Letter Re: Lessons About Survival From Fiction

Hello,
I’ve been reading and enjoying SurvivalBlog for about one month now. First of all, thank you for the time and effort you put into this great resource!
I enjoy reading fiction and especially science-fiction, so a few of the references listed there were familiar. Many aren’t and have no chance of being available at the local library, here in France. However, most of those I did recognise were about dramatic SHTF scenarios, while you and many others have emphasised the likeliness of a “Slow Decline” situation.

Two novels that I have read describe precisely this kind of lifestyle: they are “Parable of the Sower ” from Octavia E. Butler, and to a lesser extend its sequel, “Parable of the Talents.” The first one focuses on many interesting themes such as: Neighbourhood small walled communities, unexpected food-gathering sources from local resources, getting friends to maintain a BOB, OPSEC while a refugee, high-priced utility services, corruption and ineffectiveness of public services, and so on. The second one could be a fine example of religious persecution (no matter what the religion in question is, even if the protagonists here have their own beliefs!), importance of keeping “useless” legal records, slow economy recovery, remote location farming, OPSEC and selling on local markets, etc.

A few examples come to mind:
– The community where the main character grew up attracts burglary after one of the neighbours decides to sell some of his rabbit meat outside the community.
– A large chain of high-priced stores sells everything you may need, literally beans, bullets, and Band-Aids, in facilities with stringent security measures in and around. Anyone who can lay out the cash can access, shop, and retreat in a large radius in peace.
– The farm has “reinforced natural fences” with many thorny bushes and extensive razor wire, but these are easily overcome once a well-armed and decided group takes over with fire and trucks. (A reader recently send an entry recommending bushes as a security measure, it obviously wouldn’t stand up to determined assailants. Fuel for trucks might not be available, but the Romans invented the Turtle formation thousands of years ago, and medieval castles were taken over with little more technology.)
– Acorn bread is a staple in the community, yet if it hadn’t been for one smart character with a book about local plants eaten by the natives, the oak trees would have been cut for wood and gardening.
– The protagonists try to get used and dirty items for BOB and travel bags, even using a pillowcase, to avoid attracting attention from on-road looters.
– despite the dire situation compared to ours, people don’t see and refuse to think about SHTF. They grow resentful about the person trying to get them prepared, and she can only try to get them to thing about “earthquake preparation kits.”

I was expecting this to be a small note, but it nearly turned into its own novel. – Frenchy

JWR Replies: Thanks for your comments. Your English is excellent. There can indeed be some useful information woven into fiction. It is noteworthy that there are a lot of people who refuse to read nonfiction survival manuals, but who eagerly read fiction, or that will at least watch a movie on DVD. That is one of the reasons why I wrote my novel “Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse”. I recommend that you look for an original French edition of the novel Malevil, by Robert Merle. Malevil is a post-nuke science fiction novel that sold well in both French and English editions. OBTW, in addition to the book and movie recommendations at The SurvivalBlog Bookshelf page, please refer to this blog post from October, 2009: Poll Results: SurvivalBlog Reader’s Favorite Survivalist Fiction.