainly not a life for everyone. Needless to say, it’s not often the best and brightest that leave their home country and culture to live abroad, and so I met a lot of “interesting” people. Even without the people who flee, most people just stay a year or two and so you’ve got this constantly changing social circle, and it was certainly a lot easier to just stick to myself…

Cleaning Up Other People’s Shit

Days Too Dark - Mars is called in to deal with other peoples problems all the time, mainly because he’s the reliable work horse who can go and fix problems or just rough someone up if they’re hassling a friend.

Reality - People don’t show up for work, I get called in to go to their apartment and find their naked drunken ass staggering about the apartment. Girls sitting on the side of the road shitface, I get called in to get her home. Drunken foreigners being dicks at a bar, I have to go handle them. Drunken assholes screaming at student’s parents or teachers, I had to go out there. There’s certainly a lot of times where its just me going around dealing with other peoples shit.

Wild Dogs

Days Too Dark - Dogs have gone feral and reverted back to their wolf (dingo?) ancestors. They roam around in packs and have a habit of attacking lone travelers and killing them for food.

Reality - There’s a lot of feral dogs in Taiwan, I don’t know why. Maybe people get sick of owning them, but there’s a lot that just run the streets. One night I was walking home and this pack of dogs circled around me and I started yelling at them, but then I realized that they’re Taiwanese and not Australian and so probably didn’t understand English. Strange night, but luckily nothing happened.

Walking Everywhere

Days Too Dark - Cars aren’t really a thing after the end of the world, and so Mars has to walk everywhere.

Reality - I didn’t have a licence in Taiwan, and I’ll be damned if I start driving on those roads. Unlike Mars, I eventually got over my aversion to riding bicycles. It’s hard for Westerners to understand just how different the style of driving is in the East. From what I noticed, Westerners follow the road, Easterners follow each other. Or, to put it another way. “Westerners are pigeons, Easterners are bats” - they each fly well with their own kind, but if you throw one into a flock of the other, there’s going to be trouble.

Boiling Water

Days Too Dark - Mars and his fellow Strays need to boil and filter their drinking water, due to all the atmospheric pollution that resulted during the Fall.

Reality - Taiwan has really bad pipes, and bugs in the water. So if you’re a foreigner you’re probably going to get sick if you don’t boil your water. Also, just in general, if you don’t want a whole lot of lead poisoning, you’ll filter the water too. Having to go down 28 floors every week to carry back a pair of 6-litre jugs certainly makes me miss Australia.

No Water

Days Too Dark - The pipes have frozen over, Wivenhoe Dam has burst and the taps are all rusted over. The days of running water are a distant memory at this point in the story, and if you’re not carrying your own drinking water then you might be screwed.

Reality - Taiwan had a drought. The Australian goes to a tropical island and it has an actual drought, go figure. The city I was in decided to shut the water off two for days a week for a couple of weeks, which meant no showers for work, or the gym. For anyone. It was a tough time for all involved, but luckily I have a certain handicap that made me immune to the smell.

Overcast Skies

Days Too Dark - The skies were darkened during the Fall, and so there’s been perpetual cloud cover for near twenty years by the time of the stories telling.

Reality - Taiwan has some crazy weather, and you get Typhoons during the summer. And even if it’s not a full on Typhoon it’s still going to rain a metric-shit-tonne. Needless to say, the skies are blotted out by clouds a lot of the year.

The Plague

Days Too Dark - A series of plagues kill most Australians, and so Mars and his friends and family were safe within the confines of the South East Queensland Free Area. The rest of the world was dying, while they were relatively safe and just living our their lives (under martial law) while the shit hits the fan outside. Eventually SEQ-FA falls, and the virus got in, and Mars and co had to batten down the hatches and ride it out.

