5.29.2007

5 Movies and 5 Books

Okay, Jim Rawles had another good one posted over the weekend. List your five favorite SHTF books and movies. Here's mine:

Books
  • "Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse" by James Wesley, Rawles. Very good book outlining survival preparedeness and retreat/group dynamic survival.
  • "Alas, Babylon" My dad flipped when he saw me reading this. Apparently, this was required reading in high school in the sixties. A great read about life during WWIII in Florida. Focus is on a small town and its inhabitants surviving while surrounded by nuclear fallout. Sound like a t.v. show recently cancelled?
  • "The Earth Abides" College guy on camp out is bit by rattlesnake about the same time a mysterious virus kills off the Earth's population. Details his survival and attempt to rebuild society. A bit too philosophic for my tastes, but still remains an interesting point of view.
  • "Enemies" Trilogy by Matthew Bracken. Someone mentioned on Survivalblog that this was more about political survival than SHTF survival. The series gives a bunch of useful information about living in today's society and in what may soon become our future society.
  • "The Lord of the Flies" Only the strong survive in this tale of some marooned prep school boys. Nothing but raw savagery.

Movies:

  • "Red Dawn" Great flick that represented our fears in the 80's, invasion by the Commies. I never did grasp the nature of this film until I was much older. I wonder how that movie would play out in the Texas Gulf Coast?
  • "28 Days Later" Remember to shoot all zombies in the head.
  • "Castaway" I know, it's a Tom Hanks 'Gimme my Oscar' flick. Still, if you're stuck on a deserted island with a VHS tape, ice skates and a volleyball, you'll know what to do if you see this flick.
  • "Reign of Fire" Matthew 'L-I-V-I-N' McConaughey stars in this dragon fighting flick. I dunno, I just picked it out because of the apparent coolness/apocalyptic factor.
  • "Dances With Wolves" Frontier living is all about survival no matter which way you slice it.

3 comments:

AlanDP said...

Did you ever read any of that "Out of the Ashes" series by William Johnstone? I guess those are the only SHTF books I've ever read. I have Alas, Babylon on a shelf, but I've never read it.

shooter said...

I've not read it, but I have heard of it. One of those that is on the list of must reads. I was pleasantly surprised by Alas, Babylon. That deserves a repeat read every now and again. I did forget to mention Lucifer's Hammer, also. I've since scrapped my copy, but that was a delightful book.

Matt G said...

Haw! I was just about to suggest Lucifer's Hammer. Also fun in Pournell and Niven's other world-wide-catastrophe novel, Footfall.

I picked up Alas, Babylon! a coupla years ago, thinking that it was just cheesey '60s pulp. (I think it was written in 1957.) It basically was, but it was pretty good, too. Yes, it's dated by the social views on whites and blacks, but then again, So. Florida hasn't changed that much, either.