Matthew Rasnake's Blog

My wife says I'm a "Book Dragon"—one who collects books just to have them, not necessarily to read them. To a certain extent, she has a point... my TBRs currently line multiple shelves on multiple bookcases. My Calibre library has over fifteen-hundred ebooks & digital comics of some stripe, of which I've read maybe a tenth. My Audiobookshelf has over two-hundred titles, with only thirty-three remaining unread, mostly because I can only squeeze reading time in while doing something else that requ...

TL;DR "Artificial Intelligence" is here (sort of), so what is it good for? Turns out, it's good for book cover design, editorial assistance, and quirky Christmas gifts. Hopefully not the harbinger of a creative and environmental apocalypse as some fear, but a potentially useful tool in the writer's utility belt, requiring a thoughtful, conscientious approach. Also, something about washing machine part badger art?

There has been, as I'm sure you're aware, a tremendous explosion in recent...

Inheritance of Dust is now available for purchase here and everywhere you buy books!

Four years ago, Our Once Warm Earth introduced you to a rag-tag group of survivors on an imperiled Earth, and today Inheritance of Dust brings you the story of the Pendrova family and their fledgling Martian colony as Earth's tragedy impacts and shapes their future.

For me, this is the next big milestone for this project that I've wo...

Our Once Warm Earth is now available for purchase here and everywhere you buy books!

As excited as I am, I have to admit that yesterday was a little crazy. I thought I would post a quick little "one day left" pre-release post on my sorely neglected Facebook page, and it kind of snowballed. I hadn't anticipated the level of interest (or the number of orders), so I'm both humbled and excited to say that I've already had t...

Last week I introduced a giveaway for those who have "liked" my Facebook Author Page. Before I announce the results of the randomized selection, I'd like once again to say thank you to everyone who has supported and encouraged my work as an author, especially my patrons.

Writing can be difficult, lonely work, and it is wonderfully gratifying to be able to share it with you all. I appreciate each and every one of you.

With the end of the Second World War, we turned a corner that left the world much more complicated than it had been only a few years prior. The atom bomb was a very real, very frightening weapon of which the United States did not long remain the exclusive master.

In the new and escalating post-atomic world, there was a very real possibility that governments and populations could be decimated in a single exchange. In the ’50s, as the fear of nuclear war became ingrained in the public consciousness, underground bunkers filled with supplies were created as part of an American civil defense program.

At the same time, with the government coming to grips with the genie they’d released, continuity of government facilities sprang up to protect and preserve the republic in the event of a nuclear apocalypse. Facilities like The Greenbrier Hotel, Cheyenne Mountain Complex, Raven Rock, and Mount Weather (among others) were meant to provide safe, well-supplied, and well-connected places to which government staff and officials could retreat and keep the engines running.

From places like those, it’s only a small leap to imagine the existence of other, more or less extensive facilities meant to preserve not just the government, but life itself.

Already, places like the Global Seed Vault, the National Laboratory for Genetic Resources Preservation, and other regional seed banks exist to ensure the products of Earthly evolution (and human manipulation) aren’t lost forever should our worst fears ever be realized.

Next thing you know, we’ll be sequencing, preserving, and storing human DNA, or perhaps even elevating modern human “seed” storage (sperm/egg banks and the like) to the “doomsday vault” level.

Then, for the ultimate backup solution, you can just bring it all together—along with the entirety of human knowledge—and launch it to the Moon or Mars, or into a 1,000-year orbit, resulting in an ark through which Earthly life could weather almost any storm.

But, you’re thinking, maybe just preserving life isn’t enough. What good is an ark that contains the seeds of all life on Earth, if no one is left to plant them?

Given the existence of those secret (and not-so-secret) underground government and civilian bunkers, it’s hardly a stretch to think that our politicians and the world’s filthiest, richie-richiest people might have bunkers of their own for preserving themselves and several dozen of their closest friends and family members.

With so many ways to die, if humanity is to survive the next 980 years, maybe these will be the ways. Maybe Svalbard will be our salvation. Maybe it will be a Silicon Valley billionaire. Maybe the last Earthly life won’t be on Earth at all. Maybe the last vestige of humanity will consist of inbred, radiation mutated homunculi subsisting on cockroaches and mutant rats.

What do you think the future holds? How do you plan to ride out the apocalypse? What’s your favorite recipe for mutant rat? Let me know in the comments below, get your mutated heinie over to Facebook and leave a comment there, or join me on Patreon where you could have read this a day early!

The post All about the bunkers, man. appeared first on MatthewRasnake.com.

For me and my family it's Christmas, and I wanted to take a moment on this festive holiday to wish you and yours a happy Hanukkah, a very Merry Christmas, and a most excellent New Year!

Wow, what a month November was, right? Somehow I allowed my brain to trick me into attempting NaNoWriMo with the goal of editing Rogue Planet for 50 hours!

I’ve decided to make a go at NaNoWriMo this year, but since my current focus is editing, and a local NaNo’er told me that at least 50hrs of editing counts as a win, that’s what I’m shooting for.

Since I’ve not yet setup an “official” project on the NaNoWriMo site, I’ve thrown together a tracking spreadsheet, which I’ll embed here if you want to check in on my progress periodically. I may yet setup a project, and just track it as 1,000 words/hour of editing. If I do that, I may edit this post and embed the official NaNoWriMo project below as well…

The post NaNoWriMo 2019 appeared first on MatthewRasnake.com.