Reality - Taiwan was owning Covid-19 for a real long time, they were the first to warn the world and they went over a year without any kind of lockdowns. In May of 2021 though, we went into a half-lock down for three months. We all still went to work, we just had to wear masks all the time. Not a bad way to do things, and it was effective, too. It was certainly weird experience, having my family and friends going through hell, all around the world, and I was pretty much fine the whole time.

Wearing Masks

Days Too Dark - While the clouds of the Gloom were down at ground level, everyone was forced to walk around in a mask. People covered their faces to avoid getting any of the harmful particulates in their lungs… those that didn’t wear masks ended up with a nasty lung illness later on.

Reality - The air quality of Taiwan is not the greatest, mainly due to all the coal plants on the island as well as a certain neighboring nation that strategically places power plants of their own. Combine this with all the scooters, and you get a fair bit of air pollution. This means that people in Taiwan were wearing masks long before Covid-19 made it cool. They had a real rough time a few years ago with the last pandemic, and so they all learned how to handle it. Mask wearing was never the issue it was in Western nations.

Earthquakes

Days Too Dark - The whole world gets donkey punched during the Fall and everyone is slammed with this planetary earth quake that sends everyone tumbling to the ground. There are a few tremors after this as the planet settles into a new norm.

Reality - Australia doesn’t really get earthquakes - we’ve got enough shit to deal with, with just the yearly fires and flooding. But Taiwan does get earthquakes, lots of them. Considering my apartment was 28 floors up, even the slightest tremor had my building swaying back and forth. Which was just… great fun.

Ruins Everywhere

Days Too Dark - The whole world is in ruins; houses are abandoned and buildings crumble after years of neglect. Years of flooding, fires, cyclones, earthquakes and human violence have left the world a shattered shadow of its former self.

Reality - Taiwan has this thing where buildings are overgrown with grass, bushes and even full on trees. If nobody is living in a building, it will just sit there and be reclaimed by nature. Add in all the humidity and you get buildings whose exteriors tend to look run down and crumbling. Considering the Ruin-Porn scattered all over the place, Taiwan really is a Post-Apocalyptic fan’s wet dream.

Mars + 9

Days Too Dark - Mars is short for Maralinga, and he has a fascination with the number nine.

Reality - My first class in Taiwan had nine students and one of them was a kid called Mars… go figure.

Looking After Other People’s Kids

Days Too Dark - Mars has a habit of getting stuck looking after other peoples kids. Which makes sense, because if you want someone looking after your kid after the world ends, you want it to be the psychotic berserker that will defend them to the death.

Reality - I was a teacher, so I was looking after kids all day, but I’ve also got friends in Taiwan who’ve had kids… and I get to look after them too. Great fun.

Anosmia

Days Too Dark - Mars has anosmia, due to an injury from childhood. It’s hard for people to relate to him, and vice-versa, since he’s missing one of the five senses.

Reality - I have anosmia as well, and it was always one of those lesser disabilities, never seen and never that debilitating. Well, Covid came along and took away a lot of peoples sense of smell… and suddenly I had people coming up to me, asking how to deal with it. The world goes to shit, and suddenly I can relate to some people better. Funny how the world works.

“No.”

Days Too Dark - Mars is one of those guys who will help you to the ends of the earth, but he’s racking up a tally in the back of his mind. He refers to himself as a dog who just does what everyone else tells him to do. He will put himself out to help others, often times to the detriment of himself. He can’t say no, because he’s been raised to think he’s only going to get love when he’s being useful. It’s all a transaction to him, and he gets shitty when he doesn’t get what he (thinks he) is owed.

Reality - I always knew I had this character flaw in me, I just didn’t realize the extent until I spent time teaching in Taiwan. Shit was always a second away from disaster, there were always fires to put out, someone always needed saving. I became the go to guy to fix everything, and it was only when a sociable party rat started working at the branch that I figured out what was going on. He did as little work as possible, left early whenever he could, but had an outgoing and flamboyant personality… so everyone loved him. Everyone came to me with their problems, and they went to him for fun. Needless to say, that was a wake up call that I needed. I’m still working on it, it’s not entirely fixed yet. Boundaries are important though, so I’ll keep at it.

