3 Cats Stalking

"Was a Time When" Published on Kindle, Dec 27, 2011

It's done, or at least the Kindle part is done. I published my new book last night as a Kindle book. It is available at Amazon for $3.98 and ready for immediate download.

The paper copy book will be available around mid-January.

I am very interested in getting some professional reviews of the book. If you have a blog where you discuss books or the fate of the world in the next 75 years, let me know your background and how to reach you and I will send you a review copy, either a .pdf or a paper copy (when available), free of charge.

For your information, here is my product description.

This tale began in 2006 as the autobiography of my fictional great-grandson, Sam, yet-to-be-born in 2015.

Sam would live through the greatest cultural transition ever experienced by the human race. I encased his memoirs in a short story telling of an expedition of Neu-human archeologists from a thousand years in the future, 3100 A.D., who return to the Pacific Coast searching for their roots. They find Sam's recorded life story and hear a first-hand account of the “Great Collapse” of human society as they had come to call it.

Sam Hardy's life begins at the peak of the tremendous spurt of technology and social advance in the second decade of the 21st century, powered by what many still thought at the time would be an infinite supply of energy and a stable world of commerce and trade. Sam writes the history of humanity's course through the transitions that result from expected natural disasters, resource depletion, climate change, over-population, and economic and cultural failure as his family and tribe struggle to learn to live in a new world of limited resources and crashing dreams.

There are many possible worlds our progeny could face, but in my mind the world described here unfortunately seems to be one of the more probable. My goal is to tell of some of the changes that can be expected as our society searches for its future, and as those technologies and resources on which our civilization depend fall away.

This is a tale of retrospection, as seen through the eyes of someone who lives through it and remembers that there Was a Time When things were so different. And yet, in Sam's final words, there is still hope:

“So this is goodbye. Maybe I have been wrong in my pessimism and damnation of humanity, and there really is a future for mankind on this planet. At least I have joined a group that is beginning the steps to future recovery. God willing, I will have the chance to watch that future blossom. I pray this band I join will build the roots of a better civilization than what my peers built for the last one.”

I will be discussing the book and offering ideas on other options and how to cope with the future at www.WasATimeWhen.com. Come by for a visit.

"Was a Time When" Pushed into January, 2012

Well, I almost made it. I approved the format of the layout the first of this week, and I will get proof copy around the first of the new year. So, the book should be available sometime in January.

There is always something that gets in the way. This time it was the copy editor who was defining the layout who decided my title "Was a Time When" was not sufficient, and called the book "There Was a Time When." I had already been through that loop, and wrote back to explain that several others around the world had already made use of that phrase, so it was not a good choice for me.

A small change, but it takes time to get things right.

Be patient, I am.

sam

 

Earthquakes -- still a possibility

Ten years ago I was very interested in earthquakes and wrote a couple of novels about what it would be like when the New Madrid once again fractures. I have just put those novels into Kindle format and they are available at kdp.amazon.com. The following is the press release I sent out about this 200th anniversary of the big event in 1811.

 

200 Years Ago a Great Earthquake Killed Up to 20% of the Population Around New Madrid, Missouri - What If That Earthquake Happened Today?

Sam Penny's Novels, Memphis 7.9 (Revised), and Broken River

(now available on Kindle) describe what would happen

in a repeat of that same event today.

200 years ago, on December 16, 1811, the first of four in a series of great earthquakes stuck the New Madrid Seismic Zone under the Mississippi River, wrecking havoc over 650,000 square miles in what is now the central United States, shaking the foundations of cities from Toronto, Ontario to Boston, Massachusetts to Charleston, South Carolina.

In 2002 and 2005 Sam Penny published two novels, “Memphis 7.9 (Revised)” and “Broken River,” which described a scenario of the conditions that represented his best estimates of what the world in the affected area would be like should a similar seismic event occur today on the New Madrid Seismic Zone. Both of these books are available through [url:http://amazon.com]Amazon.com[/url]. Penny has just published Kindle versions of the books as well.

Back in 1811 over the next two months another three gigantic earthquakes struck the New Madrid Seismic Zone under what was then the western edge of our country – what now is the center of the United States of America. The first event is estimated to have been a 7.9 magnitude event focused near what is known today as the bottom of the Missouri boot-heel. A second earthquake the same size happened six hours later thirty miles north under New Madrid, Missouri.

The third earthquake on January 23, 1812 was of smaller intensity, but it was followed on February 7, 1812 by the largest event on the thrust zone, again under the shattered village of New Madrid. Aftershocks continued to shake the region for the next five years.

The 1810 census reported the population of the affected region to be about 5,000, plus as many as 20,000 slaves. This covered the cities along the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, including Louisville, New Madrid, and down to Memphis. That census did not even consider the sizable Native American Indian population in the area.

Some estimates suggest that as much as 20% of the total population was killed as a result of the seismic activity and pestilence that followed. It was a small number back then, but today over 32 million people live in the threatened region; 20% would be 6.4 million.

Both of Penny's books received Honorable Mention at the MidSouthCon Science Fiction Fair and are noted for their detailed descriptions of the effects of seismic shaking along the New Madrid Seismic Zone.

Penny says, “My books are based upon analytical studies of what the new world will be like in Memphis and along the Mississippi River when such a seismic event takes place. It is not a matter of IF, but of WHEN.” The USGS estimates that in the next 50 years there is a a 25 to 40 percent chance of a magnitude 6 or larger earthquake, including a 7 to 10 percent chance of another series like that of 1811 and 1812.

The books consider both the immediate dynamic impacts of the strong seismic events that will happen in the region, as well as the effects upon society as the infrastructure of civilization falls apart around the area.

“I am pleased with the response of some who live along the New Madrid Seismic Zone in their preparations for an obvious event in their future,” Penny says, “but I am still concerned with the lack of preparation in the overall region for what could be their fate in the not too distant future.”

Penny's books are available at Amazon.com and at www.prudentrver.com. The Kindle versions of the book are available exclusively at kdp.Amazon.com.