Tag Archives: Post-Apocalyptic

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: New Things I’ve Tried Recently

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

I usually try new things more often during the warm months of the year when it’s easier to travel and there are fewer germs floating around that my household needs to avoid, but I have tried some cool stuff this winter. (No, this isn’t an ad. I don’t do paid or sponsored posts of any sort. These are simply things I’ve tried recently and liked).

Duolingo Math.

Logo for the Duolingo app. The logo consists of the word “Duolingo” written in a plain, bright green font against a white background. There is nothing else to be seen in this image. I was an average math student in school, but I didn’t find it particularly interesting or relevant to my life most of the time. It seemed like something that a few students were naturally good at while the rest of us slogged through it.

When this was released at the end of December, it piqued my interest. Maybe I’d have a different opinion on this subject now that there are no quizzes, exams, or grades to worry about?

Well, it turns out that I’m really enjoying it so far. Turning math into a game makes it practical, fun, and low pressure.

The lessons run the gamut from easy to challenging. There is a section for elementary students as well as a different one for older kids or adults who want to improve their mental math skills, so this is one of those free games that truly does have something for everyone.

 

Station Eleven Novel and Miniseries

Book cover for “Station Eleven” by Emily St. John Mandel. Image on the cover shows four tents that have been erected outside in a field. It is night outside and the cloudless sky is glowing with stars. Each tent has a bright light inside of it as well. The tents are surrounded by a waist-high fence that appears to be made out of hay bales piled on top of each other. I’d heard so many good things about ”Station Eleven” by Emily St. John Mandel, so I finally started watching it this winter.

It follows several of the same characters at different points in their lives as they encounter a deadly form of the flu that kills most of humanity and then about 20-30 years later to see how the survivors have fared.

If you’re comfortable reading about fictional pandemics, this is such an interesting look at how quickly the definition of normal can change. The people who were born after that pandemic had unique and sometimes humorous takes on what life must have been like back when unbelievable luxuries like airplanes, dentists, air conditioning, and the Internet still existed.

Unlike many books in this genre, this one is filled with characters who are kind and decent folks (with rare exceptions). They’re traumatized in the beginning, of course, but the storyline mostly focuses on them doing good things like adopting orphans, preserving as much of the past as they can, and simply surviving in a world where you must grow, knit, build, or scrounge around for everything you need.

I liked the hopeful approach this took to a genre that often assumes the worst about humanity.

The miniseries has been good so far as well. There were some major changes made to certain portions of it in order to help the storyline flow better on screen, but it remains true to the themes and characters of the book. Honestly, that’s exactly what any adaptation ought to do. I don’t need every single line of dialogue to remain identical so long as it still feels like the original.

 

Myths Come to Life: A Review of Ambush Predators

Ambush Predators - a Post-Apocalyptic Urban Fantasy Short Story by Marina Ermakova book cover. Image on cover shows large reptilian eye superimposed on tree branches against a night sky. Title: Ambush Predators – a Post-Apocalyptic Urban Fantasy Short Story

Author: Marina Ermakova 

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: September 30, 2020

Genres: Science Fiction 

Length: 18 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author. 

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

Mythical carnivores that prey on humans…and the researchers who study them.

New graduate student Jordan begins her first field expedition to study Italy’s legendary animals, under the supervision of her mentor Gabriela. But being on the frontlines of discovery with these mysterious, dangerous animals comes with risks. Will Jordan learn to survive the local Roman monsters? Or will she join the countless others who’ve lost their lives to this unexplained legendary infestation? 

This short story is set in the world of Terrestrial Magic.

Review:

Content warning: snakes. I will be not discussing them in my review.

Would you risk your life to uncover the truth behind ancient myths? 

Jordan was intelligent, but she also struck me as someone who was pretty young and naive. The juxtaposition between her academic knowledge and what appeared to be limited practical experience in the field made her a fascinating narrator for this tale. She only seemed to know a little more about her assignment than the reader did, and there were plenty of things she found just as surprising as I did while I was following alongside her on her expedition. 

