Defying Doomsday Read-Along: The Starting Line
Introduction
Today we’re kicking off the Defying Doomsday Read-Along. I’m so excited to see where this goes! You can join at any point through the read-along, so don’t be shy. I’m hoping we’ll have some fun discussions in the comment threads as we jump into this awesome set of stories. You can also tweet about the read-along using the hashtag, #readDefyingDoomsday.
The discussions questions for the first four stories will be posted next Thursday. Today I’ve got some preliminary questions to get us going. Feel free to answer the questions in the comments here, or, if you prefer, answer the questions on your own blog and leave a link in the comments. Either way works great!
But Where Do I Find It?
If you’re looking to nab your copy of Defying Doomsday, there are lots of options, including Amazon. You can also head over to the publisher’s release post for a full list of links.
The Schedule
Thursday, January 5 – Start Reading!
Thursday, January 12 – Questions on Stories 1-4
Thursday, January 19 – Questions on Stories 5-8
Thursday, January 26 – Questions on Stories 9-12
Thursday, February 2 – Questions on Stories 13-15
Thursday, February 10 – Wrap Up and Review Link Up
The Questions
Why did you decide to join the read-along?
Is this your first time reading apocalyptic fiction? Or is this a genre you’ve enjoyed before?
Have you read any other books featuring disabled protagonists that you’d recommend?
If you were to write a short story about surviving the apocalypse, what kind of apocalypse would you choose? (It can be as realistic or fantastic as you like!)
If you were facing an apocalypse, what one fiction book would you stick in your pack before fleeing whatever’s about to take out your neighborhood? (No survival guides–let’s be real, you don’t even have one your shelves right now….)
Intisar’s Answers
I decided to join because it would be really bad manners to run a read-along and not join. (JK!) I’ve read a few books with disabled protagonists, but Defying Doomsday blew me out of the water with the sheer breadth of experiences, realities, and fictions covered. I really wanted to share it with more people, so when I decided to run a blog post series on Disability in Fiction, this book was the obvious choice to me for a read-along.
I actually don’t read much in the way of surviving-the-apocalypse stories. I’m much more of a high fantasy or fairy tale type person, but I went through a serious SF phase as a teen and I still very much appreciate well written books where the magic is technology–or just where the characters are real and the story won’t let me go.
It’s rather embarrassing to admit that I’m drawing a blank right now. I’ve read a number of books I wouldn’t recommend per se–so, for example, while I enjoyed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, I found out pretty quickly that it did a terrible job of representing individuals with autism. The list of woulds seems far sparser, especially since I can’t count books with secondary characters, though I must say I enjoyed Bleeding Violet for both its weird horror-like fantasy vibe and the depiction of the heroine’s bipolar disorder.
**Edited to add: I forgot about our heroine’s love interest in the Nyssa Glass series by H. L. Burke. There’s some serious backstory regarding just what his father was willing to do to “fix” him (it’s messed up!), but Ellis himself is a great character.
It feels like everything’s been done, so I guess for me the question is, what could I make mine? Also, I’m rather depressed about climate change and the spread of Zika and twenty other things, so I’m going fantastical with this one. As such: A unicorn apocalypse brought about by corporate investments in shady genetics experiments. Oh, and a horde of infected mosquitos. Um, yeah, reality doth interfere.
Since I can’t take my Kindle (who made these rules? That sucks!), and I don’t want to haul around a massive tome, I’d limit myself to Pride and Prejudice. This is the book I read every summer for years on end, and with every re-read I found something else to laugh at or enjoy. Also, that world is long gone, so escaping to it wouldn’t involve mourning it as well.
Happy Reading, Everyone!
