Hoarding is exactly what the government is doing right now by filling the SPR, and frankly it's the best thing that could happen. It drives prices up. High prices encourage demand destruction. They also finance new well development. The hoarded oil gives us a buffer to fall back on once shortages become more prevalent. High prices are what we need in order to adapt to what's coming, and the sooner they happen, the better.
Joined: Jun 13, 2005 Posts: 1206 Location: Western US
Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2005 12:44 pm Post subject: Into the Forest" by Jean Hegland
Into the Forest" by Jean Hegland
Not specifically about peak oil, it doesn't say specifically in the book, but when I read it I was assuming something like nuclear holocaust. Now I think it was more like peak oil.
Fiction, but a really good book. I read this long before I'd heard of peak oil.
A couple of reviews:
Amazon.com
Jean Hegland's prose in Into the Forest is as breathtaking as one of the musty, ancient redwoods that share the woodland with Nell and Eva, two sisters who must learn to live in harmony with the northern California forest when the electricity shuts off, the phones go out, their parents die, and all civilization beyond them seems to grind to a halt. At first, the girls rely on stores of food left in their parents' pantry, but when those supplies begin to dwindle, their only option is to turn to each other and the forest's plants and animals for friendship, courage, and sustenance. Into the Forest, an apocalyptic coming-of-age story, will fill readers (both teens and adults) with a profound sense of the human spirit's strength and beauty. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Hegland's powerfully imagined first novel will make readers thankful for telephones and CD players while it underscores the vulnerability of lives dependent on technology. The tale is set in the near future: electricity has failed, mail delivery has stopped and looting and violence have destroyed civil order. In Northern California, 32 miles from the closest town, two orphaned teenage sisters ration a dwindling supply of tea bags and infested cornmeal. They remember their mother's warnings about the nearby forest, but as the crisis deepens, bears and wild pigs start to seem less dangerous than humans. From the first page, the sense of crisis and the lucid, honest voice of the 17-year-old narrator pull the reader in, and the fight for survival adds an urgent edge to her coming-of-age story. Flashbacks smartly create a portrait of the lost family: an iconoclastic father, artistic mother and two independent daughters. The plot draws readers along at the same time that the details and vivid writing encourage rereading. Eating a hot dog starts with "the pillowy give of the bun," and the winter rains are "great silver needles stitching the dull sky to the sodden earth." If sometimes the lyricism goes a little too far, this is still a truly admirable addition to a genre defined by the very high standards of George Orwell's 1984 and Russell Hoban's Ridley Walker.
Joined: Sep 30, 2004 Posts: 976 Location: On one of the blades of the fan
Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2005 1:28 pm Post subject:
I salute your indefatigability, oh my geeky SF droogs.
John Brunner, P K Dick and Ursula LeGuin (the Dispossessed is IMnotsoHO, one of the finest SF Novels ever written), are ace, plus A Canticle for Leibowitz.
I haven't read some of the others, but I'll put them down to acquire.
I ought to re-read High Rise by Ballard; my memory of it is that order breaks down in a huge tower block and the inhabitants are reduced to violence and cannibalism.
I'd add The Parable of the Sower by Octavia S. Butler: she's unique in being as far as I know, the only black female SF writer, and this book is about survival in a disintegrating US: I felt it was horribly realistic - it's not about PO, in fact I don't think it states explicitly why the USA falls into chaos, but it did seem very convincing to me.
There are a lot of British books about societal breakdown, The Day of the Triffids being the most famous, but Brian Aldiss called them "Cosy Catastrophes" - in that the hero (invariably male) has a good time as society collapses; I don't think this is very believable. The US based stories seem much more uncompromising and realistic. There is one old novel called Death of Grass by John Christopher which is rather more grim in a UK setting, with people being murdered. But quite frankly even this is, compared to what I have read about, for example, WW2 and Rwanda, nothing like what happens in a real crisis.