Borders, Dehumanization & Strays

Days Too Dark - Those lucky enough to be in Brisbane were spared the horrors of the plagues that ravaged the rest of Australia. They threw up new borders and kept everyone else out. It’s a little hard to do this to your own people mind you, so the government came up with this gimmick of referring to those who were safe as “Maroons” and those who stuck outside as “Cockroaches”. Bingo-bango, the problem was solved with a bit of in-group/out-group linguistic fuckery. In the end, it all fell apart, and the Maroons didn’t like being betrayed by their government and left to die, and so thanks to a bit of propaganda and another bout of self-identification gymnastics, the people collectively stopped referring to themselves as Maroons and started calling themselves ‘Strays.’

Reality - Australia locked down its borders, and people couldn’t get out or in (mostly), for near two years. There were between 40,000 and 50,000 Australians stuck outside the country with no reliable way to get home. To cope with this, the media started referring to us as “Travelers” instead of “Australian Citizens” and we were the filthy outsiders who might bring the plague back with us. Eventually they lowered the borders, and plague invaded the country in full force.

That’s it, those are the similarities I encountered while living in Taiwan. It was reaching a point where I figured I had to write something because the similarities were just piling up. I mean, look at that list - that’s certainly not nothing. It’s a weird experience to write a story about a fictional version of yourself, then encounter the events that the other version of you encountered. Overall I loved my time in Taiwan, but I’m keen to see what happens next here in Germany.

Immune Female Protagonists

This is going to be a rough one, but stick with me and I promise that we’ll get there in the end.

A Chosen One is a character that has been chosen by fate or destiny to save the world. It’s a great set up for a story protagonist because it allows for unconventional characters to be the centre of the narrative. Why is Luke Skywalker from the original Star Wars trilogy going to be the one to bring down The Empire? Because the Force chose him. Why is the Dark Lord going to be defeated by Harry Potter in the Harry Potter series? Because He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named heard a prophecy of a child that would kill him. Why is the Dragonborn suddenly shouting in the Dragon-Tongue? Because they were blessed by Akatosh.

You get the idea.

There’s another type of Chosen One, specifically for stories that are more realistic or based around science rather than magic, someone who is biologically chosen – The Immune. Typically these characters are the protagonist of a story because they are biologically immune to some threat that is ravaging the world. Why is Dr. Robert Neville immune to the vampire virus in I Am Legend? He was just born that way, kind of lucky when you think about it, right? Why didn’t Alice turn into an Infected in 28 Weeks Later? Not sure, it's possibly got something to do with her heterchromatic eyes… pity it didn’t protect her from being killed by her husband whom she just infected. Why is Mitch Emhoff immune to the outbreak in Contagion? He’s just lucky.

You get the idea.

Being biologically chosen is mechanically the same as being chosen by fate or some god, just without the mystically woo-woo. It allows you to have unconventional characters be the heroes of the story, because they’re the only ones who *can* be the heroes. It’d be great if we had some SAS guy going after the zombie cure… but all we’ve got to rely on is this high school drop-out slacker, because he’s immune for some reason. The Immune is a great trope, but it does come with a pretty serious storytelling issue that a few notable stories have bumped into.

Ellie from The Last of Us is a primary character in the series because she is biologically immune to the Cordyceps Brain Infection. While she can still be killed by the Infected, she can’t be infected with the virus they carry. Haniwa from See is born into a world of the blind, as one of the few people that is actually able to see. While the apocalypse that ended the world and left the survivors blind is centuries past, the world has moved on without sight and Haniwa has to learn how to navigate a world not designed for her.

In stories about saving the world, the characters need to be both strong and brave, and able to take on danger at every turn in service of humanity. Both Ellie and Haniwa are fierce warriors who have adapted to a violent world that wants to kill them at every turn, it’s why they make great protagonists. As uncomfortable as it is, the key issue is the fact that they’re both women. This is because the problem with The Immune, as opposed to The Chosen One, is that a biological problem is going to have a biological solution.

