With the apocalypse looming...

by J.R. Wagner

 I had another dream about the end of the world the other night. I thought it would be ironic to share it today since, according to the Mayans, the end of the world is coming tomorrow.  Unlike my last apocalyptic dream, which included a nuclear holocaust, this dream was all about water. Lots of water.

-thank you very much, Al Gore!

Al Gore, Mr. Global Warming

Tower Crane

 I was standing on the top part of a tower crane, the rest of which extended down into the deep blue abyss, up to my knees in water.  There was water everywhere so I'm assuming there was a major flood of some sort.  Anyway, my family was there and I was attempting to rescue them when the sharks came (the water wasn't enough, there had to be sharks).  I remember dipping my head into the water and looking at the shark and saying, "It's okay, it isn't a great white shark!" (because there aren't other man-eating sharks in the ocean)

Shark!

Not long after flailing around in the water as the sharks continued to circle us, I woke up.

I went on my run later that morning and about two miles in, about six Chinook-looking helicopters flew overhead.  I became slightly paranoid and my pace quickened.

Never a good sign

As I continued something else out of the ordinary happened. An unusual sound pierced the otherwise typically quiet area.  Fire engine sirens -lots of them.  I understand that the odds of seeing military helicopters in flight where I live aren't great because it is a rather quiet area.  Now, add in the blaring of several fire engine sirens and I became even more paranoid.

Here is the strange part (as if this all isn't strange) the siren's didn't stop.  Usually, when I do hear them at all, they blare for a minute or two and are gone.  This day, they continued for the duration of my run -a good 45 minutes. When I got home, I was expecting to find my house a smoldering pile of rubble surrounded by zombies but fortunately, this wasn't the case.





It turns out I managed to discover what was up with the fire engine nonsense. 

yep, blame it on the big guy

The 10 Worst blog posts

by J.R. Wagner

The year is nearly through and everyone is coming up with lists so, in the spirit of end-of-year lists, I have created my own.

Because I enjoy giving myself a hard time just as much as anyone else, I've decided to list my ten worst blog posts.  The only factor in determining their order is the number of page views. Here we go!

10: On Book Reviews

• Apparently my diatribe about the unimportance of book reviews when it comes to deciding which book one should read did not go over well -that is, only 33 people decided to click on the link (no idea if any of them actually read the post). I honestly thought I would have ruffled more feathers with that one but...statistics speak louder than words. 

 10: Speaking Engagement

• (yes a tie) With such a captivating title, I can't imagine why only 33 people bothered to view the post.  Really it was simply an announcement of a place I would be speaking and therefore should grab the interest of only a local audience...but still, what a crappy title!

9: Desire for the Apocalypse: a Psychological Analysis

• Granted this was simply an announcement stating that a series of posts would be forthcoming but still...it is a cool topic! Apparently only 32 people agreed.

8: Happy Birthday to...me

• Nothing like a morale booster when only 32 readers bother to even click on my birthday post. And in my defense, it was pretty GD funny.  Sheesh.

7: My first book review EVER -Legend by Marie Lu

• I find it hard to believe that only 31 people cared enough to check out my first review -EVER! Or simply the fact that so few people cared to find out more about Marie Lu's new book.  Sure, the review was short (but you wouldn't know until you actually looked at it) and I supposed throwing out the fact that I am an inexperienced book reviewer in the title probably isn't the wisest marketing tool. 

6: What are you entitled to?

•  I'd at least be curious about what I'm entitled to...me and 26 other folks.  Apparently everyone else on the planet already knows what they're entitled to.

5: Time to Celebrate!

• Only 25 people were in a partying mood on that day, it seems.  Who wouldn't want to celebrate?  I don't get it. Everybody loves a party! 

4: How to cope with Death...in writing

• Who doesn't want to read about death? Everyone loves death? If you're a writer, you probably write about death all the time! So why only 25 people found the energy to press the little button on their mouse while hovering over that title escapes me completely.

Now we are down in the dregs of the bottom three.

3: Front Row Lit Exiled and the value of a good publicist

•  I understand the title is confusing. I get it...BUT if you're a writer, a wanna be writer or somewhere in between, wouldn't you be slightly curious about what value a good publicist can provide?  Well, only 22 of you thought it was worth the energy expenditure to find out.

2: Mr. Lee

• I truly wish more people would have set eyes on this true story (only 17 did).  Heart warming. Inspiring. Motivating. Grounding.  The world needs more men like Mr Lee!

1: Book 2 Updates

• Okay...thousands of people have purchased my first book, which must mean at least SOME of you have read it.  I'm asked all the time about book 2. Here I have posted something addressing just that topic and ONLY 16 PEOPLE thought it was worth their time to see what was new with book 2.  Logical? No.

And there you have it. My first end of year list. Hopefully I won't run off and fall into an irrecoverable state of depression.

Desire for the apocalypse part 3

By J. R. Wagner

The apocalypse in literature.

As far as I'm concerned, the apocalypse made its way into mainstream literature via the writing of one man.

That man is, of course, Mr. Stephen King. If you're a King fan, you've read The Stand. An amazing creation about the post-apocalyptic world once the super-flu has wiped out the majority of the population.

He's written other post-apocalyptic novels.  The Dark Tower Series is set in a post-apocalyptic world. It starts with The Gunslinger and culminates in book seven The Dark Tower (although he recently released an eight book relating to the series called The Wind Through The Keyhole, which I haven't read yet. The Dark Tower (or characters from the series) even shows up in a few of King's short story collections.