I know this story is part of a series and definitely wouldn’t expect all of my questions about this world to be answered in it. With that being said, I would have liked to see more conflict resolution in the final third of it. The beginning and middle were filled with exciting scenes that were never quite wrapped up by the last sentence. This abrupt ending actually reduced my interest in reading more because I wasn’t sure if this was something that would continue happening in all of the instalments of the series, and I’m not a big fan of cliffhangers. 

The world building was handled well. I learned exactly the right amount of information about Dr. Sanchez’s work and how Jordan was assisting her in learning more about these unusual creatures. They basically only had ancient myths and a few spotty reports from locals to go on when it came to understanding the physiology, behaviour, and possible weak spots of the animals they were trying to find, and that was assuming all of their sources were actually accurate. It was interesting to see them try to piece all of these things together. 

Anyone who loves mythology might enjoy Ambush Predators.

Safe and Sound: A Review of I Am Mother

Film poster for I Am Mother. Image on poster shows a robot holding a baby. In the background are the faces of the main characters. Content warning: death of a pet and blood. I will not be discussing these things in my review.

I Am Mother is a 2019 Australian science fiction thriller about a human girl who was raised by a robot that was designed to repopulate the Earth after some sort of extinction event.

The characters in this tale don’t have conventional names like you or I do. Instead, the human child is called Daughter and the robot who raised her is called Mother.

While Daughter is well cared for, her isolation not only from other people but from anything outside of their isolation bunker is absolute.

Mother insists it isn’t safe out there, and her word is law.

Characters

Clara Rugaard as Daughter
Clara Rugaard as Daughter

Daughter was an intelligent and thoughtful young woman. She’d previously been obedient of Mother’s wishes, but her curiosity about what life was like outside of the UNU-HWK_Repopulation Facility and dissatisfation with what her mother told her about it was growing stronger by the way.

 

Luke Hawker as Mother (performance)
Luke Hawker as Mother (performance) Rose Byrne as Mother (voice)

 

Mother the robot who had raised Daughter and who was making preparations for the next human infant she’d take responsibility for. She was strict and protective of her daughter. While Daughter’s health and happiness was important to her, she refused to compromise on any of the rules she’d come up with on how best to raise a human child in a post-apocalyptic environment.

Hilary Swank as Woman
Hilary Swank as Woman

 

Woman was the injured, dying stranger who stumbled upon the bunker one day. She’d lived a life filled with fear and danger. Every move she made was calculated to give her the highest probability of surviving just one more day.

My Review

Just like with Annihilation, my biggest reason for wanting to watch this film had to do with the fact that all of the main characters in it were women. All of the science fiction films I grew up watching were male dominated. Some of them were comprised of nothing but dudes. Others might have as many as one female hero for every three, four, or five male heroes.

I’m elated to see this changing, and I’ll continue to highlight science fiction films that change those old norms as I find them.

You may have noticed that the cast for “I Am Mother” is pretty small. No, I didn’t leave anyone out to avoid sharing spoilers. This tale was so tightly woven around the fates of the three main characters that they seemed like the perfect number of players for the plot.

Mother, Daughter, and Woman were three complex individuals whose goals sometimes clashed sharply. Finding a solution to their conflicts that satisfied all three of them would be a herculean task at best because of how differently they all measured success and how much friction existed between what everyone wanted.

No, I can’t go into more details about that without giving you spoilers. It is definitely something that’s worth exploring for yourself, though. I’m the sort of viewer who picks one character – not necessarily the hero, mind you – and spends the entire film hoping she will succeed. In this case, my loyalties shifted from one scene to the next.

Daughter and Mother having a discussion.
Daughter and Mother having a discussion.

One of my strengths as a viewer is that I always want more information about the science in science fiction, so there were a few things about Daughter’s upbringing that I wish had been addressed with a bit more detail. For example, how was Mother planning to keep her immune system strong when the girl had never been exposed to any outside germs? Were there vaccines for every possible virus and bacteria in this world? How did Daughter get sufficient vitamin D when she’d never been outside and ate what appeared to be a somewhat monotonous diet?