In a world where immunity is the only thing that’s going to save humanity from the virus that’s threatening to wipe them out, then logically the best thing the hero can do is spread that immunity. Characters in both The Last of Us and See tackle this in their own way. In The Last of Us, a group of freedom fighters/terrorists plans to harvest Ellie’s brain so they can generate a cure for the virus. In See, a sighted man named Jerlamarel is going around knocking up as many women as he can, to sire children who can see.

The problem with female characters who are protagonists simply because they are Immune, is that the most logical thing they can do to save the world is stay at home and have babies. Realistically, if you wanted to save the world and you had access to one of these Immune females then you’d do everything in your power to make sure they’re passing on this immunity. Now, the Fireflies in The Last of Us had a stupid plan. If they were going to go full on supervillain and sacrifice a child, why harvest her brain when they could harvest her eggs? If you’ve got the capability to do brain surgery in a post-apocalyptic world, like they do in The Last of Us, then just get a hundred women and artificially inseminate them with Ellie’s fertilized eggs. Boom, instant population of Immune and things only get easier when you’ve got Immune who are men. If humanity has taken more of a tumble and isn’t as advanced anymore, like in See, then just find a woman who’s Immune and move heaven and earth to make her as comfortable as possible as she pumps out Immune kids for as long as she can.

Despite the fact that this course will save the world, it’s not glamorous, it’s not action packed and it’s not viewed as good story telling. Thanks to biology, an Immune male protagonist could spawn hundreds of Immune children in a year and still go on all sorts of story-worthy adventures. But an Immune female protagonist? Nobody wants to play a video game about a woman who stays in a zombie-surrounded compound having kids for all her child bearing years. Beyond that, could you imagine the uproar that’d result from a modern story that revolves around a woman staying at home and having kids?

In an age of stories where men are being told to grow up, stop going on carefree adventures, shoulder some responsibility and settle down with a family, women are being told to go out and live their best lives, initiate boss-bitch mode and take on the world. Immune female protagonists only seem heroic, because the real heroic thing to do (for any Immune, male or female) would be to put aside their ambitions and adventures in service of humanity… because that’s what an actual hero does.   

So, what do storytellers do to avoid this plot hole? How do they justify the Immune female protagonist, cradling the salvation of humanity in her womb, rushing off into danger and putting herself and the future of humanity at risk?

It's simple, they make her a lesbian.

The Immune female protagonist isn’t interested in having Immune children with a man because she’s not interested in men. Being a lesbian isn’t enough to get them around the whole egg-harvesting scenario, but it’s enough to insure they can stay out in the world and maintain their status as protagonist of an action story. Not that any woman would ever really aspire to being a baby factory, but it would be particular abhorrent for a lesbian in a world where artificial insemination isn’t an option. Passing on their Immunity through procreation just isn’t an option for them, so they don’t even bother with it. Writing Immune female protagonists as lesbians is justifiably enough of an excuse to allow them to get out of taking the most obvious course of action to save the world.

So, if you were ever wondering why Ellie from The Last of Us and Haniwa from See are both Immune while also both being lesbians, it might have less to do with representation and more to do with writers trying to escape a gaping plot hole they’ve created for themselves.

Setting the Record Straight

So I haven’t updated this blog in a while, despite everything I’ve said in previous posts. Plans change, boo-hoo. Despite this though, the blog has still been getting a bit of attention, although not in a manner that I’m all too happy with.

A while back I started watched the Van Helsing series, and I began writing a few blog posts about the show. I didn’t like how they handled a lot of things, but it’s Post-Apocalyptic so I kept watching and I kept writing. The problem is that these posts gained a lot of attention with the wrong sort of crowd, and even though I haven’t been here in a while - they’re still the main source of traffic to the site. So a TV show that I’m not even that fond of, is bringing the majority of people to my site.

