Nuclear apocalypse stories
Sunday, October 26th, 2008I read a lot. Most of it is, to be kind, unimportant. A while back I was reading/listening to the Deathlands series. It’s set roughly 100 years after a nuclear war, primarily between the US and the USSR. It’s pulpy, but really fun. Towards the end of book two it starts to play the rough patriotism card, but reigns it in before starting to make me discard it. I had just finished the Graphic Audio version of number 18. While waiting for 19, I decided to try Doomsday Warrior, which is from the same publisher.
After only a few minutes I sensed this may have been a mistake. Let’s review what you need in an atomic apocalypse story.
1)Very few survivors, at least per place. Small population centers.
2)Poor communications. Telcos gone, radios very few and far between. Add a lack of trust and you’re off to the races.
3)Mutants of some kind, preferably somewhat believable. Rather, believable enough for what, really, is cheap entertainment.
4)General breakdown in knowledge.
That’s kind of it, I think. Aside from that you just need good writing, like any story. Let’s examine this one.
The main hero is Tom Rockson. I shit you not, his name is Rockson. He is described as being “The ultimate American”. So, that’s a red flag. Next is that while it’s indicated that 2/3rds of the world’s population, and that most of that was the flattening of the US. 100 million during the attack, 75 million within the year. Looking at census data, it seems that the population in 84, when this was written, was about 235 million. So, fine, so far so few. Could probably be less initial survivors, you know, but whatever. Now we get to hear how the Soviets “won” because they had advanced missile killers. I know, I know, the Cold War had everyone worried, but seriously. Ok, we’ll let that slide. Oh, the other thing is that the intro here describes all the main players and lays out their motivations, which is a bad sign of explainitis. Anyway. The Russians build 40 fortresses, for some reason, and take over. One minute we’re told that 90% of plants and animals are extinct, but then we’re told about mutant animals, and forests. Turns out that there’s “free cities” left, built on the edge of radioactive hot zones, which house the last AMERICANSFUCKYEAH people. 75 of the fuckers, with 1000 to 40000 people each. Living next to hell pits. Riiiiight. Described as “fiercely democratic”, and natural selection has made them 10 times more resistant to radiation, plus they use Spartan style child selection. More on that in a minute. So already we’ve broken some guidelines, in that we have a lot, like a lot a lot, of people working together with a fair amount of communication somehow.
About this rad resistance business. Ok, fine, it’s not too ludicrous to be in a story, though if you were to amplify my radiation resistance ten fold there’s still no way I could live in fallout, but we’ll let that slide for now. Having that and roughly a million people is pushing it pretty far though. Now, apparently these super democrats also put their children out into the night, where they have to survive 20 below temperatures. Yeah. This would totally allow you a population of roughly a million.
Then you get some other crap explained to you. Like the white markings on the radiation resistant generation. If I recall accurately, I’m picking this post up from an old draft, Tom there had…. STARS!! That’s right, he’s so patriotic he’s covered in stars. Jesus wept.
Finally we get to his hometown, which was built into a mountain by the survivors of some people stuck in a roadway tunnel that had the entrances collapsed during the nuclear strike. That’s right, people stuck in gridlock then trapped in a radioactive tomb survived long enough to build a city in a mountain. He wanders into this place, naturally the most advanced of the free cities, and eventually wanders into the gym, where his “She’s totally not my girlfriend, but hot sex friend” is sparring with a martial arts instructor. Not only did they survive to build a city, but they apparently had a strong kung-fu tradition to hand down. The lady eventually gets her ass handed to her, then Tom and the teacher throw down, ending in a draw, because the woman can’t be better than him, and neither can some random Chinese guy.
Sometime around then they talk about the weapons of these free cities. Instead of knocking off a million AKs or M16s, they created their own gun design, which is better than the Russian’s arms, and manage to churn out by the thousands.
So, effectively, within like 20 pages, the story as set means the Russians have lost. There is no feasible way for them to hold the region, and in fact it won’t even be a struggle, relatively speaking.
Then there’s the icing. The evil Soviets have a machine that erase your personality and imprint you with good commie thoughts. They bring one of the test subjects in to parade in front of some higher up and he starts asking if she would do this or that or the other thing. All in the affirmative. Then he asks if she would kill Tom Rockson, I believe even calling him The Ultimate American, and she starts screaming. Then she dies. Not just says “I dunno, he’s hunky” or passes out, but flat out dies.
I stopped reading about three pages beyond that, when the horror caught up to my brain.