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Apocalypse All the Time
by
Doesn’t it seem as if someone issues a new apocalypse prediction every week? Y2K? The Mayan apocalypse? The Rapture? Doesn’t it seem endless? As opposed to the traditional trend of post-apocalyptic literature, Apocalypse All the Time is post-post-apocalypticism.
Marshall is sick of the apocalypse happening on a weekly (if not daily) basis. Life is constantly in peril, cont ...more
Marshall is sick of the apocalypse happening on a weekly (if not daily) basis. Life is constantly in peril, cont ...more
Paperback, print, 159 pages
Published
January 1st 2017
by Literary Wanderlust
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APOC-APOCALYPSE!!!
What do you do when it seems there's a new apocalypse all the time, another one coming every day, week, or month?
You get used to them, that's what! Picking up the pieces and moving forward, knowing that another end to life-as-you-know-it is probably right around the corner. But you learn to maintain. Most of the time, life goes on pretty much as it had before, and if it doesn't, it isn't long before mankind inevitably settles back into its customary ways.
It might get boring, th ...more
What do you do when it seems there's a new apocalypse all the time, another one coming every day, week, or month?
You get used to them, that's what! Picking up the pieces and moving forward, knowing that another end to life-as-you-know-it is probably right around the corner. But you learn to maintain. Most of the time, life goes on pretty much as it had before, and if it doesn't, it isn't long before mankind inevitably settles back into its customary ways.
It might get boring, th ...more
Mr. Atkinson’s new novel combines absurdism, science fiction, and sly commentary on our current neuroses induced by the twenty-four news cycle, to create something reminiscent of Orwell, Kafka, and Swift, while being entirely its own animal. By turns funny, maddening, and genuinely insightful, it’s one of the most imaginatively weird and original books I’ve read in a while. Prepare for the apocalypse(s), lizard men, nuclear winter, and last but not least, Malcolm, some combination of eye-in-the-
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Loved this book! Had the honor of writing a blurb for it:
"Apocalypse All the Time holds utterly true to its title. This is a world where apocalypses are not singular impending events but habitual, regular, ordinary, even mere annoyances. Indeed, the narrator ruminates, “An apocalypse wasn’t a significant event if it was apocalypse all the time.” This is a funny, clever, and entirely endearing book, a hilarious take on the existential status of existing as a human in a post-post apocalyptic world ...more
"Apocalypse All the Time holds utterly true to its title. This is a world where apocalypses are not singular impending events but habitual, regular, ordinary, even mere annoyances. Indeed, the narrator ruminates, “An apocalypse wasn’t a significant event if it was apocalypse all the time.” This is a funny, clever, and entirely endearing book, a hilarious take on the existential status of existing as a human in a post-post apocalyptic world ...more
APOCALYPSE ALL THE TIME is a wandering journey to armageddon, again and again and again. There's a decidely Kafkaesque bent to the story, and Marshall at times feels like a post-apocalyptic Hamlet. To be, or not to be - that IS the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the floods and fires of a daily doomsday or to take arms against the Apocalypse Amelioration Agency and end them. Ay, there's the rub. And one heck of a book.
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This novel is funny & entertaining and most of all imaginative. The high-level concept of constant apocalypses is deftly navigated with insight, satire and well-written dialog galore - definitely a fun book & worth checking out!
See my full review & blog post on Desert Rose Reviews!
The world is going to end!
We hear this phrase so often, most of us simply roll our eyes when we encounter it. No apocalypse has ever come to pass, and many people doubt, for the most part, that one will any time soon. Or worse, we fear one will, and our lives are tormented on a daily basis, by our own minds. Granted, wars and fighting happen regularly, but realistically, there are never major apocalyptic events. Some see this as a good thing, ...more
The world is going to end!
We hear this phrase so often, most of us simply roll our eyes when we encounter it. No apocalypse has ever come to pass, and many people doubt, for the most part, that one will any time soon. Or worse, we fear one will, and our lives are tormented on a daily basis, by our own minds. Granted, wars and fighting happen regularly, but realistically, there are never major apocalyptic events. Some see this as a good thing, ...more
I didn’t think David Atkinson could beat his quirky style in Not Quite so Stories but boy was I wrong. His quirky writing style with the light humour and satire is excellent for the topic of our obsession with an Apocalypse and oh so fun. This way of writing keeps you in the book. His humour is so entertaining and makes this a great read.
