After the Apocalypse

I have definitely crafted an apocalypse survival plan with a few people ("you get the guns, I'll get the cans - we make our way north and rendezvous at my parent's cottage in Nova Scotia where we can seal off the only road onto the island.") But if zombies *actually* happened I would probably be caught wearing impractical high heels, ignore the warnings, and get taken down within the first 10 minutes while standing in line for an iced coffee.

We all think we're much more heroic and resourceful than we really are, and it's easy to picture ourselves rising from the ashes, the demise of processed food finally helping us sculpt some wicked abs, which we display at all times while wielding a machete and scavenging for supplies like a warrior princess (No? Just my daydreams? Cool). Maureen F. McHugh's nine stories, all set in some sort of post-apocalypse or dystopian future (those pesky zombies, dirty bomb attacks, economic depression, drought), immerse you in stories that feel much more realistic and more raw than those found in most end of the world dramas. There's nothing glossy or cartoonish about a resentful mother dragging her whiny teenager through a starving America, or a Mad Cow-like illness infecting the chicken nugget supply and damning a generation to a slow, paralyzing dementia. It would all be really, really depressing if it wasn't such a breath of fresh air in what can admittedly be a somewhat stagnant genre.

4 death-dealing processed nuggets out of 5! That is probably the way we're all going to go out, actually.

Lightning

Oh, Dean. What cruel twist of fate engineered the fact that you would be constantly preceded by Stephen King on the library shelves, forever doomed to be following in his footsteps in alphabetization as in life? Still, my brothers and I devoured all your books as teenagers*, so maybe you're better thought of as a gentle "intro to" dark adult fiction instead of a poor man's version of weightier author.

Anyway, you're a millionaire and churn out about a dozen books a year and I can barely do one review a month, so pretty sure you're doing alright.

Lightning was one of the first Koontzy's I read, and his tale of a love-struck time-traveling Nazi defector scientist held me in its thrall. I was going to re-read it but I'd rather review it from the perspective of an awkward teen than a confident and savvy adult (I am trying to incorporate my daily affirmations into these reviews. I can feel them working!). So, as a 90s teen, I cannot recommend this book enough and I really look forward to the movie adaptation, coming out in July 1999, starring Val Kilmer.

90s teen rating: 5 The Saint-era Val Kilmers out of 5. Suspected current Jane rating: 2 beach-ready Val Kilmers out of 5.

 *and we also had a weird obsession with the evolution of your author pic - in earlier editions, you had a mustache worthy of the Brawny Man and a receding hairline; in later ones, you were clean shaven but suspiciously thick-coiffed. This led to an attempt to speculate on your wikipedia page about a frenzied late-night mustache-to-pate home hair transplant, which remained in your entry for one tantalizing day before being edited into oblivion.