Not happy.

The worst part, though, is that due to the nature of my critique I seem to be getting a lot of angry guys who hate the show. I can only assume they Googled the show after watching and thanks to the metrics my blog posts came up first… and so instead of taking their rage to a forum, or something, they just dumped it on my blog. This has happened a few times now and along with not being the sort of constructive discussion I’m interested in, these comments are a constant reminder of my lapsed obligations as a blogger.

So, to set the record straight - this is not an anti-Van Helsing site. This is a site for all things Post-Apocalyptic and more broadly, stories in general. I’m not going to play the SEO game with Google and start pumping out rage bait to try and capitalize on one post that became popular for all the wrong reasons. If all you’re bringing to my blog is a hatred for a TV show, kindly fuck off.

I’ve got nothing against strong female protagonists, as long as they’re handled fairly, realistically and consistently. I actually want them, because having well rounded characters makes any story better. Just do it in a way that doesn’t involve dragging guys down, and I’m as happy as a pig in shit.

Scarlett Johansson was a literal tank in Ghost in the Shell.

Sigourney Weaver was a Xeno-killing machine in Aliens.

Gina Carano was a beast in Deadpool… along with anything else she’s in.

Jennifer Garner is an absolute badass.

Charlize Theron was historic on the Fury Road….

Do I need to keep going?

Chances are that if you came toe-to-toe with any of these ladies - they would royally fuck your shit up. Deal with it.

A few episodes of Van Helsing were trashy due to mishandling a message, big deal. Overall the show is actually pretty decent, and it’s kept me watching and I’m keen to see how it ends. It’s not that great, but then how many shows these days are? I’m watching it to learn about the crafts of writing and storytelling, learning what works and what doesn’t. If you don’t like it, and you’re not getting anything else from it, then why are you still watching?

Don’t go full swing in the other direction here, either. I’m not some SJW cuck looking to virtue signal…. but I’m not some Alt-Right Incel nutjob either. Just make great stories, with well-written characters. Because if you don’t, then I’m going to learn from your mistakes.

To close, here’re some women being badasses in quarantine.

Gears 5 - Something Old, Something New

I’ll open with a disclaimer - I didn’t buy Gears 5, I haven’t even played it. I’m in a foreign country for an indeterminate amount of time and I can’t justify buying a whole new console just to play a single game… so I watched the four hours of cut-scenes on YouTube. Does that count as dishonest, or in poor taste for an Indie-Author? Maybe, but I’m made of neither money, nor time, and so I did what I did. It was either that or wait till I’m back in Australia this time next year, which just won’t do in today’s internet environment. Who will care about Gears 5 in a years time?

Gears 5 is an interesting beast, because in typical Gears fashion the ‘Beautiful Destruction’ aesthetic is visually amazing, and the combat is as intense and solid as ever, but then there’s a few narrative and design choices that left me scratching my head. To further add to this, while JD Fenix couldn’t escape the shadow of Marcus Fenix in Gears of War 4, it’s almost as though Gears 5 can’t escape the shadow of the original trilogy. Over the course of Gears 5 you return to Ephyra, which was in the original Gears of War, the New Hope Facility from Gears of War 2, as well as Azura from Gears of War 3. Along with this, I think Gears 5 only introduced two new characters - Lizzie Carmine and Fahz, and one of them dies real early on. If you’re a Gears fan, you’ll see the names and know which one I’m talking about. Besides those two characters, everyone else has appeared in at least one other game, and most of them were from the original trilogy or Gears of War Judgment. The old antagonists make a comeback too, we see Queen Myrrah in these psychic attacks that Kait is suffering, and we even cross paths with proper old-school Locust and Sires.

