A is for Apoc burning bright…
It’s hard for me to say anything about apocs that I haven’t already said. After all, I’ve written about apocs here, here, and here.
I grew up with the vague feeling that the world might end any day. My parents had some feelings that way, although I don’t think they were well-articulated, more the general sense of dread of the Cold War. I also grew up in a house where the power would go out and stay out for hours, maybe as long as a day – and when I was thirteen, the power went out all over the city for an entire week. Combine that with almost all family vacations involving camping – possibly all vacations; I can’t remember any that didn’t – and I have this comfortable foundation need to be prepared for any off-the-grid sort of emergency.
That’s my personal background on apocalypses. Even though our current rural property is close enough to a major line that it rarely loses power for more than ten minutes, I’m still more comfortable having the wood-burning stove (It’s cheaper!) and would be happier still if I had a way to make hot water/make the water run (Yay well water if the electricity went out. In that sense, I’m prepared for small emergencies much more than the apocalypse. Then again – small emergencies are a lot more likely. (And, considering my habit of buying food in bulk when it’s most on sale, we have Way More than the recommended three-day supply of food.)
I think one of the reason post-apoc settings have always appealed to me in fiction boils down to my feeling of disconnection with the modern world. There are myriad marvelous wonders – but there’s also the daily grind and the social rules that seemed to rub me the wrong way. If there was no more modern world, a little voice sometimes whispers, there’d be no more nine-to-five.
Apocalypses are as much a fantasy/speculation as dragons in my mind, and I’m comfortable with that. (Though it’s a bit easier to plan for the former than the latter!)
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