Collapsed World: Recovery

by John Nobit

John Robertson is a geographer who works for Valdez Petroleum in Texas. An announcement during the Super Bowl will change the world a virus is killing billions of people. After two weeks, the virus reaches Texas, and John lives as all his friends expire around him. Grief overwhelms him, and he allows himself to be caught in a fire that burns half his body. John survives and heals with an unnatural speed from his injuries. Later John finds himself drafted into the Texas Military Forces (TMF). Even as authorities struggle to reestablish order, a broader concern emerges. Can humanity retain a sufficient industrial capacity to avoid slipping back into a new Dark Age? As the director of the TMF GPS program, he organizes intelligence and makes maps to support recovery. Nine years after the collapse people from across the planet gather in Switzerland for a convention. John's novel ideas catch the attention of the convention organizers. They support him as he forms a bold independent group. John’s group, the Institute for Security and Justice or ISJ, serves as a bridge between the lawlessness of the Collapse and the order that follows.
The ISJ helps many small communities fend off thugs and rogue elements. Additionally, John’s diplomatic efforts prove fruitful, helping with the establishment of two of the major regional states, Colorado and Carolina. Two decades after the collapse stability emerges across most of the continent. During this period, two major rivals on opposite sides of North America appear that challenge John’s vision for the future. Three decades after the last Super Bowl the drumbeats of war begin to ramp up. The ISJ sits squarely in the no man’s land between the two greatest powers of the period. In an instant, the unthinkable happens, a nuclear attack on the ISJ headquarters. John and some of his staff survive because their facility’s underground location protects them. He retreats into a bitter exile. Here he learns that humanity secured enough knowledge to avoid an ultimate collapse.

304 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 28, 2016

About the author

for a teacher at a small university in the southern United States.