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gleninjersey

Patriots Book Series & Other Prepping Literature

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There was another thread that briefly discussed fictional books about TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It) and how prepping tied in to the story.

A few years ago I read two or three of The Patriot series books by James Wesley Rawles.  The series are fictional stories of societal collapse and a group of people who survive it.  I believe each book is independent and they don't need to be read in any particular order.

While written as novels the series is almost a "how to". It goes into great depths and details (some times boringly so) on why certain objects (vehicles, firearms, radios  etc) where selected and how to build / construct things.

The writing and story lines aren't going to win literature awards but the knowledge in the books could be useful.  Especially to those interested in the subject of prepping.  And since the information is in paperbook format it can be kept indefinitely.  No worrying about if "the grid" goes down and there is no power.  You can read them and put them away for years.  Hopefully never having to really use any of the knowledge contained in them.  But just in case, they are always there 

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1 hour ago, gleninjersey said:

While written as novels the series is almost a "how to". It goes into great depths and details (some times boringly so) on why certain objects (vehicles, firearms, radios  etc) where selected and how to build / construct things.

I found the section on ham radio to be unbearable.

Another series I really liked was the "One Second After" books written by William Forstchen. Much better writting than the Patriot series.

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1 hour ago, vjf915 said:

One Second After is a good book.  Not really about prepping, but does portray a community during a societal collapse.  It's a three book series.  The second book is also good.  The third, not so much.

Agreed the 3rd book was not as good, but I was in it to finish it. 

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Another non-electronic prepping source I enjoyed was the quarterly magazine "The New Pioneer".  It focused on modern, small scale off grid living with a more farming, gardening or country living slant.  It also almost always featured a story of a family that was living  or making a transition to a simpler life style.  Need to subscribe again.

There are other similar magazines.  One was American Pioneer which was definetly more geared towards hardcore (IMHO) prepping or surviving SHTF scenarios.  

Can keep the magazines stored away similar to the books.  Hoping you never need to use them.  Though I do pull them out every now and then just to read or skim through.  Some of the family and transitioning to simpler lifestyle stories are enjoyable and informative.

While not "literature" I enjoy watching "Off Grid Living" on DIY Channel.  Similar to the family stories in "The New Pioneer" the show features individuals or families building an off grid home.  Some are very small and simple homes, think nice mud hut.   Others are larger, nicer homes with all the amenities via off grid sources (solar, natural wells, etc).  The show gets me dreamimg of an off grid retirement home for the future or an off grid second home or hunting/ get away home if I ever hit the lottery!

 

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Finished "One Second After".  A good fiction novel based on what could happen in the event of an EMP attack.  Very general and doesn't go into painful detail as The Patriot Series does on occasions.  Entertaining read that should shake you up and give you a few restless night's thinking about what you should be doing now.  Just in case.  

I definitely recommend it to those who enjoy reading and this genre in particular.  Will definitely make you think.

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@gleninjersey:

Now that you have finished reading “One Second After”, if you have not already started it, you may want to continue with Forstchen’s next two books that are follow ups to his first one, on the same topic with the same characters.

As with his first book, the next two are also fictionalized novels about the aftermath of an electric magnetic pulse (EMP) caused by multiple nuclear warheads being detonated at a high altitude over the continental United States.  All three present a very sobering, logical, feasible and frightening vision of how our fellow Americans would act and react under such circumstances over a period of several days, weeks, months and finally two years later.  It is not an encouraging story line and very alarming due to the realization that such an event not only could happen, but may possibly happen in our life time.  You can read other reviews for both of these books on the Amazon.com links below:

AVB-AMG

-   One Year After: A Novel
by William R. Forstchen

https://www.amazon.com/One-Year-After-Matherson-Novel/dp/0765376717/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1479531671&sr=8-2&keywords=One+Second+After

-   The Final Day
by William R. Forstchen

https://www.amazon.com/Final-Day-John-Matherson-Novel/dp/076537675X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1539828437&sr=8-2&keywords=The+Final+Day&dpID=51TGM-2T4CL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

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@gleninjersey:

Another good book in the same genre is “Lights Out”, by Ted Koppel, is a well-researched question about an important topic concerning the current vulnerability of the electrical power grid in the US, followed by a number of possible "what if" scenarios. For me, it is a very sobering wakeup call on what we should and can do individually, as a family, as a state/region and maybe most importantly, as a country, to prevent what could become a real catastrophic disaster.