Here we have Marshall going through Apocalypse after Apocalypse to the point where he gets tired of it all. He reminiscences about different Apocalypse events a ...more
Here we have Marshall going through Apocalypse after Apocalypse to the point where he gets tired of it all. He reminiscences about different Apocalypse events a ...more
Normally I ignore the usual "The world is going to end!" predictions.They have been happening all my life from the time I expected to be vaporized by the Russians every time I "ducked and covered" under my desk during bomb drills as a child knowing we lived near Offutt Air Force Base and everyone knew from the videos played that all of us in Omaha were toast if they were ever hit by a nuclear bomb.Then it was one apocalypse coming after another-each crazier and sillier,causing one to ignore and
...more
This book was absolutely hilarious. Imagine what life would be like if the world as we know it was always on the brink of ending. That’s exactly what this book does. I think what I found most humorous about this book was that the people who Marshall encounters never seem to keep a level head about the frequent apocalypses. One would think that with the world almost ending on a practically daily basis, it would lose its novelty and people would stop freaking out all of the time, but that simply i
...more
This is a book unlike any I've ever read before. It's more than just your typical end of the world apocalypse story. It's the apocalypse happening weekly. In any and every way possible. There is an agency set up to deal with them because they are happening so regularly. The main character Marshall is sick and tired of the constant turmoil. This story is wonderful. It's funny and insightful and holds your interest until the very end, which is a surprise in itself. I loved this original story and
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Quirky and entertaining, Apocalypse All The Time paints a vivid picture of a world gone weird and one man’s daily struggle to manage while life crumbles around him on a regular basis. David Atkinson explores the impact an allure with apocalypticism can have on the way we live our lives and the effect it has on us. It is an absurdly funny exploration of society’s fascination with the end of the world and the trend of endless apocalypse predictions. An excellent read!
Jan 05, 2017
Ben
added it
Read it. And blurbed it, yo.
"I cannot decide if Apocalypse All the Time is Groundhog’s Day for the seriously cracked or The Day After for the absurdist lit set. What I do know, is that while David S. Atkinson may very well be deranged, his work is funny and weird and wholly touching. I also know that we are all the better for having it in our lives." ...more
"I cannot decide if Apocalypse All the Time is Groundhog’s Day for the seriously cracked or The Day After for the absurdist lit set. What I do know, is that while David S. Atkinson may very well be deranged, his work is funny and weird and wholly touching. I also know that we are all the better for having it in our lives." ...more
3.5 stars.
What if the world does come to a point where the “apocalypse” happen regularly?
http://lynaireads.luigiandlynai.net/2... ...more
What if the world does come to a point where the “apocalypse” happen regularly?
http://lynaireads.luigiandlynai.net/2... ...more
A humorous reminder that context is key. A kind of thought experiment rolled out into an entire novel.
It always amazes me, the ingenuity of the human mind to take a story that you feel you’ve heard every possible rendition of and a writer comes along and completely upends the genre with a unique spin.
Marshall lives in a post-apocalyptic world… scratch that. If there’s a different and totally random apocalypse happening every few days can you truly say you live in a post-apocalypse society? So many questions, so few answers! But Marshall isn’t looking for answers, he accepts the status quo with a ...more
Marshall lives in a post-apocalyptic world… scratch that. If there’s a different and totally random apocalypse happening every few days can you truly say you live in a post-apocalypse society? So many questions, so few answers! But Marshall isn’t looking for answers, he accepts the status quo with a ...more
Never ending Apocalypse
One apocalypse leads to another and Marshall is sick of it. What he tried to do about it will bring a smile to your face.
One apocalypse leads to another and Marshall is sick of it. What he tried to do about it will bring a smile to your face.
Marshall is sick and tired of apocalypses. It seems there is at least one every week. He just wants to go to the assembly line and do his job. During another apocalypse, Marshall decides to go shopping and meets Bonnie. She is tired of the apocalypses too. They start with a picnic during a zombie apocalypse and then find themselves “married” while being sent in space to another planet when the Earth is going to be destroyed by the sun.
But then enough is enough. Bonnie decides to mess with people ...more
But then enough is enough. Bonnie decides to mess with people ...more
Listened to the audiobook. Super entertaining. The "interludes" were my absolute favorite!
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I was voluntarily given a free audiobook by the author.
Apocalypse All the Time was a very funny, charming, and satirical book. Marshall just wants the apocalyse to end, but it constantly happens on a weekly basis with it ending to an anticlimactic climax of being solved all the time. As a result, the perilous becomes a boring and mundane routine.
Going into the book, I thought it would be a typical apocalypse book. But I was extremely wrong. It flips all of the Apocalypse tropes and pokes fun at ...more
Apocalypse All the Time was a very funny, charming, and satirical book. Marshall just wants the apocalyse to end, but it constantly happens on a weekly basis with it ending to an anticlimactic climax of being solved all the time. As a result, the perilous becomes a boring and mundane routine.