It’s almost like the developers were so concerned about other drastic changes they were making that they doubled down on the nostalgia to compensate. They added extra of the old ingredients to help mask the taste of the new ingredients. The developers continually talk about how complex and multi-faceted their new characters are compared to the one-dimensional characters from the original trilogy, but then the originals are all still there. The new heroes are running around trying to make a name for themselves while the old guard are still there, handling everything just like they’ve always done. Hell, you literally build a mural to all the characters that have died so far in the series and you end up seeing their ghosts. So in a weird sort of way, Gears 5 is something sort of fresh but also something very old at the same time.

It does work in one weird kind of way though, because there’s this sense of decaying history to the world. All the old and battered heroes running around the old and battered ruins of a second apocalypse does ground you in the story and it’s setting. Nothing new lasts, it’s just the old that lingers on. While Gears of War 4 added the Dee-Bee’s as the latest technology in use, Gears 5 takes a step back and has you scavenging for the last remaining Hammer of Dawn satellites - because they just don’t make them like they used to. The Dee-Bee’s are cool, but nothing makes a story feel Post-Apocalyptic like scavenging for Pre-Apocalyptic weapons of mass destruction. It’s the simple fact that nothing made after the apocalypse could compare to the super weapons that were built before it.

Kait was a fine protagonist, and there wasn’t any of the girl power rah rah rah schtick that we so often see in media these days. She’s got her internal and external motivations for chasing after the Swarm, and so she’s driven and she’s always invested in the events of the story. My only problem, still, is what I said when Gears 5 was first announced. Kait being the protagonist of the new trilogy’s second game weakens JD as a protagonist of the first. Now, that’s nothing inherently weakening about Kait, it’s just that swapping protagonists weakens every protagonist, I’d be saying the same thing if their roles were reversed. Having one protagonist over three games will always result in a stronger and more well-developed character than three protagonists who each get one game, that’s just what all that extra time in the spotlight does for a character. Which brings me to my main big issue with Gears 5.

Gears 5 introduces the game-play mechanic of player choice in regards to the narrative, which is just a weird fucking move. Kait is given a choice of who to save, JD or Del - and whoever she doesn’t choose ends up getting their necks snapped. But why? This is the strangest thing I’ve seen in a video game series. Why would you suddenly add in player choice in the fifth game when it’s never been part of the series? How will Gears 6 work out? In a narrative driven series, only one character can live and so how will this choice play out? Which choice will be considered canon? And if it’s only going to be one choice, why bother with the choice at all? I’m actually shuddering at the thought of the choice being made null and void by the other character simply dying at the start of the next game as well, allowing the developers to have their cake and eat it too.

It’s a weird choice also, because to me it sets up a lose/lose situation. If JD is killed off, then he never managed to escape the shadow of his father and he’s just left as this failure of a character - both in terms of the story and in the series as a whole. But if Del dies, then he can’t be the protagonist of the third game and so not every member of the three-piece team will get a chance to star in their own game. And what would you be left with then? A trilogy where one main character gets one game, another main character gets two and the third just dies? That’s a very strange design choice…

Moving on, I have to say that I’ve never realized how repetitively banal Gears boss fights are. While actually playing the game, and fighting the massive Kaiju monster from beneath the surface of the world, you’re a bit too wrapped up in the action to notice. But while you’re sitting back and watching someone else play, you see that it’s just this back and forward loop of shooting small glowing bits off the big bastard before going in for a king-hit. Wash, rinse and repeat and that’s basically how every boss fight in a Gears game has worked.

Next, the emotional levels are all wrong in this game, too. We’re following Kait on her journey and you see her and Del grow as friends, but then she’s being mentally manipulated into doubting him. It flares up in one scene but then doesn’t really go anywhere. She get’s her brain toyed with and suddenly the visions stop and she instantly trusts Del again. Kait is shown to be more emotive and an emotionally well-rounded character, definitely more so than the guys, but she’s still pretty blasé about character deaths. She gets a bit upset but she still charges on. And as someone who’s been through multiple family deaths already - I can tell you that that’s not how it works in real life.

