World War Z

I finished World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War a few weeks ago. Written by Max Brooks, author of the famed Zombie Survival Guide, this book is a fictional collection of accounts from the survivors of a zombie apocalypse. While there are some creepy parts, that's not really the point of the book. The stories are mostly of survival and dealing with the effects of the "war". Overall, I liked it. If you're a Zombie fan or a P-A fan, it's worth a read.

I'd like to give a better overview, but it's been too long since I read it. I've got a bit more spare time now, so I'll hopefully resume posting regularly.

Water from wind

EcoGeek has an interesting post about a wind-powered turbine that cools itself and condenses water out of the air. While there are doubts about the implementation, there are certainly examples of being able to condense large amounts of water out of the air, and in nearly any P-A world, getting fresh, clean water is going to be a challenge. Of course, most of these assume there isn't radioactive dust blowing around, but at least it's a good start.

Powerless cooling

"Apocalypse" frequently means no power. But so does "rural Africa." A very inventive Nigerian man named Mohammad Bah Abba developed an incredibly easy evaporative cooling system called a Zeer. Take an unglazed terracotta pot, and fill the bottom with sand. Put a smaller pot inside it. Fill the gap with sand. Add water to the sand. The water soaks into the pots and slowly evaporates, which causes cooling. Apparently it works quite well.

Terracotta is a great PA material because A), it's everywhere, B) it might actually survive the ravages of time and weather, assuming it doesn't get smashed, and C) you might actually be able to make it yourself. Hit up any garden or home store and you'll find plenty of big planters. For that matter, check your neighbor's houses. They may have a few as well, already in use.

More on Bah Abba and the pot-in-pot refrigerator at Wikipedia.

Solar Cooking

I came across a site on solar cooking today, and I realized that it's just the thing when you need to cook your food but don't want any smoke to alert nearby raiders, zombies or other nasty folks. The site has some plans for cookers. One seems to be made from an old tire and a sheet of glass - a little gross, but very resourceful. My dad and grandpa had actually messed around with this a few years ago. They used a wooden box lined with garbage bags and a glass lid. I don't remember if we actually cooked anything in it, but it was a neat idea.

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. Work has me very busy and there's no sign of it letting up.

The World Without Us

Cool Tools writes about The World Without Us. It's exactly what it sounds like - what happens to the world when mankind disappears. Be sure to check out the multimedia page on the book's website for some time-lapse decay and beautiful artist's renderings of a dying New York.

This one is going on my wish list.

Bruce Schneier on Disaster Planning

Renowned security expert Bruce Schneier writes about appropriate levels of disaster planning. He usually takes a security-related perspective, but the types of disasters he talks about make it interesting to P-A folks.

How will the world end? Nuke 'em 'till they glow.

Nuclear war is probably the cause of most "traditional" P-A worlds. Nuclear bombs are among the most powerful weapons we have, and fallout from radiation can keep doing damage even after the bomb itself is long gone. Typically, an escalation in hostilities results in two major countries (the US and usually Russia or China) lobbing bombs. The rest of the world joins in, and pretty soon most major cities have been blown up and the surrounding areas irradiated. Radioactive fallout blows across wide swaths of land, killing and mutating as it goes. Sometimes there is a nuclear winter, where dust in the atmosphere cools the planet and causes an extended winter. Survivors of the initial war take refuge in bomb shelters and bunkers, sometimes for generations. Remnants of technology are here and there, but between the destruction and the passage of time, examples of advanced technology are few and far between. There are usually some fanciful mutant humans and animals too, caused by exposure to radiation.

One of the things I like about the nuclear P-A world is the fight against the environment, which seems to be more important than in some other types of P-A worlds. Radiation in high enough doses kills pretty much everything, and finding uncontaminated food and water is a major task. Large irradiated areas prevent movement across country. Radiation is also somewhat mysterious, an invisible foe and difficult to deal with. There is also a popular tradition of radiation causing viable mutations which makes for some interesting obstacles in the new world.

The classic computer RPG Fallout and its successors take place in a nuclear P-A world inhabited mostly by human survivors, but also by mutant humans called ghouls and super-mutants. High technology is usually military in nature, and the pre-apocalypse technology level included energy weapons, power armor, robots and fusion powered cars, to name a few examples. The games don't focus much on survival but more on combat and interaction with the small towns and villages trying to deal with the bad elements of the world, mostly roaming gangs and mutant menaces. Fallout 3 is in the works, and will have more survival elements, like radiated water. You'll need to drink water occasionally, but most of the water you find will be slightly irradiated, so you'll have to balance the two factors. You can find more about the Fallout series at the fan site No Mutants Allowed.

The book A Canticle for Leibowitz is a more serious fictional look at dealing with the recovery of civilization after a major nuclear war. After the war, the survivors rebel against technology and science and send the world into a new dark age. An order of monks hides and preserves books for future generations so that they can recover the science and technology of the old world. The idea of the monks preserving valuable books is one of the things that inspired me to start the Post-Apocalyptic Survival Bookshelf. Canticle deals with a lot of interesting issues, like faith, knowledge and power, but only the first third of the book really deals with the kind of post-apocalyptic world I'm interested in. During the other two thirds civilization has recovered to the point that they are no longer fighting against the environment, but merely other civilized humans.

What are your favorite nuclear themed P-A worlds?