Monday 4 April 2016

Reviewing - Exploring Amazon

So you want to be a top reviewer on Amazon?

If you want to improve your writing, gain motivation and experience, and see your name on the Web, reviewing on Amazon is not a bad option, but only in the short term. Long term, you need to decide what you hope to gain from the exercise and set yourself clear goals to make best use of your time and energy.
I set myself the target, in September 2004, of breaking in to the UK Amazon Top 10 reviewers by Christmas Day, 2005. I got to No.11, and stopped. Below, I offer my caveats on reviewing, my ideas on what constitutes a 'good' review, and some scurrilous advice on the manipulation of the system if you hope to reach the top ranks.

Beware the Prose & Cons:

  • Reviewing is often recommended as a 'break-in' strategy for anyone wanting to write professionally - writing courses advise you to approach a local newspaper, a magazine you read, or a website and offer to write reviews. You won't get paid but it gives you a sense of achievement, and possibly a by-line.
  • Reviewing on Amazon is independent of an editor: it's vanity publishing - you write it, Amazon publishes it. It's no measure of your prose skill or of your acuity in dissecting a book, film, musical performance, etc. You can write boring drivel, it will be published, and you end up conning yourself that your writing is sharp and is improving. Reviewing should encourage you to cultivate your self-critical skills.
  • Begin by adopting a positive, professional attitude. Discipline yourself to write regularly. Check your spelling, your grammar, your facts. Doing that will teach you the basic professional habits of setting targets, meeting deadlines, completing work, and delivering a professionally presented product. In turn, that will enhance your self-confidence and self-discipline, vital skills for any writer.
  • Set yourself a target - a review a day, a review a week … it'll vary depending on your interests and commitments. It takes a lot less time to listen to a pop record than it does to read (and review) the latest translation of Cervantes. Decide on a realistic goal, one which enables you to explore your interests, exercise your knowledge and tastes, and gives you a chance to gain in understanding. You want to learn from your reviewing! As your knowledge of a particular genre expands, you can write with more authority and confidence.
  • Specialise - review folk music, horror films, literary fiction, psychology texts. Write about what you know and like: that doesn't mean that you only review violin concertos or travel books - cultivate a broad range of interests. Use your reviewing as a learning curve! Research the genre before you try to break in to reviewing it … understand what works in it, and you improve your own fiction writing as well as your own reviewing skills.
  • The real pro of reviewing on Amazon is the opportunity to develop self-confidence and self-discipline and to focus on understanding and analysing your subject. Your review should be a critical analysis - not just a list of chapter headings, a brief outline of the story, or a simple statement that "I think this is great". Use it to explore and craft your writing skills. One liners are an opinion, not a review. And ask yourself, before you award the habitual five stars, "Is this as good a horror movie as 'Psycho', as good a novel as 'To Kill a Mockingbird', as good an album as 'Sergeant Pepper'?" Obviously, those are my 5-star yardsticks - you'll have your own. Think before you award 5, don't be afraid to award 1, or 2 for below average, 3 for average.

So, what are the cons?

  • Writing reviews is time consuming. If you enjoy it, it's time well spent. But, there are opportunity costs - you could spend that time doing something else. Don't use reviewing as an excuse to postpone other tasks … like writing that novel! Reviewing on Amazon can become compulsive - you can find yourself caught in a cycle of massaging your ego rather than doing something productive. Set goals - write reviews for one year, write until your next birthday. Use the experience to fuel your writing skills, don't con yourself and become a slave to reviewing. You need to move on.
  • Breaking in to the top 100, top 50, or top 10 will not prove that you're a good writer, only that you're a driven and organised one. Reviewing for Amazon is vanity publishing - you get published not because of the quality of your writing but simply because you have bothered; you get into the top rankings not because you are a good writer, but because you have written in bulk. There are some good reviewers in the top 100, but many are there because of quantity, not quality.
  • Set yourself a time limit and an escape route. Once you've established the routine and discipline of writing regularly, as measured by publishing say 100 or 200 reviews, translate your efforts into breaking out and finding other publishing outlets … writing short stories, writing magazine or newspaper articles. Set yourself a self-fulfilling objective rather than locking yourself into an ego-prison. Don't become a slave to vanity, become a master of your own writing future.

So, what is a 'Review'?

  • A review is something more than an opinion. You'll find comments on Amazon along the lines of "I really liked this", or "this sucks". Well, I appreciate the democratic nature of opinion, but simply saying you did or did not like a book is not a review. It's an opinion. One sentence is not a review … unless you can do a "Ulysses". I don't care if you got it for Christmas or it was a present from Auntie Flo, I'm reading the review to see if I might be interested in buying this book or DVD and I couldn't give a toss about the presents you get (unless she's also my Auntie Flo and it gives me an idea how much she might care to spend on me next time).
  • A review can summarise what happens in the book, film or CD. Tell your reader something about it - without spoiling any surprises or giving away the ending … "it was obvious the butler did it". You can say the outcome was predictable, that this weakened the suspense, but don't give the game away.
  • Put the work in context. Comment on the themes the film director employs, point out that the book is hard science fiction, tell the reader that while the artiste normally records Country & Western this is a rock album. If it's non-fiction - does it make an insightful new contribution to the subject?
  • Consider style and themes. I've catholic tastes, but I don't like everything. There are crime writers I love, there are others who leave me in a catatonic state. Here you can give an opinion. Did it work for you? If not, why not? What are its strengths and weaknesses? What is there to enjoy about it? Your opinion should be a critical one - explain why you had negative or positive feelings (and, I'll labour the point, a review is an opinion, an opinion is not necessarily a review).
  • Your objective in writing a competent, professional review is to inform. People read Amazon reviews for advice - your review can help people explore, discover new pleasures, broaden their reading, knowledge, or understanding. If someone is going to spend £30 on a cookbook, tell them if it offers value for money, tell them whether it covers the sorts of recipes or cooking styles they'll like. Your role is to inform, not to sell the book to someone who won't appreciate it. Be honest, don't be a slave to 5 stars.