These weren’t exactly criticisms, though, because I came to easily accept other parts of her existence that were spaced even further away from our current scientific understanding of human biology and growth patterns. I strongly suspect that wondering about how this stuff actually worked, alongside many other questions this story brings up, is something the filmmakers did on purpose for their audience.

Some questions become more interesting if you’re not spoon-fed answers to them, especially since the mystery elements of the plot were so simple to put together in my experience. There were plenty of clues about what was really happening with Mother and Daughter for anyone who pays attention to what they’re watching and thinks critically about it.

I figured out the mystery pretty early on. What was compelling about it was seeing how Daughter reacted to the clues she also had access to and what happened when she realized that the information she already had wasn’t fitting together the way it should.

Something was missing.

I’ll leave it up to my readers to discover what that something was. What I will say is that this is a film I’d happily watch again. It was simply that well written and thought provoking.

I Am Mother is available on Netflix.

Vintage Science Fiction Month: Second Variety by Philip K. Dick

Vintage Science Fiction Blog Challenge badge. It shows a rocket ship against a red background. There is a bubble city in the background. Vintage Science Fiction month takes place every January, and has a few guidelines:

 – read, watch, listen to, or experience something science fiction / fantasy that was created in 1979 or earlier

 – talk about it online sometime in January

 – have fun

If any of my readers are also interested in participating this month, let Little Red Reviewer know about your posts if you’d like them to be included in her official roundups. 

Today I’m going to be blogging about “Second Variety,” a science fiction novelette by Philip K. Dick about what happened to the Earth and the few remaining humans on it after a nuclear war erupted between the Soviet Union and the United Nations.  This tale was originally published in 1953, but many of the themes in it still feel fresh nearly 70 years later.

Click here to read “Second Variety” for free. Everything after this sentence and in the tags of this post contains spoilers for this story, so reader beware! 

Second Variety by Philip K. Dick book cover. Image on cover is of a stylized, human-shaped flame holding the Earth. The first thing that grabbed my imagination when I was reading this tale had to do with the destruction of the natural environment. There was so much devastation everywhere the characters looked.

It briefly reminded me of the massive forest fires currently burning in Australia. Just like in our world, the lion’s share of the suffering was shouldered by innocent living beings – human and otherwise – that were never given a choice in the matter. It was utterly unfair.

While this is a story about war, it’s not a war story. The biggest battles have long-since happened by the time we meet the main characters, and the addition of a new enemy has already thrown both sides off-kilter. The exhaustion of fighting an enemy that never needs to sleep or fulfill other human needs also added a new twist to this post-apocalyptic world.

There were actually times when I felt a little sorry for the robots. Yes, they were attacking humans…but they weren’t the ones responsible for causing such severe environmental damage that Europe and vast swaths of North America were no longer able to grow any food at all. They were just following the orders they’d been given by their creators.

With that being said, I still loved the plot twists involving the robots and what they were capable of doing. They technically weren’t alive, but they sure acted like it. Not only did they repair themselves when broken, they paid close attention to what was left of human culture and looked for any weaknesses they could find and take advantage of. That’s not something I’d normally expect from a robot!

As someone who has read a ton of post-apocalyptic and robotic science fiction, I figured out where this story would probably end up pretty early on. That isn’t a criticism of the piece, though. It wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of other authors were influenced by Mr. Dick’s writing style kind of like modern authors have written things that echo the Harry Potter series or various Margaret Atwood novels.

This repetition and evolution of ideas is common in all genres. It will be interesting to see if any of my fellow scifi fans had the same reaction to this story, especially where the ending is concerned.

Surviving the Apocalypse: A Review of Patient Zero

Patient Zero Post Apocalyptic Short Stories book cover. There is a biohazard sign on the cover as well.Title: Patient Zero: Post-Apocalyptic Short Stories (Project Renova #0.5)

Author: Terry Tyler

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: 2017

Genres: Science Fiction, Post-Apocalyptic

Length: 120 pages

Source: I received a free copy from Terry

Rating: 4 Stars

Blurb:

The year is 2024.
A mysterious virus rages around the UK.
Within days, ‘bat fever’ is out of control.
Patient Zero is a collection of nine short stories featuring characters from the post apocalyptic Project Renova series. All stories are completely ‘stand alone’.

