Apocalypse Any Day Now


Book Description

Everyone always seems to be talking about the end of the world—Y2K, the Mayan apocalypse, blood moon prophecies, nuclear war, killer robots, you name it. In Apocalypse Any Day Now, journalist Tea Krulos travels the country to try to puzzle out America's obsession with the end of days. Along the way he meets doomsday preppers—people who stockpile supplies and learn survival skills—as well as religious prognosticators and climate scientists. He camps out with the Zombie Squad (who use a zombie apocalypse as a survival metaphor); tours the Survival Condos, a luxurious bunker built in an old Atlas missile silo; and attends Wasteland Weekend, where people party like the world has already ended. Frightening and funny, the ideas Krulos explores range from ridiculously outlandish to alarmingly near and present dangers.







The Routledge Companion to Gender and Science Fiction


Book Description

The Routledge Companion to Gender and Science Fiction is the first large-scale reference work of its kind, critically assessing the relations of gender and genre in science fiction (SF) especially—but not exclusively—as explored in speculative art by women and LGBTQ+ artists across the world. This global volume builds upon the traditions of interdisciplinary inquiry by connecting established topics in gender studies and science fiction studies with emergent ideas from researchers in different media. Taken together, they challenge conventional generic boundaries; provide new ways of approaching familiar texts; recover lost artists and introduce new ones; connect the revival of old, hate-based politics with the increasing visibility of imagined futures for all; and show how SF stories about new kinds of gender relations inspire new models of artistic, technoscientific, and political practice. Their chapters are grouped into five conversations—about the history of gender and genre, theoretical frameworks, subjectivities, medias and transmedialities, and transtemporalities—that are central to discussions of gender and SF in the current moment. A range of both emerging and established names in media, literature, and cultural studies engage with a huge diversity of topics including eco-criticism, animal studies, cyborg and posthumanist theory, masculinity, critical race studies, Indigenous futurisms, Black girlhood, and gaming. This is an essential resource for students and scholars studying gender, sexuality, and/or science fiction.




Bunker


Book Description

Since prehistory, bunkers have been built as protection from cataclysmic social and environmental forces, and as places of power and transformation. Today, the bunker has become the extreme expression of our greatest fears- from pandemics to climate change and nuclear war. And once you look, it doesn't take long to start seeing bunkers everywhere. In Bunker, acclaimed urban explorer and cultural geographer Bradley Garrett explores the global and rapidly growing movement of 'prepping' for social and environmental collapse, or 'Doomsday'. From the 'dread merchants' hustling safe spaces in the American mid-West to eco-fortresses in Thailand, from geoscrapers to armoured mobile bunkers, Bunker is a brilliant, original and never less than deeply disturbing story from the frontlines of the way we live now, an illuminating reflection on our age of disquiet and dread that brings it into new, sharp focus. The bunker, Garrett shows, is all around us, in malls, airports, gated communities, the vehicles we drive. Most of all, he shows, it's in our minds.




Watching the World Die


Book Description

During the 1980s, popular fear of World War III spurred moviemakers to produce dozens of nuclear threat films. Categories ranged from monster movies to post-apocalyptic adventures to realistic depictions of nuclear war and its immediate aftermath. Coverage of atomic angst films isn't new, but this is the first book to solely analyze 1980s nuclear threat movies as a group. Entries range from classics such as The Day After and WarGames to obscurities such as Desert Warrior and Massive Retaliation. Chronological coverage of the 121 films released between 1980 and 1990 includes production details, chapter notes, and critical commentaries.




American Madness


Book Description

Q-Anon. Fake News. Bohemian Grove. False flag attacks. Deep state. Crisis actors. Whatever Gate. Is any conspiracy worth the life of a believer? The mainstream news media struggles to understand the power of social media while conspiracy advocates, malicious political movements, and even foreign governments have long understood how to harness the power of fear and the fear of power into lucrative outlets for outrage and money. But what happens when the harbingers of “inside knowledge” go too far? Author Tea Krulos tells the story of one man, Richard McCaslin, who’s fractured thinking made him the ideal consumer of even the most arcane of conspiracy theories. Acting on the daily rants of Alex Jones and his ilk, McCaslin takes matters into his own hands to stop the unseen powers behind the world’s disasters who congregate at conspiracy world’s Mecca- The Bohemian Grove. It all goes wrong with terrible consequences for the man who styled himself-The Phantom Patriot. McCaslin is not alone, as conspiracy-driven political action has bubbled its way up from the margins of society to the White House. It’s no longer a lone deranged kook convinced of getting secret messages from a cereal box, now its slick videos and well-funded outrage campaigns ready to peddle the latest innuendos and lies in hopes of harnessing the chaos for political gain. What is the long term effect on people who believe these barely believable stories? Who benefits, and who pays the price? Krulos investigates and explains the power of conspiracy and the resulting shared madness on the American psyche. Tea Krulos is a Milwaukee-based writer who documents the underground world of fringe sub-cultures. His previous books, Apocalypse Any Day Now-Deep Underground with America’s Doomsday Preppers and Heroes in the Night-Inside the Real Life Super Hero Movement explored the driving beliefs and lives of the people who choose to reject accepted reality and substitute their own.




