Today is the birthday of the author of the classic “Atlas Shrugged” – Ayn Rand. (Not her real name, btw.)

She’s one of those figures that has no middle ground. Either you like her or you loathe her. I’m more of the former than the latter. “Atlas Shrugged” changed a lot of the way I think about things…especially money. “Francisco’s Money Speech” is one of my favorite passages in the book. It is shortened but well played in this clip:

This abbreviated version of the speech plays nicely but doesn’t deliver the full ideas. That can be found here.

Especially apropos of late:

“Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men’s protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, ‘Account overdrawn.’

Wanting to make sure I was reading things the way she intended, I also read almost everything else she’d ever written..The Virtue of Selfishness, Anthem, We The Living, etc, etc. I even read her collected letters. (But I never could make it through The Fountainhead.) Fallible human? Absolutely. But even people with personal failings can still come up with interesting ideas and philosophies.

Anyway, I read “Atlas Shrugged” about thirty years ago and I still revisit it from time to time. I may not necessarily agree with all of it, but I agree with far more of it than I disagree with. And, no doubt, it has colored much of my attitudes on money, relationships, liberty, and government….for better or worse.

Its odd, but when I think about it, I’d say the two most influential books in my life have been “Atlas Shrugged” and “Starship Troopers”. There’s a pair to draw to, huh?

I had to re-arrange things in my computer room, or what we used to call a ‘home office’, the other day. One thing I did was consolidate a couple bookshelves onto one shelf. What sort of dead-tree reading material does the Zero keep around?

Among other things, the collected works of Ayn Rand, my autographed collection of ,Rawles’ books, Gun Jesus’ books, a fairly decent amount of medical and gardening texts, a buncha gun boffin books, some American history,  and some fiction that segues nicely into my interests.

And, yeah, there’s thundertoys laying around all over the place.

A goodly amount of those books could probably be disposed of. Once I read something, I’ve got a pretty good head for remembering most of it. The fiction I should probably unload somewhere and make some space, but I’ll always keep reference books, tutorials, and ‘how to’s. Interestingly, a large portion of these texts are available from various sources as .pdf’s….Tappan’s stuff, for example…but I’m a bit of a dinosaur in that I like the experience of a book…the tangibles, the smell, etc. And, yes, I know that a book makes more sense in the post-apocalyptic world than a .pdf.

As Groucho Marx famously said, Outside of a Dog, a Book is Man’s Best Friend. Inside of a Dog, It’s Too Dark to Read.

One of my favorite Heinlein books is ‘Friday’. It usually gets short shrift  from a certain quarter because of a gang rape scene in which the titular female character is raped and tortured but ‘deals with it’ and minimizes it’s impact on her. She is a trained assassin and soldier, and she simply compartmentalizes it as a normal risk of the trade, commenting on how it’s a rather unprofessional behavior by the other side. Its in Chapter Two, in case youre curious, and it doesn’t warrant throwing out the rest of the book.

Anyway…in the book, Friday is given the task of, basically, data mining to try and pinpoint when and where the calamitous event that will throw mankind into the dark ages will occur. As she reviews all her data sources, there is this:

“What are the marks of a sick culture? It is a bad sign when the people of a country stop identifying themselves with the country and start identifying with a group. A racial group. Or a religion. Or a language. Anything, as long as it isn’t the whole population. A very bad sign. Particularism. It was once considered a Spanish vice but any country can fall sick with it. Dominance of males over females seems to be one of the symptoms. Before a revolution can take place, the population must lose faith in both the police and the courts. High taxation is important and so is inflation of the currency and the ratio of the productive to those on the public payroll. But that’s old hat; everybody knows that a country is on the skids when its income and outgo get out of balance and stay that way – even though there are always endless attempts to wish it way by legislation. But I started looking for little signs and what some call silly-season symptoms. I want to mention one of the obvious symptoms: Violence. Muggings. Sniping. Arson. Bombing. Terrorism of any sort.”

Post-apocalyptic fiction is usually, by definition, after the apocalypse. Its a niggling point, but if your science fiction is about the apocalypse, then, really, it’s intra-apocalypse* fiction.

But, in the case of the book WarDay, it is most definitely post-apocalyptic fiction.

The book has been out of print for a while but I enjoyed it when i was younger and when a used copy turned up on Amazon for a few bucks I grabbed it.

WarDay is about two reporters who decide to ‘see America’ after a nuclear exchange five years earlier. They travel cross country, interviewing people and chronicling their experiences. The book came out in 1984 and was predicated around the then-plausible idea of a somewhat limited nuclear exchange with the Soviets.

If you’ve read Max Brook’s ‘World War Z’ book, the format will be very familiar….journalists interview various people and let them tell their stories of how they survived the one-day war.