1. Jared: The Spare Vial
Jared has two vaccinations against the deadly virus: one for him, one for a friend…

2. Flora: Princess Snowflake
The girl with the perfect life, who believes in her father, the government, Christian charity and happy endings.

3. Jeff: The Prepper
What does a doomsday ‘prepper’ do when there is nothing left to prepare for?

4. Karen: Atonement
She ruined her sister’s last day on earth, and for this she must do penance.

5. Aaron: #NewWorldProblems
Aaron can’t believe his luck; he appears to be immune. But his problems are far from over.

6. Ruby: Money To Burn
Eager to escape from her drug dealer boyfriend’s lifestyle, Ruby sets off with a bag filled with cash.

7. Meg: The Prison Guard’s Wife
Meg waits for her husband to arrive home from work. And waits…

8. Evie: Patient Zero
Boyfriend Nick neglects her. This Sunday will be the last time she puts up with it. The very last time.

9. Martin: This Life
Life after life has taught the sixty year old journalist to see the bigger picture.

Review

Review:

Content warning: death. This will otherwise be a spoiler-free post.

It’s impossible to get away from an invisible foe that has spread everywhere.

Normally, I pick about three short stories in an anthology and do mini-review for all of them. This time I decided to shake things up since everything in this collection has the same setting. The characters change, but the effects of the Kerivoula Lanosa (bat fever) virus are felt by everyone in this world.

The character development was well done across the board. Each character had a limited amount of time to show the audience who he or she was due to how everything was formatted, so I was impressed by how well I got to know everyone. Their unique personalities shone through no matter how many or how few pages they had to share their experiences. While I can’t say that I’d necessarily want to be buddies with everyone in this universe, I did want to learn more about all of them. They were all genuinely interesting folks, and that’s something I always love discovering in a book.

While I didn’t expect to have every question of mine answered neatly, especially since I haven’t read the rest of this series yet, I would have liked to see a little more attention paid to the final story. Martin: This Life had a tone that was nothing like anything else I’d read earlier. It also introduced a plot twist that had not been so much as hinted at in any of the other stories. In fact, it seemed to change the genre classification entirely. I was intrigued by this surprise, but I also wish it had been explained a little better.

With that being said, I still enjoyed this collection and would recommend it to new and longterm fans of Ms. Tyler’s work alike. It left me with so many questions about what happened next in this universe that I can’t wait to read everything else about these characters and the plague they tried to survive.

This anthology is part of the Project Renova series, but it can be read as a standalone work.

Choosing to Survive: A Review of Powdered Souls

Title: Powdered Souls, A Short Story: They Decided to Survive (Snow Sub Series Book 1) Author: Dixon Reuel Publisher: Self-Published Publication Date: 2019 Genres: Science Fiction, Post-Apocalyptic, Romance Length: 22 pages Source: I received a free copy from Dixon Rating: 3 Stars Blurb: People together in close quarters – fraternization naturally follows. A military VR trainer,… Read More

Hopeful Science Fiction: Astraea

Last June I blogged about my desire to read more hopeful science fiction. Since then I’ve talked about Woman on the Edge of Time, The Lovely Bones and Semiosis. Today I’m back with another recommendation for hopeful sci-fi, and this time it’s a film!  If you have recommendations for future instalments of this series, I’d sure like to… Read More

Don’t Make a Sound: A Review of A Quiet Place

Earlier this year, I blogged about my to-watch list of science fiction and fantasy films. Since then, I’ve been periodically reviewing certain films that I enjoyed and thought you all might like, too. Previous instalments in this series include Into the Forest, Annihilation, Coco, Winchester, and The Little Stranger. Content warning: death of a dog and… Read More

It’s More Than Just Survival: A Review of Into the Forest

A few weeks ago, I blogged about the never-ending list of films I’d like to see someday. Into the Forest was the first movie from that list I’ve watched since then, and I liked it so much that I decided to review it today.  This story does include a rape scene that I will be discussing… Read More