Cover art by Bill McCormick
An anthology of stories by writers from around the world about things going so well you can’t trust them. Then something bad happens.
Ah, there it is: The Fuckening.
My story in The Fuckening is titled, Apoc TV. It’s about a TV station after a nuclear war broadcasting “Good News of the Apocalypse” from their 50,000 watt “Tower of Power” near Anchorage, Alaska. The news seems good, at first, but it ain’t.
My lady and I had one of those days last week. After a fine breakfast we sat awhile on our lania overlooking the golf course on a sunny morning. Then we went inside to check our email.
Our xFinity cable service was down. So, we used our phones’ wi-fi hotspots to get on the ‘Net and to watch Fire TV. On my Internet radio, half of my preselected stations were out. Then our T-Mobile phone service went out. No email, no phones, no TV, no radio. Fine. I decided to play an xBox video game. Why not? But the xBox network was down. That left me cut off from the world, alone with my own thoughts.
What if the Internet itself came down? What if it never came back? The Writers Co-op would cease to exist. So would Sci-Fi Lampoon magazine. There would be no more self-published books and no one could buy the eleventy-million already published on the ‘Net. Friends whom I meet only online would vanish like bubbles. Life would come down to me and the people and the things physically near to me.
That’s the world I grew up in. In my hometown, for the most part, we knew only the locals, only used things that were made there, and only ate food grown nearby.
Not sure how the world-wide network that supplies us with all of our goods and services would fare, but probably not well. It is the Internet that connects us and without it, all the bits and pieces of commerce would fall to rest. Eight billion people would suddenly live in a world where the food at hand was not enough. At least, until there were a few billion less people. The world’s population when I was in high school was around two and a half billion.
We are at least vaguely aware that the Internet is vulnerable and vital. Our government certainly knows that. The same man who is the Commander of U.S. Cyber Command is also the Director of the National Security Agency and Chief of the Central Security Service and a four-star general in the United States Army. Paul M. Nakasone knows the fuckening is closer than we think.
But relax. Grab your copy of The Fuckening anthology right here and now:
https://www.lulu.com/shop/g-d-deckard-and-geoff-habiger-and-margret-treiber-and-art-lasky/the-fckening/paperback/product-rydzr7.html
All of the stories are, I assure you, fiction. So, take your mind off the worries of real life.
Everything is going well.
WRITERS CO-OP: A WRITER COMMUNITY FOR YOU. 