Joined: May 14, 2005 Posts: 2125 Location: Along the banks of the muddy Mississippi
Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2005 1:36 pm Post subject: Re: Into the Forest" by Jean Hegland
LadyRuby wrote:
Into the Forest" by Jean Hegland
Not specifically about peak oil, it doesn't say specifically in the book, but when I read it I was assuming something like nuclear holocaust. Now I think it was more like peak oil.
I recently reread "Earth Abides" (my favorite SF novel) and "Into the Forest" from a PO perspective.
They are both excellent reads ... unless one is a cornucopian, of course. _________________ “Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.” (Ted Perry)
Joined: May 02, 2005 Posts: 3109 Location: One more question...
Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2005 1:46 pm Post subject:
Heinlein produced a number of apocolyptic and post apololyptic novels.
One of his last, "Friday", actually gave an unspoken nod to peak oil. In it, the United States had broken up into regioinal states, where high tech mass transit existed, but personal transit was by horse and buggy!
It was written around 1980.
Heinlein made some remarkably accurate predictions in his fiction. In the seventies one of his novels included the use of a "sony memory stick", where an author was able to carry his entire working library on a memory module the size of his thumb
_________________ "Don't ever become a pessimist... a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events."
Robert A. Heinlein
Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach is highly recommended.
Book Description
"Ecotopia was founded when northern California, Oregon, and Washington seceded from the Union to create a "stable-state" ecosystem: the perfect balance between human beings and the environment. Now, twenty years later, the isolated, mysterious Ecotopia welcomes its first officially sanctioned American visitor: New York Times-Post reporter Will Weston.
Like a modern Gulliver, the skeptical Weston is by turns impressed, horrified, and overwhelmed by Ecotopia's strange practices: employee ownership of farms and businesses, the twenty-hour work week, the fanatical elimination of pollution, "mini-cities" that defeat overcrowding, devotion to trees bordering on worship, a woman-dominated government, and bloody, ritual war games. Bombarded by innovative, unsettling ideas, set afire by a relationship with a sexually forthright Ecotopian woman, Weston's conflict of values intensifies-and leads to a startling climax.
Also, highly recommended - Ishmael by Dan Quinn
From Publishers Weekly
Quinn ( Dreamer ) won the Turner Tomorrow Award's half-million-dollar first prize for this fascinating and odd book--not a novel by any conventional definition--which was written 13 years ago but could not find a publisher. The unnamed narrator is a disillusioned modern writer who answers a personal ad ("Teacher seeks pupil. . . . Apply in person.") and thereby meets a wise, learned gorilla named Ishmael that can communicate telepathically. The bulk of the book consists entirely of philosophical dialogues between gorilla and man, on the model of Plato's Republic. Through Ishmael, Quinn offers a wide-ranging if highly general examination of the history of our civilization, illuminating the assumptions and philosophies at the heart of many global problems. Despite some gross oversimplifications, Quinn's ideas are fairly convincing; it's hard not to agree that unrestrained population growth and an obsession with conquest and control of the environment are among the key issues of our times. Quinn also traces these problems back to the agricultural revolution and offers a provocative rereading of the biblical stories of Genesis. Though hardly any plot to speak of lies behind this long dialogue, Quinn's smooth style and his intriguing proposals should hold the attention of readers interested in the daunting dilemmas that beset our planet. 50,000 first printing; major ad/promo.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Library Journal
Winner of the Turner Tomorrow Fellowship, a literary competition intended to foster works of fiction that present positive solutions to global problems, this book offers proof that good ideas do not necessarily equal good literature. Ishmael, a gorilla rescued from a traveling show who has learned to reason and communicate, uses these skills to educate himself in human history and culture. Through a series of philosophical conversations with the unnamed narrator, a disillusioned Sixties idealist, Ishmael lays out a theory of what has gone wrong with human civilization and how to correct it, a theory based on the tenet that humanity belongs to the planet rather than vice versa. While the message is an important one, Quinn rarely goes beyond a didactic exposition of his argument, never quite succeeding in transforming idea into art. Despite this, heavy publicity should create demand. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/91.