AVB-AMG

Lights Out: A Cyberattack, a Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath
by Ted Koppel
https://www.amazon.com/Lights-Out-Cyberattack-Unprepared-Surviving/dp/0553419986/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1479531630&sr=8-3&keywords=Lights+out

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3 hours ago, gleninjersey said:

Entertaining read that should shake you up and give you a few restless night's thinking about what you should be doing now.  Just in case.  

That's what I thought, a good "what if" read to make you start thinking of all the possibilities and to make sure you have them covered.

 

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On 4/20/2018 at 6:53 AM, gleninjersey said:

There was another thread that briefly discussed fictional books about TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It) and how prepping tied in to the story.

@gleninjersey & @Sniper22:

I know I am not alone here in my frustration with how our American society and culture has devolved over the past 30-40 years.  How the choices of our elected leaders have squandered tax payer’s money and ignored more important and vital issues such as upgrading and protecting our aging and vulnerable vital infrastructure.  As frustrating is knowing that most of our elected officials have been warned and are aware of many of these important issues of vulnerability and exposure, but have chosen to ignore them and do nothing constructive or selfishly, just pursue avenues for their own self-interest and enrichment.  Looking to our government or commercial private industry to take steps to prevent the adverse effects of an EMP attack, is most likely not realistic since so many people are clueless and/or are in denial fo this possibility.  This may sound fatalistic, but I believe that the vast majority of American’s today are clueless about what could happen and may happen and have chosen to be ignorant.  They are just satisfied to spend their free time when not working to be entertained and, like sheep, just pursue short term gratification by partaking in our out-of-control consumer society, wasting their money buying all sorts of unnecessary crap, mindlessly watching TV, playing video games and idolizing TV/Film actors and professional sports athletes.  That is their choice and because so many citizens are doing that I think we are totally screwed as a superpower and will continue our downward slide, especially in relation to China.

Relating back to the topic of this thread, I continue to want to take what I consider the prudent measures in case of a localized emergency event, to hunker down at home (in place), if possible, as opposed to bugging out, with supplies and equipment to last for between 2 weeks, possibly up to 4 weeks.  For most anticipated human caused or Mother Nature caused local or regional disasters, this should suffice.  But after that I am not confident at all that we will survive.  I say this due to these concerns:

- Living in suburban NJ, availability of food will become a paramount issue sooner than in other areas.  As we are the most densely populated state in the country, our roads will be clogged with people trying to go north, west and south, with not much success due to the extreme volume of panicked people.

- This will be followed by the issue of the availability or lack thereof of safe drinking water and gasoline.

- Today, most people have not learned how to fend for themselves and are totally dependent on purchasing what they need.  Aside from hyper inflation to buy what is still available, the poor will become desperate first, followed by the more affluent socio-economic groups.  But ultimately, money will lose its purchasing power entirely.

- The density of NJ will mean that those people who run out of either food and/or water will panic and become desperate and will seek both and do horrible terrorizing things to others to obtain them.  The most basic human instinct for survival will become the driving force for people and all traditional social norms and civility will cease to be practiced.  Civilization as we know it will quickly devolve into roving violent mobs and gangs.

- Even with firearms and ammunition, the number of these desperate people will overwhelm most family’s and collective neighbors ability to defend what little they have left.

