S2 E6 – Scorpion

Outro S2 E6 – Scorpion

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11/10/2021

Hello survivors.

Here we are, Episode 6 of the 2nd season of After the Apocalypse a Pandemic Survival Story.

And we have our friend Bill back in play, so you can stop with the angry messages. But, we’re not out of the woods yet. We left you with a cliff-hanger! Or more like a grassy-knoll hanger.

https://flashfictionmagazine.com/blog/2021/09/26/writing-tip-23-never-kill-the-dog/

Learned a couple things this week.

First, and I already knew this, but it was hammered home by some comments on our Facebook page, is that when you’re reading or listening you create a picture in your head from what the author is telling you. That is the magic of reading or listening. That’s the advantage of reading or listening over TV or movies.

You get to create your own visuals.

As the author, I have to be sure that I’m giving just the right amount of detail to put you in the scene with the characters, but also, at the same time, being mindful to not be too prescriptive, so that you can build your own construct.

In a sense, you and I are working together to build the picture in your head. Sometimes I give you a lot of leeway to see it the way you want to see it, and sometimes I narrow that down when it becomes important that we all see the same thing.

We’ve been kicking around cover design graphics on the Facebook group and there are some very strong opinions on exactly what the characters look like. Especially Bill the dog.

And that is perfectly ok. My job is to paint. After it leaves my hand it’s in yours to fill in the details and render it the way that makes you happy.

Anyhow – that was a long and tiresome way of saying “everyone pictures what the dog looks like differently”. And “Join the Facebook group” over at https://www.facebook.com/groups/oldmanapocalypse

To join in on these rollicking conversations.

The second thing I learned this week is that I have no insights into how a street-smart girl from the Atlanta projects would talk. I’ve spent a lot of time in Atlanta, but apparently, I never listened.

Anyone know a street-smart kid from Atlanta I can talk to?

I did finally finish Stranger in a Strange Land, by Heinlein. The construct is good and interesting. Let’s take a human that has no knowledge of Earth or humanity and drop him back into Earth society and see what he thinks of it.

It’s a book of it’s time. It parodies the government, the church and all the social mores of the time. I suppose it would have been shocking to some of that time with its thinly veiled editorials. That was the emerging promise of the golden age of sci-fi, that you could play with these concepts safely in a sci-fi concept.

Like I said before I read the full, 600-page original manuscript, not the edited original published version. That was probably a mistake. I could have lived without 200 pages of character dialogue justifying why guilt free group sex was a gift to humanity. Not that I have anything against group sex, but from a 2021 point of reference, it’s not novel, or shocking enough to spend that much ink on.

I’ll mark it off as a foundational read for my ongoing study of the genre and move on.

I’m currently reading “A Canticle for Leibovitz” by Walter Michael Miller Jr. It’s awesome. I’m loving it. Great apocalyptic read.

I went to see the New Dune Movie in the movie theatre with my Daughter this past weekend. I liked it. You definitely want to see it in the theatres because the music and visuals are really powerful on the big screen.

I know some people hated it, and some people like it. I had read the original novels in the early 90’s so it was long enough ago that I had forgotten most of the details. This turned out to be a good setup because I remembered stuff as the move progressed but didn’t have preset expectations to ruin it for me.

So my friends, thank you for listening. You can help the show by recommending it to a friend or 2 or 4, and rating and reviewing always helps. I picked up a few new listeners recently because Audible is apparently recommending us to its audio book listeners who like apocalypse stories.

Thank you to new Patreon supporter Mark for your kind donation to keep the lights on over here at Apocalypse central.

As we speak we’re approaching 10,000 downloads a month – so again thank you.

Speak to you again in 2 weeks.

And keep surviving.