- Lawrence Rungren, Bedford Free P.L., Mass.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Joined: Jun 12, 2005 Posts: 4190 Location: 1st territorial capitol of AZ
Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2005 9:17 pm Post subject:
Oh man this is a great thread!! I'll have to write down the titles of, and get, some of these books you guys are talking about!
I can think of one, one of the "cyberpunk" authors wrote one called Islands In The Net, it's kinda long, and the main idea seems to be that while there are people in the world described that live more in the information net than outside it, and are loyal to, and dependent on it, there's a whole world outside it where things are wild and feral and non-cyber. Plot: One of the protagonists actually gets cast out into the Big Bad World and deal with the desert, bandits, stuff like that.
I was assigned the book “Alas, Babylon” (by Pat Frank) in one of my high school English classes (a hundred years ago). This book was probably the beginning of my fascination with ‘end of the world’ scenarios.
I have read it again as an adult and found the concept to be just as intriguing now as it was then. That said, there is one important caveat to the recommendation to consider the book: “Alas, Babylon” was originally published in the late 1950s and contains more than its fair share of blatantly racist and sexist ideas and full-on stereotypes. But, if you are able to look beyond that, the thematic IDEAS proposed in the book are interesting.
On another note … I found a short list of apocalypse type books on the Oak Ridge Public Library website. Some of the books listed in this thread are also on the web page, so it may be a good resource.
I was hoping you guys would mention a book that for the life of me I can't remember the title. Story goes:
Crude oil tanker spill in the San Fransico Bay. They turn to a scientist who has invented an oil eating bacteria. Scientist has a terminal disease, his wife and child just died in a car wreck, he has nothing to live for. They test a bottle of "good" bacteria, the scientist gives them a tanker of "bad" bacteria. The bacteria only attacks a certain petroleum molecule, rendering the crude oil into a harmless sludge. But it seems everything derived from petroleum has this molecule. Gas in a cars tank, the clothes on your back, the insulation on electrical wiring, everything turns to sludge. Civilization comes crashing down in days.
Has anyone read this book and can remember the title?
I was hoping you guys would mention a book that for the life of me I can't remember the title. Story goes:
Crude oil tanker spill in the San Fransico Bay. They turn to a scientist who has invented an oil eating bacteria. Scientist has a terminal disease, his wife and child just died in a car wreck, he has nothing to live for. They test a bottle of "good" bacteria, the scientist gives them a tanker of "bad" bacteria. The bacteria only attacks a certain petroleum molecule, rendering the crude oil into a harmless sludge. But it seems everything derived from petroleum has this molecule. Gas in a cars tank, the clothes on your back, the insulation on electrical wiring, everything turns to sludge. Civilization comes crashing down in days.
Has anyone read this book and can remember the title?
Thanks,
Bud
I know, I know!!! It's called Ill Wind, by Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason. I loved it. There's nothing like sitting around and looking at all of your posessions, then trying to determine what isn't at least partially made of petroleum products. Try it sometime. Yikes!
I actually wrote a column recently about books of this ilk, and it can be found here:
I too am fascinated by this topic, though I came to it slowly over the last few years. Now I'm reading the non-fiction, and am completely sold. As far as I'm concerned, Into the Forest and Dies the Fire are my favorites. I believe that Into the Forest captures well how "it" could happen (relatively slowly). Dies the Fire, though the cause of downfall is not PO, captures very well how different types of people will react to a far reaching catastrophe. Frankly it is not pretty. I'm looking forward to the sequel, which is due out this fall.
I know, I know!!! It's called Ill Wind, by Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason. I loved it. There's nothing like sitting around and looking at all of your posessions, then trying to determine what isn't at least partially made of petroleum products. Try it sometime. Yikes!
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