Strategies for Climbing into the Top 100 … or worse:

Now, I set myself a target over a year. I did start writing turgid little two or three sentence reviews just to get the numbers up, but eventually developed a wee bit of professionalism and started writing more critical, more thoughtful reviews of what I was reading, watching, hearing. And I quickly realised there were strategies for climbing the ladder!
  • If you want to use Amazon as a vehicle to gain writing experience and credibility, then set yourself clear objectives. Write regularly. Consider specialising - maybe DVD's, maybe mystery fiction, maybe medical textbooks. Pick a subject area and theme which interests you and about which you have some knowledge.
  • Write regularly. Get disciplined. Develop an authority, a confidence … maybe even an arrogance about your task. But don't get too arrogant or carried away - as I point out above, it's vanity publishing. Don't simply massage your ego, hone your professional skills and be prepared to test them beyond Amazon.
  • Look at the tactics of reviewing. You move up the Amazon rankings by getting positive votes. You could review classic works - people will visit your review for years to come and you get a steady flow of votes (I reviewed a dozen different publications of individual Shakespeare plays, giving a critical opinion of which text was best for students, etc.). Or review the latest blockbuster release - you could get a couple of hundred votes in a couple of weeks.
  • If your review is the top one, it will be the first one everyone sees, it may be the only one people look at, the only one on which they'll offer a vote. However, no matter how good or how popular your review, it can suddenly disappear off the front page. I've had reviews which attracted well over a hundred votes suddenly disappear off screen, to be replaced by a review which has had only one positive vote. Your well-researched, considered, professional review can be relegated to obscurity by a "gee, this is real good" comment.
  • Offer a 'professional' review. Check your spelling and your grammar before you submit (and yes, I'll admit to a couple of typos appearing in some of my reviews). Do a bit of research. What is the background to this film? What themes does its director regularly explore? How do you interpret what you see on the screen? Engage your reader, fish for a positive reward!
  • However, most top reviewers have their own fan club. Some of the top ranking names have a score or more friends or family who systematically give them positive votes every time they publish a new review. Quite possibly, they have a dozen or more ghost accounts of their own, so they can visit each of their reviews and log on a dozen positives every review. It's galling, and it means that, if you want to get into the top ranks, you'll have to enlist the support of half a dozen people to click on the 'Yes' button for you. And, of course, cheat by creating a dozen ghost email accounts of your own.
  • You'll also find that, once you start moving up the rankings, you'll experience a negative voting assault - presumably the guy you've just overtaken, or someone a couple of places above you, organises a negative voting campaign to rubbish your writing and keep ahead of you in the rankings. It's annoying, it's petty, but you have to expect this type of juvenile idiocy. Please, don't indulge in it yourself.
  • If you want to break in to the top ranks, be professional. Your review is not going to please everyone. But the vast majority of readers respect a well-written, well-argued assessment. That, after all, is your task. Your objective may be to gain writing experience, or to promote your own website or whatever, but the best way to achieve this is by writing honestly and professionally - that is why you attract positive votes, and it's positive votes which propel you up the rankings.
  • Expect a number of personal assaults - how dare I be critical of Alan Titchmarsh (I had a variety of comments made about my manhood and paternity)! Having read that there was an orchestrated campaign in the USA to rubbish negative reviews of Joss Whedon's "Firefly", I wrote an honest piece concluding that the series does have its limitations - within a day, I had something like fifty negative votes posted against my review! You'll get virulent attacks from little old ladies and retired bank managers who have never used language like that before! Suck it up. If you want to be a writer, you'll need a thick skin some time. You have to put up with some vile responses at times. That's their problem.
  • Be honest! Offer a solid, well-written review, and aim to inform the reader, not to simply promote some actor, musician, or author you admire. At one stage the top 100 ranked reviewers were sent a large, hardback novel. I took the time to read it. I thought it was boring, I was not impressed, I was generous in awarding it 3 stars (average). Most of the rest of the top 100 gave it gushing 5 star reviews, hailing it as one of the great publishing miracles of the 21st century, etc. The novel sank without trace - can't even remember the name of the author or title. Don't be flattered into a distorted review simply by accepting a freeby. I am open to bribery, but only on the principle that if I'm dishonest enough to take the bribe, I'm treacherous enough to ignore it and offer an honest review.
  • And my pet hate, my real pet hate, is the glut of American reviewers who dominated the top ranks of Amazon UK. I don't mind intelligent reviews from anywhere in the world, but the American ones often tend to concentrate on books, music, and films which are of limited or no interest to a UK audience. They simply dump their US reviews onto Amazon UK. You get American reviews which demonstrate scant knowledge of or respect for British tastes - the reviewer will inform you that Cliff Richard is a well-known singer in Britain, or will voice nudge-nudge outrage at Ronnie Barker reading "Titbits" in an episode of Porridge. You get American reviews which tell you how many dollars an item costs. Or which talk about 'our' country or 'our' president. I get really annoyed by all this. It is extreme vanity publishing. If you're going to review for a British public, have the decency and courtesy to talk to a British audience, not an American one. Sorry, rant over … but it galls me!

Build your Skills

In summary, if you want to become a reviewer on Amazon, get writing. Specialise in some area you enjoy and understand. Write regularly, write often, and be prepared for frustration. Set yourself specific goals in terms of the number of reviews you are prepared to write and what you hope to achieve by doing so. Be honest, be informative, be courageous, be prepared for the oddball response and unwarranted attack on you personally. Be prepared for outrage and fury at the number of American reviews which invade the space. But also be prepared to enter into occasional email conversations with authors and performers who appreciate your efforts, and to receive praise from people who've enjoyed your piece - it's quite a thrill to get positive feedback.
There are some excellent reviews on Amazon, there are some dreadful rants and awful swathes of illiterate, unprofessional garbage. Don't be afraid to give positive votes to other reviews you've read and appreciated - support those reviewers who take the effort to inform and help.
Take all this on board, but set yourself objectives and goals beyond Amazon reviewing, and that's going to depend on your personal interests and writing objectives. Don't neglect your objectives. Writing quality reviews on Amazon can stretch your skills and broaden your understanding of writing. However, writing Amazon reviews can also become habit forming: don't let it become compulsive, don't let it become your sole, exclusive writing outlet ... even if it does encourage you to read more or watch more movies, etc. Put it in context and be prepared to put it aside.

Monday 14 September 2015

Writing the Apocalypse



So why write an online novel? And why pick the subject of apocalypse, of the end of the world as we know it?
Well, the theme of my website is human change. Change and the changing nature of human identity has been one of my consuming interests for as long as I can remember. As a professional writer I work on the basis that the central theme of all stories is change.
A narrative in which nothing happens is not a story. We follow stories (in books, theatre, television, cinema … or even on the Internet) because we want to know what happens next or what the tale is about: will justice prevail? Will 'good' triumph over 'evil'? will the hero triumph? will boy meet girl? will we get a satisfactory explanation of why things have happened, who the characters are, etc.? will the story be resolved? Narratives explore change.
I also trained as a social worker and worked much of my life as a Probation Officer - the unifying theme underlying all forms of social work is the objective of change, the role of the social worker being to help people change their lives or lifestyles, the professional basis being the conviction that change is possible and that people can and do change in the course of their lives.
And, of course, as a human being my life has been one of change, of countless transitions from birth, of new roles adopted and old roles lost, of places and people encountered and reframed as memories. We have fragile identities - change can happen without warning, the unexpected and unanticipated can transform our lives out of all recognition. Life is a process of adaptation, painful or pleasurable, often chaotic or haphazard. It is a central feature of the human condition.  