This book shows some of the tropes that we’ve come to see in post-apocalyptic fiction that has been printed since then. Things like a Mexican reconquista of the southwest, foreign troops providing ‘aid’ that turns out to be more of an occupation, submarines cutoff from contact thinking the war is still going on, survivors in cities eating each other, etc, etc.

In addition to these narratives, WarDay also tries to cover a bit of the .gov’s experience as well. There are copies of reports, directives, orders, and other bureaucratic paper to show how the government eventually tries to get back to normal with forced relocations, rationing, martial law, etc.

Having come out in 1984, some of the book is dated…reporters using tape recorders, for example…but the descriptions of starvation, radiation poisoning, oppression, etc, are pretty timeless.

Because the book is written as a ‘documentary’, don’t expect the usual townies-vs-cannibal-army that is a staple of this sort of genre. But if you want a  more thoughtful read that seems quite rooted in reality, this is a good choice.

Is there anything to be ‘learned’ from it? Probably not. It’s most redeeming quality, from a survivalists standpoint, is that it’s portrayal of how the average person fared in a nuclear aftermath might make you think twice about not stocking up on more of everything.

I think it’s a good read, and definitely a ‘thinking mans’ sort of book….light on gunplay and Ahern-esqe ubermensch, the realistic scenarios, responses, and consequences make this a story that seems quite plausible.

If you can nail down a used copy for a few bucks, I think you’ll find it a worthwhile read. Just remember the time it was written.

* = Pre-apocalypse fiction would be before the apocalypse, post-apocalypse fiction is after the apocalypse. Whats the prefix for during the apocalypse? In-apocalyptic fiction? Intra-apocalypse? Peri-apocalypse? Mid-apocalypse? I’m going with intra-.

It was brought to my attention that L. Neil Smith, author, has passed away. What you need to know about him was that he was never “L Neil Smith, the author” he was almost always “L. Neil Smith, the libertarian author”. He wrote books that enshrined, sometimes almost to reductio ad absurdum levels, libertarian ideals about liberty and personal freedom. His most notable book probably was “The Probability Broach” but my favorite was “Pallas“.

I don’t get maudlin or misty-eyed over the death of an author, but I do get a bit sad over the death of a like-minded individual. If he really believed the principles and ideas about the things he wrote, the he was my kinda guy and the world could stand to have a few more people like that in it.

Also worth pointing out that this last year also saw the death of Dean Ing…another author whose work resonated with me.

Tough time to be an author with libertarian and survivalist tendencies.

I have little interest in Chinese mystery handguns, but I will buy whatever book Gun Jesus puts out there because I think his work at Forgotten Weapons should be supported whenever possible. I already have a copy of his French rifle book, and the British bullpup book arrived last week. Excellent books even though they aren’t my particular field of interest. However, as I mentioned, Ian does noble work and is deserving, I think, of support.

A month or so back a generous reader sent me a book off Amazon. Specifically: here

I’ll tell you right off the bat, if you’re a fan of action-packed post-apocalyptic fiction that’s pretty much one gun battle after another with no real attention to character motivation and development….you’re not gonna like this book at all. And, admittedly, the style of writing can be very detracting with it’s first-person stream-of-consciousness style. But…if you get past that, its a good story (in my opinion). Succinctly, it’s about a guy who survives a kills-99%-of-everyone plague and is living quietly at an abandoned airport, flying his plane, fishing with his dog, and dealing with the tremendous grief and loneliness that comes from all the loss he has experienced. Eventually the opportunity arises to not be alone anymore but the risks are high..emotionally and physically. A lot of people will say this isn’t a very enjoyable read because all it talks about it feelings, loss, pain, hope, and questioning. Fair enough…but thats going to be part of living through an apocalypse as well.

It was a difficult read, what with its sometimes-disjointed style, but it was relatable in terms of the character’s sense of grief, loss, and ennui. Its an interesting take about an aspect of post-apocalypse fiction that I have seldom seen explored in this much detail.

Anyway, I’d like to thank the generous person who sent me the book and if you have any other recommendations, please share them.

And, as long as we’re on the subject of gifties… if you’ve found this blog entertaining or otherwise worthy of your time, I invite you to kick in towards it… everything received goes towards bandwidth and laying the foundation for a post-apocalyptic empire that will provide a safe refuge for morally-challenged-but-creatively-fun coeds.

Today, Tuesday, is ‘book bomb’ day for ,Rawles’ new book….”The Ultimate Prepper’s Survival Guide”

If you’ve been thinking about getting a copy, today is the day to do it. I was fortunate enough to get an advance copy several weeks back but I’ll probably pick up an extra copy as a gift for someone. A timely Christmahanukwanzakah (or Festivus) gift for the not-quite-yet-an-LMI on your list.

Not sure if its” the ultimate preppers survival guide”  or “the ultimate preppers survival guide”. What if I’m not the ultimate prepper but just a really good one?