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Went to Powell's City of Books in Portland while traveling this weekend and purchased a copy of my comfort book, Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank- the same edition I had in high school that somehow got lost in all the moves of the last few years. Very excited to have it back in my life. If anyone ever wants to talk about this book with me or have someone to read it with, I am always down.
Have you read Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank (1959)?
yes
no
I didn't finish it
I've never heard of it
I wonder if anyone has ever done a serious analysis on the evolution and escalation of bandit gangs in post-apocalyptic fiction. The points on the line I can think of are
Alas Babylon set in the months after a nuclear exchange featuring a handful of stranded travelers who turned to banditry because they lacked the community support structure of the townsfolk.
The Mad Max series which is set immediately before to a few decades after a nuclear exchange and seems to have permanently merged the concept of apocalyptic raiders and evil biker gangs in pop culture.
Fallout 4, set centuries after the bombs fell and every settlement is a handful of Ordinary People under constant threat from an endless horde of sadistic murderers. (And no the rest of the series isn't immune to this, not even the Interplay ones, but 4 is the worst offender.)
I imagine there's some really interesting offshoots and permutations in between that I just don't know about.
My first & forever island, Repose, is named after Fort Repose, the setting of one of my favorite books, "Alas, Babylon," by Pat Frank.
Alt #3, Mortimer's residence and surrounding land (will post separately) contain as many references to the book as I could cram in: the library, a very, very important place. There's even a storage area where the Civil Defense documents are stashed. Not shown: (except for the sign) the doctor's office. The upper floor represents the majority of the residents of the main house (minus a couple of people), plus the secret attic that yields many badly-needed treasures. Half of the basement is for the librarian and her friend, who live nearby. In the kitchen, I was able to include tons of references: salt, oranges/orange juice, crabs, giant soup pot, fish... Finally, the back room, which is where the "actor" playing the librarian hangs out. I'm looking forward to sharing the exterior shots!!
cracked open my recently acquired copy of Alas Babylon bc i vaguely remembered something fruity about the fanciest man in the smallest town and the smallest town’s doctor and found some student notes??? which high school is fucking assigning Alas Babylon???
forgot the reason i liked this book is that it is a long exercise in deriving homesteading and self-sufficiency from first principles(the derivation is interesting, i am not a fan of long/term self-sufficiency movements) and there isn’t really enough character work to make something out of “the fancy young man gives the divorced doctor his own bedroom bc the doctor is extremely tall and that’s the only bed he’ll fit in” which is a terribly charming detail that is never mentioned again
1.27.18 57/100
if you can’t tell i’m obsessed with my dodie merch. today was a rough day that mostly consisted of intense reading (i needed a brain break). hopefully i will be really productive tomorrow!
tunes: the ear biscuits podcast!
I love you. I worry about you. I wonder whether I tell you enough how I love you and want you and need you and how I am diminished when you are not with me and how I am multiplied when you are here.
Alas, Babylon, Pat Frank
Every time I read Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank I remember that the inception of post-apocalyptic fiction wasn't dark. The book came out in 1959 and is set the same year. It was one of the early ones.
Its about a small town in Florida in 1959, with all the racial and religious and political stuff that comes with that. And its about how all that plays out after a nuclear attack on the USA leaves them cut off from the outside world.
And it's one of the most hopeful pieces of fiction I've read. Parts of it are dark. Named characters die. Lots and lots and lots of unnamed characters die. But the underlying theme of the book is that people come together in times of hardship, so long as that hardship is impacting everyone. And the people who don't come together, who try to "lone wolf" it? They don't make it.
And, as someone who has thought about and known their niche in the potential post-apocalypse since they were 14 with this book assigned to them in language arts class, that's a really comforting message that I think also happens to be true. Humans are social creatures. We survived so long because we were so social. And I think, should the worst happen, we would survive that way again.