King recently delved into the pre-apocalypse world with Cell, one of my favorite King novels where the world falls apart right before the main character's eyes in a beautifully written, less cumbersome than The Stand, action filled zombie-esque journey of Graphic artist Clay Riddell who was in the heart of Boston on that brilliant autumn afternoon when hell was unleashed before his eyes. (thank you Amazon).

After The Stand was published in 1978, the market was flooded with apocalyptic novels of all kinds.

I've stumbled upon several top 10 greatest Apocalyptic novels of all times lists.
Here is one
Here is another

I've read several on these lists.  One, Z for Zachariah, I haven't though of for years and could very well be the catalyst of my obsession for the apocalypse.

Ann Burden is sixteen years old and completely alone. The world as she once knew it is gone, ravaged by a nuclear war that has taken everyone from her. For the past year, she has lived in a remote valley with no evidence of any other survivors.

But the smoke from a distant campfire shatters Ann's solitude. Someone else is still alive and making his way toward the valley. Who is this man? What does he want? Can he be trusted? Both excited and terrified, Ann soon realizes there may be worse things than being the last person on Earth.

Another (since turned into a major motion picture) I am Legend, is very, very good.

 The others, many of which overlap from list to list, are being added to my Goodreads To-read list as we speak.

• Alas, Babylon
• The Wild Shore
• Eternity Road

• The Postman (I've never seen the Kevin Costner film based on this book and have a feeling I don't want to ...at least until I read it)

• A Canticle for Leibowitz
• Earth Abides
• On The Beach
• Lucifer's Hammer

• World War Z
• Blindness
• The Road
• Swan Song

Many of these were published before The Stand however in my small world, The Stand is king.

Some modern titles that may be more familiar...

• The Hunger Games

• The Maze Runner
• The Knife of Never Letting Go

And if you're looking to take the religious apocalypse route you can always try Left Behind

Desire for an apocalypse: a psychological analysis Part 2

Part 2 -is it all in your mind?

Is there something diagnostically wrong with the people who wish for mass death and destruction in the form of an apocalyptic event? Is there something misfiring inside the neuron-filled superhighway that comprises their brain?

The word, apocalypticism (yup, there's a word for it) is defined (by my buddies at Dictionary.com) as any doctrine concerning the end of the temporal world, especially one based on the supposed prophetic passages in the Revelation of St. John the Divine.

So people have been secretly wishing for the end of times since...dare I say, the dawn of time (we're a morbid race, us humans, aren't we?). 


PBS even has a pictorial chronology of the 'Apocalyptic Worldview' a phrase coined by Lorenzo DiTommaso, a professor of religion at Concordia University in Montreal.

In the article from Psychology Today: Why the World Will End in 2012 by Howard Bloom, Bloom references a 60 year old experiment cited in his book, The Lucifer Principle. The experiment (described below) hints at the genetic need to thrive (and therefore wipe out your competition). Essentially, humans have a subconscious and primal need to destroy the competition so they can spread their own genes and thrive. 

"In the late 1940's, the German researcher F. Steiniger put fifteen brown rats who had never met each other into a cage. At first the creatures cowered in the corners, frightened and apprehensive. If they accidentally bumped into each other, they bared their teeth and snapped. Gradually, however, it dawned on some of the males that among this batch of strangers were attractive young females. The gentleman rodents became budding Don Juans and went a courting.

The first male and female to win each others' hearts now had something all the others lacked an ally. The pair took full advantage of the situation: they terrorized their cagemates. At first, the lovers simply chased their fellow rodents away from food, sending them scurrying to the safety of the far end of the enclosure. Later, the romantic duo hunted down their neighbors one by one. The female was a particularly quick killer. She would sneak up on a victim as it was quietly chewing a bit of chow, spring with a sudden speed, and bite the unfortunate in the side of the neck, often opening a wound in the carotid artery. Some of the attacked died of infection. Others, mauled and worn down by frantic efforts to escape, succumbed to exhaustion. When the happy couple had finished, they were the only survivors.

The rats had cleared the new territory of competitors, transforming the cage into a spacious land of milk and honey for themselves. A new promised land. Now, they could found a tribe that might if left to its own devices thrive for generations to come. A tribe that would carry the parental line of genes."

Unfortunately, Bloom concludes with what appears to be a politically motivated series of questions rather than speculating on the the possible demise of humanity as we know it.  I guess when you're publishing in Psychology Today, you aren't given the liberty of causing mass hysteria.

Fortunately, I'm bound by no such constraints.

So is apocalypticism some type of neurological disorder or simply a manifestation of the desire to spread our genes while destroying the competition?

Desire for an apocalypse: a psychological analysis Part I

Part I

That's right, I said desire.  There are many, many people (mostly male) who have an innate desire for some world altering event that will ravage the population and leave them, in most cases, alone to battle the remnants of whatever caused this apocalypse or find other survivors and begin again.

The apocalypse,  the end of the world, the rapture -whatever you call it, the words bear the same meaning. Some event that violently and tragically alters the existence of humanity.

With December, 2012 right around the corner, what better time to delve into a topic that has captured the imaginations of readers, writers, filmmakers and fans for centuries.

There are loads of websites dedicated to the nonsensical notion that the world will end on December 21st of this year.  I've decided to delve into this subject from a more entertainment providing perspective so fear not, fun will be had by all!

Before the analysis of the mind that wishes for the end, lets take a look at some popular scenarios.

1. Meteor

2. Nuclear holocaust

3. The Rapture

4. A super-virus

5. Zombies

6. I'll throw in a geological disaster for S&G's

7. World War III

Desire for the apocalypse: a psychological analysis

Desire for the apocalypse: a psychological analysis

a series

-interviews
-analysis
-scenarios
-good ole fashion fun

coming soon!

If you'd like to be interviewed, please contact me!

josh@TheNeverChronicles.com