But why apocalypse?
Well, because it's the ultimate change, the world as we know it swept away and the survivors having to re-establish not only their own lives, but the nature of human life itself.
It's also because I suspect stories about survival are amongst our earliest influences as human beings. The question of how we'd cope if everything was taken away from us is both one of the root fears and one of the most compulsive challenges in human life. We hope for something better, we fear something worse.
The world, as we know it, ends. We are left to our own devices. We quickly learn that we can't play god, but we have to find a way of coping. At worst, we survive. At best, we become masters of our own destinies (and the destiny of others, possibly even the whole of continued human existence). Do we take control, do we take charge … or do we look for someone or something to follow?
What becomes of us as individuals if we no longer have roles and structures, routines and certainties to define us? In the modern world we're wholly dependent on others to supply food, build and maintain our shelters, deliver gas, water and electricity, make our clothes, provide the luxuries and the necessities, exchange cash for goods, buy our labours, sell theirs.
We define ourselves as writers or social workers or fathers or football fans, or any one of the million other social identities and self-images which describe our lives and lifestyles. What would happen if we had to supply everything for ourselves? What happens if our only identity becomes that of 'survivor'?
Does the notion of being left alive after some global apocalypse fuel our fantasies, offering the vicarious freedom to loot and murder, to take what we want, do what we want with no authority to deny us? If it brings out the macho in the male, what does it do to the female?
Or does it invest us with responsibility? We have to take charge of our own lives, take responsibility for the lives of others, discover new responses to cataclysmic change. How do we cope with change when there is no one to show us how, when we are thrown back on our own fragile and limited physical, emotional and intellectual resources?
We're not left with a blank slate. We carry into this emptied world a legacy of knowledges (and of ignorances), of hopes and fears, prejudices and assumptions, truths and lies. We're plunged into that quandary of what do we really know and what have we never had to think about - how many of our taken for granted, 'common sense' truths will crash in flames?
Could you light a fire? Could you bury your dead? Could you grow or catch your own food, make your own clothing, maintain your own shelter, defend your own space, preserve your own identity and sanity and health? Could we relearn the skills of smelting metals, making pots, sowing seeds?
Would you have the confidence to experiment, to learn, to find new solutions? Would you have the confidence to trust others, to share, to cooperate? The learning process becomes one of unpicking ourselves as individuals and reconstructing our knowledges and skills to forge a new being.
As a writer, exploring an end of the world scenario suggests total freedom yet places you under intense pressure - you have to start questioning your own assumptions, your own knowledge(s), your own prejudices. It forces you to approach character development critically, for the people to whom we offer rebirth have to metamorphose into a wholly new psychological integrity and not simply be vehicles for the story or embodiments of our own prejudices.
It's easy to regurgitate caricatures or write cardboard cut-out figures when what you need, as a writer, is to explore the intensity and the desperation of recreated creatures. Every person who appears in your story is going through turmoil, is disintegrating as a 'civilised' being and reconstituting themselves in new social roles … or is discovering their feral self.
Each character is beating out a new identity on an anvil of doubt, fuelled by confusion, fear, and bereavement – loss of loved ones, loss of roles, loss of purpose, loss of social identity, loss of hope. It's easy to fall into the trap of seeing the story as plot driven - how do your characters survive, what do they do? But the real challenge is to explore the characters, to dissect their minds in order to discover what is meant by survival, and what survival means for them.

Can an apocalyptic novel break new ground - isn't it just a hackneyed old cliché? the world ends, some people survive … are we going to have an optimistic new beginning or a pessimistic end?
There is a long tradition of apocalyptic writing, visible throughout recorded history, and I'm sure continuing a timeless oral tradition. Conventionally, it has religious dimensions (I'll briefly look at the history of apocalyptic writing later in this introduction).
However, I'd argue that end of the world scenarios are possibly as old as the emergence of human consciousness and human language, that they predate our invention of magic, creation myths, or religions. Throughout virtually the whole of human evolution, the expectation of life was that it could be 'nasty, brutish, and short'. The end was always in sight, despite efforts to keep it out of mind.
The possibility of violent death at the hands or claws of predators, the potential for accident and disease, the ever present threat of natural disaster, drought, famine, fire, flood, or just human error - there were plenty of reasons to be concerned about the continued survival of yourself, your family, your clan or tribe. An end of your world nightmare was always on the horizon - and, in primitive societies survival was a daily fact of life, not a fictional scenario.
In fact, for many people on the planet, finding food, water, clothing, shelter and safety still remain daily challenges. It's only a relatively small, privileged few in the West who can enjoy safety and who have the resources to consume what they want and what they need.
If you're not one of the privileged, do you view each day with optimism or with pessimism? If you're struggling to cope, struggling to feed your children or keep a roof over your head, life is very different from that led by the rich and powerful.
I suspect speculation on the nature of the future was one of our first adventures into, if not fiction, at least attempts to answer questions. Trying to explain the inexplicable - why disasters happen, why weather happens, why the sun rises and sets, why we can hope there will be food tomorrow or next year, why we experience death, why life happens - is at the root of the emergence of religion, magic, or even the political and economic organisation of social groups.
In advanced, 'civilised' societies, continuing to explore themes of apocalypse remains an expression of our human and social values. If we imagine that there is a meaning to life beyond simple material consumption and the pursuit of our own pleasure, then we must speculate on what that meaning entails - we don't have to have a fully drawn blueprint for the perfect society or world (either our own vision of 'utopia' or some religious model of salvation), we needn't have an alternative vision of a worst case scenario (some 'dystopia' or 'hell'), but we can have a perspective on what it is we value, what it is we abominate.
I can recognise 'good' in human life, I can recognise 'ill' (or possibly 'evil'), although I can't draw a road map to the 'perfect' society or even suggest how we eradicate all the ills we face. Apocalyptic writing is a vehicle to explore our hopes for 'utopia', our fears of 'hell'.

