That thread on “The Day After” reminded me of this. Yes, I have read it (both versions) and I’ve been asked more than once which place I would rather go to if anything like this ever happened.
My reply is “Neither. I would want to be one of the first people to die, to the point where my name was mentioned in the book.”
Anyone else?
Even after losing just about everybody I know I don’t think I’d want to die. So I’ll go with Boulder as Colorado is lovely and Vegas is in the middle of a goddamn desert.
Have you read the end of the book? Makes the choice pretty easy.
Having lived in and around Boulder for 10+ years, I’ll go with Vegas, even though it’s the seat of the Devil and ends up
getting blown up.
I couldn’t manage Boulder again, ever.
(Spoiler in case the one person in the world who hasn’t read the book shows up.)
Boulder, no question.
While generally I think I would get along better with the techie types in Vegas than the hippie communists in Boulder, I think I’d have to go with Boulder anyway, because a) not evil, and b) spoiler mentioned above.
Even without the ending, one has all of the prosocial people who are going to work to build a community for the benefit of all, the other one has all of the antisocials, criminals, psychopaths and assholes. No contest.
Neither.
I’d fall in with any of the living folks from my town (even with a 99.4% mortality rate, that’s still several hundred people) and I’d split for the south. Deep enough to stay warm in the winter, but north enough to avoid hurricanes.
As nice as Boulder is, with electricity and everything I would be one of the early deaths as an insulin dependent diabetic, and with seriously malignant hypertension and a heartbeat irregularity that takes medication to keep under control. I would probably wait until all my meds from all of the drugstores I could scavenge were gone and then eat a gun.
That guy with the large family who jogged himself to death? That’d be a male version of what I’d probably do. I’d just break on the inside. However, if I had some common sense and a survival instinct intact, I’d go to Boulder.
Boulder. You’d have more freedom there - they’d always be up your ass about something in Vegas, and what good is the apocalypse if you can’t have any freedom?
There aren’t any hippies or communists in Boulder anymore. Too expensive. They’re all in Nederland, about 20 miles west and 2000 feet up.
Boulder is full of techies these days.
I was living in Boulder at the time I read the book. I thought it was hilarious that all of the good people ended up in Boulder.
Being as I’m a reasonably good person, I’d of course go to Boulder.
Boulder. Vegas just sounds too stressful.
Besides, would you rather hang with Stu and Nick and Frannie or Lloyd Henreid and the Trashcan Man?
I was talking about the book.
OK, so I have not read the book and thus thought this was a trick question.
I live in Las Vegas and Boulder City, NEVADA is just a short drive away. I see now you meant Boulder, Colorado.
The problem people have when thinking about Las Vegas is they almost always think ONLY of The Strip.
Las Vegas has great neighborhoods with normal shops and restaurants and businesses, and the vast majority of locals rarely, if ever, go to The Strip. That is for tourists - or a place you take visitors who simply insist on going there.
This.
Tolkien.
Actually, while Vegas did have its antisocial, criminal, psychopath, asshole element, and that includes the authority structure, they were also kept on a tight leash by Flagg. Step out of line, become a liability, disturb the order, and you’re up on a cross before the sun is down. And at the end, at ‘The Stand’, there were even Vegas residents who were protesting Flagg’s excesses.
Oh yeah, Boulder.