Guest Post: “It’s the End of the World -- Bring Charmin” by Gail Z. Martin

In the post-apocalyptic TV show “Revolution,” one of the characters, a former Google executive, says, “80 million dollars in the bank and I would trade it all right now for a roll of Charmin.” Of all the things that society has lost, at that moment, he misses commercially-produced toilet paper. It’s the little things that count.

I write the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga, a post-apocalyptic medieval epic fantasy series, for Orbit Books. In Ice Forged, the first book in the series, my characters have to come to terms with what they’ve lost, both big and small. Oddly enough, sometimes it’s the small things that matter the most.

Epic fantasy usually deals with the sweeping repercussions of events and decisions — the wars, assassinations, dynastic conflicts and economic collapses that change the balance of power. Certainly anything worthy of being called an apocalypse affects the superstructure of society: government, commerce, economics, and technology. Add in plague and natural disaster and a nation, continent or kingdom loses a significant portion of its workforce, its intellectual capital, its history and its physical infrastructure. Those losses are guaranteed to change what daily life is like for the survivors, and to make just getting by much more difficult.

Books that Fell Through the Cracks (Late Acquisitions)

Given my peripatetic existence over the last couple of years, there have been a number of address changes. These have resulted in a number of books getting sent to old and/or obsolete addresses. I’m currently visiting one of these old addresses, and have finally managed to get my hands on the following books (below) – so, apologies to publishers for not saying thank you, and hopefully I’ll be able to get to some of these soon (two in particular are very high on my TBR mountain, now).

Received: Julianna Baggott’s Fuse, Susan Ee’s Angelfall, Hugh Howey’s Shift, Stephen Kiernan’s The Curiosity, Stephen King’s The Wind Through the Keyhole, Gail Z. Martin’s Ice Forged, Frank P. Ryan’s The Snowmelt River

Guest Post: “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (Again)” by Gail Z. Martin

Gail Z. Martin is the author of some great, dark fantasy novels. Most recently, Ice Forged, the start of a new series: The Ascendant Kings Saga. Ice Forged is framed around a great premise, and I hope to read and review it very soon. To celebrate the launch of this new series, here is a guest blog from Gail…

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“It’s the End of the World as We Know It (Again)” by Gail Z. Martin

What is it about an impending apocalypse that captures the imagination?

Having just survived the “Mayan Calendar” apocalypse, the idea is pretty fresh in everyone’s mind. Thanks to the Internet, warnings of immanent doom seem to crop up fairly often, so much so that most of us roll our eyes, mutter “another one” and go about our daily business.

Until the time it turns out to be true.