So what of the history of apocalyptic writing?
There are two major strands:
The original religious concept, familiar in the West in Christian and Jewish writings, conceived of apocalypse as some form of divine revelation in which a god reveals secrets to a chosen prophet or group. This is not confined to Christianity or Judaism - many religions portray their founders, prophets, or priests as being uniquely placed to interpret the will of god(s) or as acting as conduits for some divine plan.
So the revelation of the god's desires came to be seen as a revelation of purpose - why are we here, what is the meaning of life, what will happen to us after death? The 'chosen' prophet is trusted with an insight into the god's intentions for and requirements of humanity, leading ultimately to the god's plans for the end of the world and the translation of 'the chosen' or 'saved' to a heavenly or spiritual dimension where they will be free of mortal pain and suffering.
The apocalyptic tradition in the West came to embody the notion of 'The Apocalypse' as the end of the world as we know it in a final battle between the forces of good and evil. It is a tradition most frequently rehearsed in times of social turmoil, where it expresses a dissatisfaction with or fear of the current state of affairs, explaining this in terms of human kind having fallen into a life of sin, or as being held in the grip of some malign force or evil.
Human life therefore requires revolutionary transformation in order to return to the more godly ways which will inevitably lead to ultimate salvation. Hence the notion of a final battle between good and evil - Apocalypse might mean the destruction of the planet and all physical life, but it leads to the salvation and recreation of the chosen in a new and perfect environment ('heaven').
The second major strand in apocalyptic writing is a more secular one, currently most readily associated with the science fiction and horror genres of writing. I say 'more secular' because horror writing often employs religious scenarios for its end of the world visions - "The Omen" series of films is perhaps the most famous example, while television's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" combined elements of science fiction, religious references or metaphors, and iconic horror, culminating in a final battle between the damned and the saved.
However, both science fiction and horror have embraced a wholly secular interpretation of apocalypse - in fact, the genres merge in their vision of the ultimate terror embodying the end of the world. Science fiction has regularly explored the theme of 'this is the way the world ends' - the threat of nuclear extinction was a prevalent theme in the mid and late 20th century, giving way in the latter decades of the century to concerns about pandemic and environmental disaster.
Within science fiction, writers have explored how people might cope with the threat of extinction - on the one hand H.G.Wells sees human kind surviving an attempted Martian invasion, on the other we have Neville Shute's "On the Beach", a bleak warning of the dangers of nuclear war which follows the last few months and last few moments of the last few survivors.
Science can lead to salvation, science can damn us to extinction. The writing can be pessimistic or optimistic - do we sink into a bunker mentality, strike out as bold conquistadors, or contrive some Noah's Ark?
Secular apocalyptic writing leads naturally into a question of pessimism or optimism. Prior to the 20th century, we did not have the technology to extinguish human life from the planet - well, not very efficiently at any rate. Machine guns, heavy artillery, poisoned gas, and aerial bombardment demonstrated in the 1914-18 War just how effective the slaughter could become.
Hitler then proved that we had both the administrative skills, the mentality of blind obedience, and the industrial capacity to eradicate whole sections of humanity. Hiroshima and Nagasaki unleashed the potential of apocalypse on an unprecedented scale and, throughout the Cold War and beyond, remain bywords for human extinction.
But in warfare, man is at least the active participant in slaughter. The immediate aftermath of the First World War saw a major flu pandemic kill millions across the globe. In the course of the 20th century we've learned that neither war nor plague respect boundaries. We've now discovered that even our passive lives have a lasting impact on the Earth's ecology - while people might recycle the odd bottle or newspaper, it would be political suicide for any elected government to tax fuel or restrict land, sea and air travel enough to reduce pollution to the point where we could postpone environmental collapse, never mind reverse the process.
Faced with environmental disaster, it's quite natural that the role of the writer (and of art in general) should embrace concerns about survival. Given the recent dramatic growth in literacy and education, given the parallel impact of photography, film, television, the Internet, global communications systems, and the limitless potential of technology, it's not surprising that concerns about human survival should not only remain major themes in literature and the arts, but should take on a full-blown political dimension.

Has apocalyptic writing moved from the religious or sacred to the political?
As a writer, you have to recognise the political context of your writing. Many of the apocalyptic novels of the past have been passively political - they serve up warnings, they pose moral questions, but they do not embrace any partisan political stance.
What happens, then, when we are confronted with the collapse of ideologies? We've seen extremes of corruption and evil in any number of totalitarian regimes, but does anyone have any real faith in democracy? Can we trust conventional political parties to do anything other than feather their own nests and strive to remain in power? Lack of vision and deafness to warnings are the symptoms of a pandemic of apathy and narrow interest.
Do you view the future with optimism or pessimism? In writing about apocalypse, do you look to the breakdown of human society as being caused by social ills (apathy, totalitarian government, consumerism, the secularisation of life, Thatcher, Blair, Bush, whatever)?
Do you hope that survival will bring out the best in us?
Do you present warnings of the future in terms of bleak certainties or do you offer up a manifesto for change?
Do you suggest that we have the potential to discover our own, secular salvation - that collapse will lead to reconstruction?
Do you bury your head in the sand and believe that your god will save you?
Do you suspect that if the human world was largely wiped out tomorrow we would survive in isolated cells of self-interest and it would take centuries before a new wave of philosophers emerged to question ethics and values and purpose?
The history we learn is very much one of emergence from apocalypse - the classical era is seen as giving us Plato, Aristotle, Socrates … the role of philosophy and learning, with respect for the primacy of the human intellect suddenly emerging in a handful of Greek states faced with external threat and the possibility of extinction.
The Romans give us the triumph of engineering and the centralised state. We become lost (so the story goes) in the so-called 'Dark Ages', with Western civilisation kept afloat by the monasteries, before we reach the Renaissance, with its rediscovery of art and literature and thought, and the intellectual questioning of the Reformation.
And then (in what's been described as 'the Whig interpretation of history') we grow more and more civilised through science and education, the darkness is behind us and we move towards the light. History is often portrayed as the battle between gloom and glory, triumph and defeat … human life inevitably leading (evolving) to some perfect state.
Apocalyptic writing leads quite naturally into writing about utopia or about dystopia - representing dystopia as the root of apocalypse is quite logical, but does it also allow you the opportunity to search for utopia, to discover the best of human potential, to unearth an ideal alternative?
In the 14th century, if you were a simple peasant in a European village, awareness that the Black Death was spreading across the continent may not have been possible (or even relevant), but if it was in the next village you would be well aware that you were facing imminent death and the likelihood of the extinction of your family and friends. Would there be any room for concern about the survival of 'civilisation' … or would you blindly hope to wake up in 'heaven' and eternal happiness?
We might today have a much broader, better informed view of pandemic, holocaust, nuclear obliteration, or whatever, but apocalypse is no more nor no less real to us today than it was to the 14th century peasant … or, indeed, to any primitive Stone Age human caught in a famine or natural disaster or outbreak of disease.
We are mortal. We die. And we are aware of the certainty of death. How we make the best of life, how we make things better for our children, how we cope with the horrors real life throws at us - these are recurrent themes in our lives. They are part of our consciousness, they are certainly not the monopoly of writers and artists. But they are inevitably themes which the human imagination has explored, from time immemorial, whether in dreams, in neurosis, in religion, in politics, or in art.
What science has bequeathed to us is the recognition that change is possible, that we can shape our own destinies. Modern medicine enables many of us to postpone death, modern science provides us with solutions and opportunities primitive humans could not even dream of. Conversely, the Stone Age or medieval warrior could only kill people he could physically encounter - the modern warrior can destroy whole cities on the other side of the planet.
I've lived through the Cold War, with two massively powerful armed camps poised on the abyss of mutual assured destruction - you might destroy us, but we'll destroy you (and probably extinguish life from the planet). We continue to endure the threat of nuclear war, but now we have a 'war on terror' to take our minds off the fact. Can we really trust, not just the politicians, but their electorates to make rational choices, to act in a 'just' fashion, to pursue human good rather than self-interest?
What we have, today, is a confrontation between an ideological belief that, because we are rational beings, matters are best left to 'the free market', to some logical emergence of a better, richer world, or, alternatively, the fear that self-interest and greed will drive us deeper into the blind consumption of increasingly scarce resources and the inevitable consequences of nations and empires destroying one another as they try to protect their share of a finite pie.
How do we regulate greed, or even demand? How do we reach consensus on action to save the planet when we can't even stop a single war? How do we collaborate? How do we organise? How do we take action?
It's seductively tempting to see apocalypse as a solution - if only a handful of people are left, we can start again, we can get it right next time. Shame about the billions of dead, but, hey, you can't make an omelette without seeing the yoke!
Trouble is, who survives? Do you think they will all be 'good' people? Do you think the survivors will all be committed to sharing and cooperating and collaborating to ensure world peace, altruism, and the emergence of a benevolent humanity?
In all probability, though I see myself as a 'good' person, I'd probably kill anyone who got between me and a can (never mind a hill) of beans! After the apocalypse, the personal will remain political.

