# Recommend a "realistic" post-apocalyptic story without magic, cyborgs or zombies! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 15, 2010, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238 "2010-06-15T01:57:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 160
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2010, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238/160 "2010-08-24T23:02:50Z")
> [@lee](#): > > A _World Made by Hand_ which was recommended above, does meet your criteria, but be warned: it sucks. The author’s motivation seems to be a strong desire to return to the 19th century, where women did as they were told and let men do the deciding and speaking in public. The setting was small town Eastern US after nukes took out Washington DC and LA and most of the country just disintegrates into a mass of race riots and the rest has to learn again how to live without electricity and goods from far away. The main character seems to be his projection of himself, and so this comes of as at best masturbatory. > > I can’t imagine that given the place and time there are no pairs of lesbians already trying to live by hand with handmade menstrual pads etc., raising their own live stock and making cheese etc are not doing ok and making themselves heard at the town meeting. Not in this world, no. The only ones who do well are wise, strong men and the women they choose to protect. > > And can someone explain to me why the electricity would come and go at random, as if there is some ass at a switch turning it off and on as he pleases? The book _does_ have some elements that might be called “magical,” though not nearly as much as some other things I’ve seen mentioned here. Kunstler really only describes how things are in one small area. The whole rest of the world is unknown, aside from scraps of rumor. The electricity is part of that picture. Of course there are various things that _might_ be happening to cause it–but nobody knows. The systems of the outside world can no longer be relied upon, that’s the point. So _within_ the realm of Kunstler’s town, Union Grove, is it so unrealistic that things fell out thus, with women mainly staying close to home? I’d have to count it shocking if large numbers _didn’t_ adopt such a pattern in the circumstances. I noticed some talk in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=575417) from women who suggested that being a woman men chose to protect might be relevant to their well-being. > [@How useful would you be in a survival situation? (poll)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-useful-would-you-be-in-a-survival-situation-poll/551054/55): > > …and I have good child bearin’ hips. Pretty sure that’ll be enough to ensure my survival… right? > [@How useful would you be in a survival situation? (poll)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-useful-would-you-be-in-a-survival-situation-poll/551054/66): > > I think roving bands of rapists/pillagers would be distressingly common, and unless I had the good luck to fall in with a band of men who had weapons and would use them in my defense, I’d be raped and/or kidnapped a lot. Nobody is saying that’s a good thing, it just might be the practical reality for some. In any event, I didn’t understand Kunstler to mean that society was operating on the same terms _everywhere_. Indeed, some episodes in the book suggest that it is emphatically different (often worse) in other places. But mostly it’s just unknown. Probably the self-sufficient lesbians are out there somewhere, along with any other scenario you care to imagine. But for the most part, the description of the behavior of the people of Union Grove (which we understand to have been a fairly homogenous place _before_) strikes me as a reasonable guess at how _some_ people will get by. The book is probably best understood in conjunction with Kunstler’s non-fiction treatment of similar themes, such as [_The Long Emergency_](http://www.amazon.com/Long-Emergency-Converging-Catastrophes-Twenty-First/dp/0871138883). Some of the circumstances he describes in _World Made by Hand_ represent guesses, not the aspirations many readers seem to see. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-realistic-post-apocalyptic-story-without-magic-cyborgs-or-zombies/543238)._