The early deaths are handled well, although they’re characters that we’re not really invested in so it’s still a bit meh, but then there’s this really weird stretch at the end where character deaths and handled really poorly. Either JD or Del are killed, and the characters are sad, but it’s nothing on the deaths of Tai or Dom from the first trilogy. Then Cole has a fake death that’s sort of brushed past, because it’s fake. He’s being his usual idiot self, whooping and leaping about in a giant robot instead of being an old man who’s perhaps grown and evolved beyond such behavior. But then when a robot dies, in the exact same way the robot in Gears of War Judgment died, the sound fades away and the sad music starts up. A main character dying, nothing. A main character from the original series (fake) dying, nothing. A fricking robot dies, bring out the orchestra and start peddling the feels.

I feel at this point I need to say something good things about Gears 5, because I’ve just been tearing it apart up until this point. Like I said at the start, the visuals and gameplay all look amazing, but there’s a lot more too. The lore of the series is being expanded, and we’re finally given answers to some very old questions. Who was Queen Myrrah? What’s her connection to the Locust? Along with this, we’re able to further explore the world, and despite visiting a lot of previously visited locations we also get to see a lot of new places too. The world of Sera is become a lot more fleshed out, and it is decidedly pissed at humanity. Super-massive wind flares attack cities, razor sharp hail storms dice those without protection and lightning strikes create large fulgurite structures in the desert sands of an evaporated ocean bed. It’s like the very planet of Sera is trying to eject all life from on, and beneath, it’s surface because it’s simply sick of all the shit that sentient life gets up to. Every time these people; Human, Locust or Swarm, go to war, it’s the planet that suffers the consequences.

Just to wrap things up, I’ll point out this interesting moment that’s probably more of a comment on how the military is portrayed in video games. In series such as Gears of War and the Halo, female characters were often relegated to an officer position. It got female characters into the game, but it tended to keep them out of direct combat roles. The problem was when you had front line grunts, Privates, Corporals and Sergeants, telling a female officer where to shove her orders because they know how to properly handle a situation. Halo did it in Halo: ODST with Captain Veronica Dare taking a back seat to Sergeant Major Avery Johnson. It happened in Gears of War 3 with Sergeant Marcus Fenix ordering around Lieutenant Anya Stroud. It was cool to see chicks in the game, but it didn’t make much sense for the power dynamics to play out like that. That’s just not how the military works.

Gears 5 actually addresses this, somewhat, at least to the extent that we can put the complaints to rest. Fahz, a First Lieutenant, is constantly complaining that nobody is listening to him despite him being in charge, and is eventually told to “shut the fuck up” by a Sergeant. Along with this, we’ve got all these male characters of varying ranks following Kait’s lead, despite the fact that she’s only a Corporal. A character of significantly higher rank than her just flat out tells her that she’s good at leading others. If nothing else, this should show that it’s the protagonist of a game that get the final say, regardless of their military rank and even in spite of the gender. It was never about power dynamics between men and women, it was narrative dynamics between protagonists and side characters. Thanks to Gears 5, it doesn’t matter what you’ve got between your legs, if you’re the protagonists then it’s your story and you take the lead.

I’ve had a lot of complaints about Gears 5, they took it in a new direction and while I applaud a lot of their efforts I think it’s been somewhat hit and miss. Don’t even get me started on how they whored out the series for cross-promotional purposes - I’ll do another blog post on all that of that. All up, I’m glad I sat down and watched the cut-scenes. I’ll still buy a copy of the game in a year or two when I get back to Australia and settle down in a location a little more permanently, because I still want to play through it on my own. I love the Gears series, and I’m interested in seeing where they take it next. They’ve managed to stay afloat this long, so I’m keen to see how this second trilogy finishes up. At the end of the day, we’ve still got Gears of War Tactics coming out… which, as you can see back here, is something I hypothesized months before it was announced. So I am very much looking forward to that game.