So is there a 21st century apocalypse?
Apocalyptic writings voice the concerns of their times. The Christian bible records historical concerns about the extinction or absorption of Jewish culture, from prehistory through to colonisation by the Roman Empire. Indeed, early Christianity presents itself as in a life or death struggle with Rome. The Book of Revelations introduces the Anti-Christ (possibly the Roman Emperor Nero) who will force the world into a final battle and confrontation between good and evil. The psychotic ramblings of Revelation's author describe the threat of extinction experienced by the early Christian Church.
Step beyond the Roman era - and Rome converted to Christianity, adopting it as the religion of Empire and using it as an imperial tool - and Revelations continues to play a dynamic role in Western myth. It has, for two thousand years, been read as prophecy … year after year, century after century, both apparently sane and clearly insane individuals have claimed to have unlocked its hidden meaning, have claimed to have heard the divine will. Year by year, century by century, their claims have fizzled into nothing - the world, for instance, did not end in the year 2000 because of some technological time bomb!
And still there remains a whole industry in the USA and beyond claiming to have finally interpreted the 'true' message of the bible or some other sacred text. It would not be unrealistic to claim that the USA nurtures a complex apocalyptic culture - from Communism as the anti-Christ, to the rise of Israel as a trigger factor in the coming Armageddon, or the Gulf Wars as evidence that the end is nigh … even the Twin Towers play into this metaphor, pitting the USA as seat of salvation, caught in a life or death struggle with the forces of darkness. (Google 'apocalypse' if you don't believe me!)
Apocalyptic writings offer warnings and messages of hope - they typically emerge when a society is facing a threat, an overwhelming threat … and plague, famine, war, etc., remain ever-present.
Empires rise and fall. The notion of the apocalypse has always been a potent motive force for political and religious leaders, agitators and fanatics - from peasant revolts to crusades and religious jihads.
Societies change - they face both external and internal threats and challenges. It's quite logical for such threats to be expressed in terms of 'apocalypse', as the danger that the status quo will be swept aside to be replaced by something alien and evil.
The threat of apocalypse becomes a threat / reward mechanism which cements elements of the society together and mobilises them to take action (as either preservers of the status quo or as agents of change, legitimised by appeal to holy or divine scripture or some shared value).
Christianity has institutionalised the metaphors of apocalypse in the Western imagination. Natural disasters, disease and plague, famine and drought, war and invasion have been familiar since time immemorial - and I make no apology for labouring this point; it's easy to use these threats to leverage apocalyptic ideas and make them credible.
You are saved if you are a true believer - when the apocalypse comes, the faithful will be beamed up to heaven, the damned will be left to endure the final turmoil as the earth ends and a new world is created, one in which sin and hardship and evil are non-existent. It's an only too simple way to terrorise people into following you!
History abounds with astronomers, astrologers, theologians, mathematicians, priests, prophets, politicians, ne'er do wells and conmen who claim to have had a revelation or to have worked out a warning hidden in the stars / dates / numbers / names / scriptures.
Again, I make no apologies for repeating myself, but over a couple of thousand years of recorded history we have scores of people who have come up with apocalyptic predictions, all complete nonsense. How huge an ego do you need to be the next one on the list, to claim that all these deluded fools got it wrong, but I'm right, because (presumably) the others were false prophets but I really am the one god has chosen to confide in?
How sad, lonely, empty and terrified an existence do you have to live if the only positive way you can make sense of things is to believe it's all going to end soon … but that you'll be saved and the others will get what's coming to them?
In a sense, therefore, we don't have a 21st century vision of apocalypse. We simply continue, transform, and retransmit the institutionalised metaphors we have learned from time immemorial. But I also suspect we may be seeing the emergence of a new apocalyptic vision - not one based on appeal to some form of revelation, but one based on a shared recognition of logic.
Throughout the 20th century the religious Right in the USA has opposed the teaching of evolution in schools, has insisted on a supposedly literal, fundamentalist reading of the bible. The religious Right has attacked science, yet ironically has chosen to cherry pick that same science.
The science which enables you to use a computer, to read this page on the Internet, to drive a car, catch a plane or train, make phonecalls, shop in supermarkets, watch TV or listen to the radio, even read a printed bible, is the same science which has confirmed evolutionary theory and issued warnings about environmental disaster.
If you can't accept evolution and refuse to believe in our current environmental predicament, then, please don't avail yourself of any of the trappings of the modern world because the science which enables you to eat, drink safe water, find shelter, stay warm, put clothes on your back, work, earn, spend, entertain yourself, gain an education, and keep yourself relatively safe and healthy is the same science which gives you evolution and environmental warnings.
If you think it is fundamentally flawed, your only logical response is to conclude that all modern science and technology is an illusion … so go live in a cave and drape yourself in the skins of the animals you kill for food.
Warnings of environmental or nuclear disaster are not based on scriptural interpretation or the claims of some self-appointed prophet to have been made party to divine revelation, they are based on cold blooded, factual analysis of the real world, and they are subject to rigorous inspection and challenge. The reality is that the truth is out there and we have a responsibility to listen to it and act upon it. And, of course, we won't.
Apocalyptic writing in the 21st century will take on a new dimension. We will reinterpret history in the light of new knowledge, new ideas, new perspectives. But we will also have to come to terms with a rapidly changing world, and it is the ever accelerating speed of change which will be the governing factor - and apocalyptic writing emerges in societies experiencing threat. Any change can be threatening, and the faster life changes the more destabilising it can become.
Economic and political power is shifting to Asia. Military power will soon follow. New political, ideological, economic, military, and environmental tensions will emerge in the course of the next few decades. It's often said that generals always refight the last war - that the military is never prepared for new methods or theatres of warfare. Maybe the same is true of politics, economics, or even science. Can art be any different?
Maybe it's true about how we imagine apocalypse - much of the apocalyptic writing about the threat of nuclear war seems misplaced, seems, in retrospect, either too optimistic (in assuming there would be any survivors), or too decent (in assuming that survivors might act with propriety).
I'm left wondering if apocalyptic writing might step back from the brink - that in the face of environmental disaster (which clearly concerns me), there might not emerge a politically militant science fiction literature, concerned not with post-apocalyptic scenarios but with pre-apocalyptic ones.
"Like Fleas on a Dog's Back" is clearly post-apocalypse, but I'm developing a couple of short stories about eco-terrorism. The most famous piece of fiction in this sub-genre is probably "The Monkey Wrench Gang", but Rachel Carson's non-fiction work, "Silent Spring" also inspired some eco-terrorism.
I suspect that what we might see is an emergent science fiction which combines both a fictional narrative and a manifesto for action - capitalism and the military-industrial complex will experience escalating attacks from environmental activists and the 21st century will be characterised not by 'democratic' states engaging in a war against 'terrorism', but by a self-disenfranchised electorate waging an eco-terrorist war in defence of the environment. Become an eco-warrior - slash car tyres, disable petrol tankers and the pump mechanisms in filling stations, or whatever (and that should get me noticed by Special Branch).
I can foresee apocalyptic writing becoming an exploration not only of how you live an environmentally sustainable life (and here we're back to the interplay between utopia and dystopia), but how you take action in support of the environment. The focus, therefore shifts to pre-apocalypse scenarios, and might therefore be strangely and ironically slightly more optimistic in tone.

