When 21 December 2012 was nearing on the Mayan calendar, the world exploded into a deluded mix of panic and excitement at the thought of the beginning of the apocalypse. Tweeters were busy mocking the Mayans, MTV created a Mayan Apocalypse playlist and a celebrity couple spent $10 million out of pure anticipation. The signs were clear – the world would have been well and truly screwed when it arrived. Will it be the same again, when or if it hits?
Thanks to the likes of Lewis Dartnell, UK Space Agency research Fellow at the University of Leicester, apparently not. I was half expecting a comical, ‘Fallout’-style adventure that poked fun at the apocalypse genre. Instead, you have yourself, according to Dartnell, ‘the blueprint for a rebooting civilisation – but also a primer for the fundamentals of our own’.
The book is divided into 13 chapters, each discussing key areas that should be taken into consideration if the apocalypse were to hit. From the likes of ‘Transport’, ‘Agriculture’ and ‘The Greatest Invention’, Dartnell takes the pillars of modern society and uses them to found the ultimate survivor’s bible.
Evidently, the apocalypse genre is saturated with entertaining, compelling tales such as ‘The Road’ and ‘The Last of Us’, as of late. Dartnell refuses to delve into this, taking an almost-entirely factual stance on the matter. It’s David Attenborough meets Bear Grylls meets I Am Legend, as the author provides lessons on just about everything.
You’ll learn how to make a fire, how to purify water, how to establish a basic communications network. Where most books arm you with a double-barreled shotgun and a vivid sense of imagination, this strips you back to the basics and builds you up to survive.
The factual nature of Dartnell’s writing style may be boring to those looking for snarling zombies or fire and brimstone, but it does what it sets out to do – inform you of the impending reality of life in a desolate world.
Yet, this book isn’t just to be seen as a survival guide. As stated in its title, it acts as something much more – a microscope on our world. Using a vast amount of research from different time periods, various walks of life and the apocalypse genre itself, it congregates how we have a species have grown and adapted across our time, and how we may continue to do so.
Not only that, it makes you realise that today’s society, in all of its urbanised glory, would be stunted if the apocalypse were to hit. Dartnell, armed with his extensive facts and occasional dry wit, picks the digital age apart and leaves you feeling vulnerable. Would my £500 iPhone be more use than a log fire? How can we even begin to survive in the absence of technology, the basic foundation of an entire generation? This message is hammered home in its finale, as the last line states that ‘the key to rebuilding civilisation may well be within this book’. Heavy.
Forget The Walking Dead Season Four finale, folks, this is what you’ll need to survive the apocalypse!