Summer of the Apocalypse by James Van Pelt
A Science Fiction Story of Hope and Survival
When James Van Pelt isn't teaching high school or college English, he writes. After successfully selling to the major science fiction magazines in the 19990's, he published a collection of short stories, Strangers and Beggars, in 2002, followed by the highly regarded Last of the O Forms and Other Stories in 2005. Summer of the Apocalypse is his first novel, published in 2006.
Van Pelt lives and works in Colorado, and that is also the setting for this novel. Many of the locales will be recognizable (e.g. Denver, Colorado Springs, and Golden) right down to some of the street names.
There are two protagonists in the story, both of them the same person. The tale unfolds in alternating sequences as Eric the younger and Eric the older each embark on separate adventures taking place many decades apart. The teenaged Eric sets out from the family's mountain hide out in search of his father who went to town but never returned. The seventy-five year-old Eric also leaves home, this time in search of something that may have the power to return humankind to it's former glory.
A World Winds Down
The setting is the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains West of Denver. A flu-like disease is spreading around the globe, and has begun to appear in America. People are getting sick. Those who get sick die. Eventually nearly everyone dies. Some go peacefully, some violently. Of course a small percent of the population does not contract the disease and they and their offspring are what is left of the human species.
After fifty years or more, there are few memories of how life used to be. Machines stopped working decades ago, and there are no medicines, electricity, guns, or any other technology to speak of. Mankind is slowly degenerating to a primitive state.
After the Gone Times
The era before the apocalypse is known as the Gone Times by the survivors. Life spans are understandably shortened, so most of the living have no direct knowledge of what life was like before the end of technological civilization.
The young Eric's journey comes a few years after the disease has ravaged Colorado. This world is all the more haunting, since Eric and the few people he meets do remember what life used to be like. Some of the scenes are truly creepy. An especially effective one features a mad helicopter pilot who trains his guns on any prey he can find. There are other troubling events, but they are best left for the reader to discover as they unfold. After Eric and an older woman escape from the basement of a particularly nasty couple, they work their way back to his old home in an abandoned neighborhood, now patrolled by wild dogs.
The old Eric sets out for Boulder in search of a university library, hoping to find lost knowledge, while reluctantly tending to some young relatives who decided to tag along. While the young Eric's trek takes him into urban zones, Eric the elder sticks mostly to the mountains, trying to avoid trouble. Not much chance of that! The primitive and technophobic people Eric meets along the way do not believe in a better future, but Eric doesn't give up easily.
Although some of Van Pelt's work is geared toward a younger audience, the adult themes (sex, death, and wanton destruction) of Summer of the Apocalypse clearly place it in the grown-up realm. The reader is given ample opportunity to ponder the folly and vulnerability of humankind. We are at times frail and of unsound mind, yet some maintain integrity under the worst of circumstances.
References
Van Pelt, James. Summer of the Apocalypse. Auburn, WA: Fairwood Press, 2006.
Cover of Summer of the Apocalypse
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Science Fiction Author James Van Pelt
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The Story is Set Along Colorado's Front Range
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