Is there scope for a workshop on apocalyptic writing?
That's the question I've been asking myself in the years since I started developing this novel. It's clear to me that there is a market for apocalyptic stories. What would the world be like if it ended with a whimper tomorrow? What are the practical problems? What happens when the electricity switches off and the supermarkets empty and money ceases to have any value?
I'm half hoping that "Like Fleas on a Dog's Back" will attract the attention of other writers, that I can start putting together an apocalypse workshop - no, not a school for survivors, but an information resource and discussion base for anyone interested in writing about the subject as fiction. I'd welcome responses from other writers - I know it would have been useful for me to talk to other writers when I was starting this novel. But I'm not interested in theological debates, it's the craft and politics of writing fiction which concerns me. If it concerns you, feel free to get in touch. I welcome ideas!
Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy "Like Fleas on a Dog's Back" … and, yes, I'd welcome feedback.

Apocalypse When?




This blog is one of a number spinning off from my website. It looks at creativity – largely creative writing – and parallels my online apocalyptic novel, "Like Fleas on a Dog'sBack", so it's logical to pose the early question, "why write an online novel?"

It's not purely self-indulgence or ego trip. I aim to make a living from my writing - I hope "Like Fleas on a Dog's Back" will act as a shop window for my fiction. Any professional writer has to consider the demands and problems of marketing. Offering up my fiction online seems like an acceptable form of 'soft-sell' – if you look at "The Stories You Don't Write" section of my website, you'll appreciate my concerns about the morality of marketing.

Writing remains a private affair; it can be a very lonely one, you and your imagination confronting a virgin sheet of paper or an impatient, blank screen. You set a target of so many words a day, then try to motivate yourself to forget the ten thousand other things you suddenly remember need doing.

An online novel can be a practical exercise in release, particularly if you decide to write about apocalypse. Here you begin with more than a blank page, you begin with a blank slate. You're the writer, playing god in a world abandoned by gods, a world stripped of its peoples and their realities, a social, political and economic vacuum. Your imagination is now total anarchy, your writing free of any boundaries - decency, taste, editorial demands.

Written online, your novel doesn't have to sell, doesn't have to be a commercial success. Your novel doesn't have to appeal to the demands of a publisher or film producer for some market pleasing happy ending … mind you, I might just inject a bit of sex, and some violence, and maybe the odd laugh or two (and I'll probably receive death threats from pet lovers, but, hey, that's show business).

I hope people will read "Fleas", but it's liberating to just write and be able to go back and revise a chapter or a paragraph whenever a better idea comes to mind. This, folks, is a plastic novel, one which may undergo several revamps and rewrites before they come to take me away.

This is a flasher novel (I told you I wasn't going to be restricted by boundaries of taste); I'm exposing myself to inspiration and criticism. I hope you'll enjoy the story and visit regularly to see how it unfolds. For those of you who write or want to write, I hope it'll prove a stimulus, give you an example of a 'work in progress' and encourage you to start developing your own ideas, characters, worlds, themes.

It's worth repeating, writing can be a lonely business. You're forever at the mercy of your own self-confidence and the torment of your own self-criticism … unless you have the sort of armour-plated ego which won't let you get side-tracked by self-doubt. I'm interested in writing as therapy - I encourage people to write, write, write.

So "Fleas" has its therapeutic dimension. As I work on the website, as I work to try to earn a living, I can unwind with my flea circus and use it as a speculative vehicle to consider how change affects people. The theme of my website, after all, is human change.

In "Like Fleas on a Dog's Back" my characters become lab rats in a safe, humane experiment, and you, illustrious reader, can don a metaphorical white coat and prod them along! Ask questions, spot errors, suggest plot twists … offer to buy me a drink.