Heroes in the Night


Book Description

The Watchman didn't arrive in a Batmobile but drove a tan, four-door Pontiac. He was in costume, of course—a trench coat, motorcycle gloves, army boots, a domino mask, and a red hooded sweatshirt emblazoned with a W logo. Journalist Tea Krulos had spoken to him over the phone but never face-to-mask. By the end of the interview, he wasn't sure if the Watchman was delightfully eccentric or completely crazy. But he was going to find out. Heroes in the Night traces Krulos's journey into the strange subculture of Real Life Superheroes, random citizens who have adopted comic book&–style personas and hit the streets to fight injustice. Some concentrate on humanitarian or activist missions—helping the homeless, gathering donations for food banks, or delivering toys to children—while others actively patrol their neighborhoods looking for crime to fight. By day, these modern Clark Kents work as dishwashers, pencil pushers, and executives in Fortune 500 companies. But by night, only the Shadow knows. Well, the Shadow and Tea Krulos. Through historical research, extensive interviews, and many long hours walking patrol in Brooklyn, Seattle, San Diego, Minneapolis, and Vancouver, British Columbia, Krulos discovered what being a RLSH is all about. He shares not only their shining, triumphant moments but some of their ill-advised, terrifying disasters as well. It's all part of the life of a superhero. As the Watchman explains, &“If everyone made little changes in what they did, gave a little more to charity, watched out for their neighbors, we wouldn't have the problems that we have.&”




The Knowledge


Book Description

How would you go about rebuilding a technological society from scratch? If our technological society collapsed tomorrow what would be the one book you would want to press into the hands of the postapocalyptic survivors? What crucial knowledge would they need to survive in the immediate aftermath and to rebuild civilization as quickly as possible? Human knowledge is collective, distributed across the population. It has built on itself for centuries, becoming vast and increasingly specialized. Most of us are ignorant about the fundamental principles of the civilization that supports us, happily utilizing the latest—or even the most basic—technology without having the slightest idea of why it works or how it came to be. If you had to go back to absolute basics, like some sort of postcataclysmic Robinson Crusoe, would you know how to re-create an internal combustion engine, put together a microscope, get metals out of rock, or even how to produce food for yourself? Lewis Dartnell proposes that the key to preserving civilization in an apocalyptic scenario is to provide a quickstart guide, adapted to cataclysmic circumstances. The Knowledge describes many of the modern technologies we employ, but first it explains the fundamentals upon which they are built. Every piece of technology rests on an enormous support network of other technologies, all interlinked and mutually dependent. You can’t hope to build a radio, for example, without understanding how to acquire the raw materials it requires, as well as generate the electricity needed to run it. But Dartnell doesn’t just provide specific information for starting over; he also reveals the greatest invention of them all—the phenomenal knowledge-generating machine that is the scientific method itself. The Knowledge is a brilliantly original guide to the fundamentals of science and how it built our modern world.




The Official Underground 2012 Doomsday Survival Handbook


Book Description

The End is Nigh! Nuclear holocaust, supervolcano, asteroid impact, mega tsunami, alien invasion, zombie outbreak? Will the world end with a whimper or a bang? W.H. Mumfrey covers it all. From doomsday predictions that have occurred throughout history, to how the Mayans might have really figured it out, to analysis of movies that offer tips on how to survive a variety of scenarios, he leaves no stone unturned. However the end arrives, Mumfrey prepares you for what to expect after the apocalypse. He provides valuable pointers on how to survive a litany of doomsday scenarios—and how to rebuild the earth if you're one of the survivors. Essential topics include foraging for food, looting 101, barricades and fortifications for beginners, dealing with cannibals, mutant identification, post-apocalyptic fashions, renovating your subterranean hideout, decoys and booby-traps for dummies, dating after doomsday and more. So as you stockpile your bottles of water, dig out your bunker, and finesse your plan for a brand new government, keep this book in hand. You won't be sorry.




A Pound of Flesh


Book Description

When the Omega virus antiserum is destroyed along with its creator and his assistant, Delta Force Captain Cade Grayson begins to formulate a plan that will send him hurtling on a collision course with the parties responsible for the terrorist attack.