Going into the book, I thought it would be a typical apocalypse book. But I was extremely wrong. It flips all of the Apocalypse tropes and pokes fun at ...more
Great book
See my full review and blog post on Desert Rose Reviews! Or, you can check it out here on Goodreads! ...more
What would happen if there was an apocalypse almost every other day? We would become used to it and even become bored with our constant doom-and-gloom life. That is the premise of this unique novel that creates a dystopian world that still does not feel as far off from where we are in the world today. That is one of the best things about this story: it manages, even in its absurdist style, to capture some of the reality of what we are living now. The way we have become dulled to the everyday tra
...more
Like in his other books, David Atkinson writes about absurd situations (like a never-ending series of apocalypses) in ways that are clever, funny, and original. Tiedemann also does a good job of capturing Atkinson's style--I've seen the author perform his own work many times and was worried that his distinct voice might be lost in translation. This is a perfect audiobook for anyone who enjoys quirky sci-fi and a take on post-apocalytic literature that hasn't been done to death.
...more
"Despite some clashes between the straightforwardness of the narrative and the absurdity of the overall conceit, Atkinson dances between the two quite gracefully. At the moments when he makes the explosion meet the philosophy, it becomes a clearly wrought story about perception and determination. Even through the dissonance I see the parallels with the form: not one thing, not the other."
FULL REVIEW UP AT THE WRITING DISORDER SOON ...more
FULL REVIEW UP AT THE WRITING DISORDER SOON ...more
Marshall lives in a world where there is a new apocalyptic event every week or so, a zombie apocalypse, a flood apocalypse, a giant lizard apocalypse, the red plague, the blue plague and so on and so on. Marshall is fed up with the ridiculousness of it all, sure the world changes, but never ends and not many people die since the Apocalypse Amelioration Agency takes care of everything so quickly. Marshall is especially fed up with how the rest of humanity seems to act when each new apocalypse is
...more
Comedy? Dry, I guess" audio version
I found the narration to be excellent. Had I been reading instead of listening to this one. I would have stopped reading not even a fifth of the way through, at that point I hadn't even cracked a smile let alone laughed. I thought it was boring I was almost put to sleep by it.
That said the narrator kept me listening. About a third of the way through, it started to get better becoming funny. Not a laugh riot mind you, but it made me crack some smiles, and laugh ...more
I found the narration to be excellent. Had I been reading instead of listening to this one. I would have stopped reading not even a fifth of the way through, at that point I hadn't even cracked a smile let alone laughed. I thought it was boring I was almost put to sleep by it.
That said the narrator kept me listening. About a third of the way through, it started to get better becoming funny. Not a laugh riot mind you, but it made me crack some smiles, and laugh ...more
Imagine a world where it's impossible to relax, where everything you know and love is only a hair trigger away from turning into dust from the flash bang of a nuclear explosion. It would likely get a little wearing, no?
Or maybe not. After all, that sort of thing seems to be drawing record ratings on the TV right now. Maybe we'd grow used to it if we dialed it up from current levels, from our Little Rocket mans and so forth, and even turn miserable if we weren't working ourselves to the bone to s ...more
Or maybe not. After all, that sort of thing seems to be drawing record ratings on the TV right now. Maybe we'd grow used to it if we dialed it up from current levels, from our Little Rocket mans and so forth, and even turn miserable if we weren't working ourselves to the bone to s ...more
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David S. Atkinson is the author of books such as "Roses are Red, Violets are Stealing Loose Change from my Pockets While I Sleep" (forthcoming July 1, 2018), "Apocalypse All the Time," and the Nebraska book award winning "Not Quite so Stories." He is a Staff Reader for "Digging Through The Fat" and his writing appears in "Spelk," "Jellyfish Review," "Thrice Fiction," "Literary Orphans," and more.
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“Anyway, a bunch of penguins were living in a ceramic bowl of cold spaghetti noodles. There was no tomato sauce because it didn’t exist yet, but that was okay. As the spaghetti was cold, moisture condensed upon it. This kept the spaghetti from sticking, or from sticking to the penguins, or the bowl. It also kept the penguins from sticking to the bowl, and from sticking to each other.
As I mentioned, tomato sauce did not exist yet. You should realize since this was a beginning, the moisture didn’t either. Neither did the bowl. I think you can guess about the penguins. How could there be penguins if nothing existed yet?”
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As I mentioned, tomato sauce did not exist yet. You should realize since this was a beginning, the moisture didn’t either. Neither did the bowl. I think you can guess about the penguins. How could there be penguins if nothing existed yet?”