Maybe I can inspire a workshop for apocalyptic writing, maybe provide a resource for writers exploring dystopias and utopias? What I'm anxious to communicate is my sense that there is no single 'Apocalypse'. I don't write from a fundamentalist religious perspective where the end of the world is portrayed as scripted by some deity. The end of the world has no purpose.

If our world ended, the universe would still go on, but it would be a shame – none of us will ever know how the human story unwinds, but I do hope that my children, and grandchildren, and great grandchildren, etc., will have a chance to write a few chapters of their own and contribute to making the world a better place.

I don't assume there is any one true dystopia or one true utopia. We all have our visions of hell – karaoke tends to feature in mine; we all have our own nightmares as well as our own dreams. I'm forcing myself to question my values … and fears. I present my vision of Apocalypse as a Dystopia, because I don't imagine a Utopia is possible. Could we ever have a 'perfect' society?

Apocalyptic and dystopic explorations give writers the scope to pose the ultimate questions about the societies they inhabit. We need to consider these concepts. Although they're possibly most familiar to fans of horror or science fiction, 'Apocalypse', 'Dystopia', and 'Utopia' are terms which should be of interest to all writers.

They also have a place within us all, writer or not, in what I describe as "the stories we don't write". Within our own internal dialogue and everyday thoughts we rehearse dreams, good or ill; we all wake each morning to view the day with hope or dread, and oh how quickly our dreams can change, how rapidly our nightmares can be confirmed.

So let's consider the meaning of a few words - and remember, love of words and a fascination with their meaning and significance is one of the symptoms of both writing and creative intelligence. There is no treatment – you can hope only for sympathy and tolerance, you can pray for respect.

"Like Fleas on a Dog's Back" is my vision of an end to the world. It might turn out to be an exploration of survival, of hope and optimism if not of 'salvation'.  But dreams are fragile and nightmares can happen in the blink of an eye - when you step off the kerb without noticing that oncoming car, when you discover a lump which wasn't there yesterday, when the referee rules the goal offside.

The word 'apocalypse' comes from the Greek for 'revelation'. For the Jewish and Christian faiths apocalypse meant the revelation of some forbidden knowledge. It's a concept which has been handed down the generations. Its popular meaning today is 'the end of the world', but even in horror and science fiction writing this can still convey notions of some religious, political or scientific day of judgement involving a final battle between good and evil.

Jewish apocalyptic writing goes back thousands of years. There's a similar Christian tradition, envisaging some divine intervention in the affairs of mortals. In the West, this is our cultural heritage, a centuries old history of religious apocalyptic vision and writing. It found expression in the preaching of so-called saints, prophets and visionaries: the notion of 'vision' is important, for many of these doom-sayers and conduits of divine guidance claim to have experienced revelations.

Such divine instruction is often discovered through dreams or during states of altered consciousness - and we've all had that dreamlike, half-awake or drunken illusion that we've touched on the meaning of life or have witnessed something portentous only to wake or sober up and find it's gone, we've forgotten it.

Apparent communication with the infinite or the transcendental during a state of altered consciousness is a fundamental aspect of the human condition. It's easy to feel that this has been 'real', that we have truly been contacted by angels or spirits or a deity.

Religious apocalyptic vision is a cultural phenomenon with which we're familiar. Typically, it portrays the world's end as evidence of the deity's displeasure at the failures of mankind through greed, through ignorance, through inability to keep the faith.

It's a vision which has been absorbed into popular culture - how many books and films can you list which have themes of a battle between good and evil, a contest between the sacred and the profane, of zombie or vampire or alien invasion, of devastation by plague, of robot or machine seizure of the world, of nuclear holocaust, or collisions with comets, etc.. etc., etc.? The Black Death, the First World War, the 1918 flu pandemic, the Holocaust - how many historical examples can you find which could legitimise such visions?

But a lot of popular writing isn't that final. Paralleling the apocalyptic vision there is a long history of writers exploring utopia or warning of dystopia. Novels about survival, retribution, rebirth, transcendence, and a score of other themes can embody elements of dystopia or utopia.

"Like Fleas on a Dog's Back" is part of this popular tradition. It's my exploration of how we might handle change if all our social structures were eradicated, except there would be no 'we', only individuals. It encapsulates my belief that this history of writing about apocalypse or utopia or dystopia is really a basic human desire to create, to imagine something better, or to fear something worse. I believe that this desire to express hopes and fears is at the root of our creative consciousness.

But let me return you to first principles. 'Dystopia' has come to mean the worst of worlds, in contrast to visions of 'utopia' or perfect society. Revisiting the Greek roots of these manufactured words, 'utopia' means 'no place' and was a pun on 'eutopia' (meaning 'happy place'): 'dystopia', meanwhile, means a 'bad place', while … are you ready for this? … 'cacotopia' would probably be a better description of the 'worst place' or worst case scenario. (I'm indebted to Wikipedia for the above - you learn something every day!)

Now, before you decide I'm rambling into academic foothills here, just stop and think how much of your imagination is influenced by your visions of eutopia, or utopia, or dystopia, or cacotopia. Think how many times a day you become distracted wishing things were different (better) or agonising about how bad they've become.

My personal eutopia might involve Sophie Marceau, a sun-drenched shore, copious amounts of real ale, the odd curry or two, and me trying to explain the finer points of cricket to my daughters while we all watch the West Indies play Australia. For most people (particularly Sophie Marceau) that would probably amount to hell. And I'd probably tire of it in about ten days, if not three. My personal vision of cacotopia would involve having to go back to a 9-5 job tomorrow … does that ring a bell with anyone?

We have our dreams, we have our nightmares, and, while these might be fantasies, they intrude into our real, material, everyday world. Whenever we feel happy or sad, bored or enthusiastic, we're making comparisons between life as it is, life as it was, and life as it could be, or maybe should be. Do you speculate on worst case and best case scenarios when you wake to face the day?

I don't gamble, I've never backed a horse in my life, but I've woken convinced I'd won a huge fortune on the horses and now had total control over my life. Millions play the lottery on this same basis. Alternatively, I've dreamt I was listening to the radio news and heard that the police had found 'the body' … and I wake up sweating, reasoning with myself that where I buried it no one could ever find it. And then I really wake up. Sweating.

So, "Like Fleas on a Dog's Back" is part of a tradition of imagination going back to our earliest days of evolving consciousness. Our ability to experience an 'altered consciousness' is hard wired into the physical and chemical structure of our brains. How we imagine, our palette of concepts and metaphors, is culturally learned, acquired over millions of years, reinterpreted and re-voiced culture by culture, generation by generation, person by person.

Our visions of heaven or hell, our specific visions of how or why the world could end have changed over the centuries, but they remain a recurring theme.

One of the earliest known explorations of utopia is Plato's "Republic". It dates from the era of the Peloponnesian War and the very real danger that Greek civilisation would be extinguished by foreign invasion, so Plato's enquiry embodies an element of 'what are we fighting for', 'what do we hope to achieve in victory', 'what might we lose in defeat'. I couldn't imagine George Bush or Tony Blair writing a 21st century equivalent of "The Republic".

So the apocalypse isn't just a religious tradition, it's a political and cultural one as well. War, a cataclysmic external threat, the risk of annihilation, stimulates our creative senses, encourages us to picture an idealised society or world as a counterweight to the nightmare before us.

Thomas More, whose book "Utopia" gave us the popular use of the word, also wrote in an age of turmoil. There was fear of cultural, religious, political and dynastic extinction (Elizabeth dying without an heir to assume the throne). I'd argue that most (if not all) the great utopian visions and most graphic explorations of dystopia or apocalypse have occurred within societies which see themselves as under major threat.

Lewis Mumford, "The Story of Utopias", looked at the history of utopian thinking and concluded that it demonstrated optimism. He sees it as a rational, natural desire to make things better. It's back to that universal question, 'When you wake up in the morning, how do you see the world?' Do you spend a moment looking forward, hoping for the best from the day, do you look forward to achieving something, doing something even if it's only a day spent in bed doing nothing. Or, is life so bad you lie there dreading getting up because you'll have to start coping all over again?

Change is driven by vision, by threat, by discontent, and by the very nature of and belief in change. To some, change is desirable, to others, anathema.  Change, in itself, can be threatening, or at least disorienting. (And I write as a Scot in a Scotland wrestling with the prospect of independence!)

We inhabit a material world but we also live in the subjective world of our own inner thoughts. We can't escape the physical world (at best we can build shelters), but we can find solace in our inner world. We can flee into the universe of the imagination. We can reconstruct the world internally - utopian visions are gateways to creativity and invention. But don't assume utopian visions are necessarily dynamic or 'progressive' - they can be reactionary or concerned with protecting the status quo.

For two thousand years after Plato our exploration of utopias and dystopias was monopolised by religious metaphors and paradigms. Thomas More stepped beyond these boundaries to explore humanistic and material possibilities, but it's only when we reach the 19th century that we witness a transformation of utopian and dystopian visions of the world. Revelation is no longer by divine intervention or inspiration but via science and discovery. Science will solve all our ills, science will open up a new Pandora's test tube of horrors.

Arguably the first great science fiction novel is 'Frankenstein', which reflects the dystopic and apocalyptic nature of scientific inquiry and invention. Can science conquer death (or creation)? From the 19th century onwards apocalyptic visions emphasise a secular rather than a sacred milieu.

Films like "Metropolis" or "Modern Times" addressed concerns that industry was dehumanising people, making them little more than slaves or robots.  World Wars made hell a living experience - watch "All Quiet on the Western Front" and consider the dehumanising effects of war, the difference in the way it's experienced by those fighting it and those who still peddle the old lie, "Dulce et decorum est ".

Between the wars, and after, we had concerns about the grip of totalitarian governments - "Brave New World", "1984". By the 1950's we have the horrors of nuclear warfare, perhaps most chillingly expressed by Neville Shute's bleak "On the Beach". Such concerns have continued to the present day with various post-apocalyptic visions ("Mad Max", "Survivors").

We've had scenarios where the science (human or alien) has run amok creating invasion by body snatchers, Triffids, machines ("Blade Runner", "Terminator"), various sea monsters and genetically altered giant ants, spiders, even shrews and 'blobs'. And, of course, there's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" which I love, but then you'll forgive an old man his fantasies.

We've enough nuclear weapons on the planet to eradicate life several times over but we're now facing the prospect that the world won't end with a bang. Environmental disaster is silent but every bit as deadly - hands up if you can hear the climate's winged chariot hurrying near.

We've become the audience at the coliseum, watching the various species being extinguished, oblivious to the fact that we're moving up the list: "they came for the dodo and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a dodo; they came for the tiger and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a tiger; whose voice will be heard when extinction comes for us?"

Of course, we're too selfish for that. By changing our lifestyles we could begin a fight back against environmental disaster. But that would involve us taking action, it would require us all to pare back the excesses of consumption and sacrifice a few luxuries. No, instead, our current apocalyptic fears become species-centric - we worry that the human race might be extinguished by bird flu or pandemic. Rather than face our own guilt we can blame the birds (and try reading Daphne Du Maurier's short story, "The Birds").

So, an online novel about the end of the world? Our cultural tradition of utopian and dystopian metaphors and narratives gives expression to dynamic imagination - an adventure in what we would wish from life, a concern about what we might get from it. Apocalypse is this utopian-dystopian continuum taken to extremis.

How we interpret apocalypse is a political act. Do we concern ourselves with the planet and our individual responsibilities for the threats it is experiencing? Do we take environmental action, concerted political action, or do we demand that our governments protect us from bird flu?

So, my online novel is a political act. We need to worry about the planet, first and foremost. Climate change and the exhaustion of natural resources is going to impact in unforeseen ways. We need to worry about our roles as human actors. In the West we've learned to expect, or at least to demand, long life, material comforts, and cure-all health care.

We expect to buy what we want or what the marketers convince us we want - how many million bottles of water do we buy, how many do we throw away when, unlike most people in the world, we have safe drinking water on tap?

We expect scientists and doctors to save us if we are injured or ill. We require our governments to protect us from disease - the same governments which insist they are protecting us from weapons of mass destruction or who are going to renew Trident nuclear submarines. How many nuclear submarines does it take to save the polar bear? Or prevent the next famine? Or give every child access to education?

It's time we started requiring ourselves to take action and act to protect our world, our planet, our environment - and I'm fully conscious of the hypocrisy of my words, writing to a medium which burns electricity, in a room heated by gas, having just enjoyed a meal of supermarket bought food while wearing clothes manufactured in some Asian sweatshop, temporarily postponing the need to hurl another bin full of rubbish out for collection.

So, will the last chapter of "Like Fleas on a Dog's Back" offer any optimism?  Will it contain a message of hope? Will I be weaving my own clothes by then and making my own shoes out of recycled car tyres? That might be down to you. I'm open to suggestions, to ideas, to criticism and to advice. I'm looking for practical advice. What happens to a nuclear power station if nobody turns up to work in it? What happens to sewage systems and reservoirs, to water and gas supplies, to oil wells and a hundred other taken-for-granted services if nobody, or not enough people, are left alive to keep them functioning? They don't just switch off and wait for instructions. What happens? What are the consequences? You tell me, I'll incorporate it in my story.