- Most suburbs are not realistically defendable from the onslaught of desperate refuges from the more urban cities and ring towns and will be overrun by these people.  Desperate former urbanites will become the real zombies attacking others, first in the suburbs and then in the more rural areas.

Unfortunately, there is no happy ending in this scenario....

AVB-AMG

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@AVB-AMG, what happened, did someone hack your account?? Your starting to sound like a Republican, as everyone knows, Democrats don't believe in Personal Responsibility, and believe the government will take care of them and provide for them.

So, who hacked your account? You're not sounding your "usually", you're sounding "logical". :)

 

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On 10/17/2018 at 10:54 PM, Sniper22 said:

@AVB-AMG, what happened, did someone hack your account?? Your starting to sound like a Republican, as everyone knows, Democrats don't believe in Personal Responsibility, and believe the government will take care of them and provide for them.

So, who hacked your account? You're not sounding your "usually", you're sounding "logical". :)

@Sniper22:

As I suggested to you once before, if you had taken the time (yes a very long time...), to read most, if not all of my other, non-political posts, you would see that I am being quite consistent with my stated sentiments and beliefs.  That is why I consider myself to be more of an independent, moderate and realistic in my views on most things.  This thread topic just happens to be rather depressing and most frighteningly, quite possibly could happen....

AVB-AMG

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Thanks AVB, I'm going to try to get to library tonight to check out "One Year After".

If you are interested in doing some prepping and enjoy this genre you may want to check out The Patriot series referenced in my initial post.  They are also fictional novels but somewhat wrapped around a prepping how to. 

At times the author goes into great detail on why a particular item was picked to be in the characters inventory.  As an example I think it went on for quite a few pages on why "x" type of radio was picked.  Lots of technical information.  Not sure how long it has been since updated but I believe it's been through a few revisions or updating.

 

 

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To help offset the heavy thoughts of a possible impending doom due to something like an EMP I like to read true stories of people who overcame overwhelming odds.

If you haven't read "Unbroken: A WWII Story Of Survival, Resilience  and Redemption" by Laura Hillenbrand I highly recommend doing so.  Book is far superior to the movie and goes into much greater detail of his life.

A follow up to Louis Zamperini's post WWII life is very uplifting as well.  It's called "Don't Give Up, Don't Give In: Lessons From An Extraordinary Life".  

Both should be available from your public library system.  

Enjoy.

 

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@gleninjersey:

If you are interested, I have a very detailed, extensive list of what I decided to include in our "GO BAGS".
After Super Storm Sandy, I decided to research, select and prepare what ideally and practically should be included in such a bag.  Well this project sort of snowballed and got out of control and so we now have more than one GO BAG.  Actually, we have five (5) GO BAGS filled with different items, so I just refer to them now as our GO LUGGAGE.... 
(Send me a PM if really interested in this list).

Clearly all of these GO BAGS would go into our all-wheel drive, fully fueled "evacuation" vehicle, since all of the sherpa paid help to carry all of these bags will have abandoned us in an SHTF situation.

But, maybe more importantly, they also are a dedicated repository and resource if we most likely determine to BUG IN and stay in our home, depending on what resources and utilities are still available.

AVB-AMG

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While I realize that you cannot plan for every possibility, you can anticipate a number of the most likely emergency situations and the best options on how to respond.  This analysis is based on one asking a number of important questions in advance and then considering how that will affect you and your most likely answers are and subsequent actions to take to deal with it:
- What exactly happened?
(This may not be something that you will find out for a while)
- What are the results of the emergency event?
(Failure of electrical power, contaminated water, no cellular service, nuclear fallout, martial law imposed, etc.?).
- Where are you when “it” happened?
(At home, at work, driving your car somewhere, traveling?).
- Where did the emergency event occur?
(The proximity to the event and where you and/or your family are at that time?)
- Did you have any advanced warning and if so, how much?
(Most likely for a severe weather storm event or health pandemic)
- Do you decide to stay in your home or evacuate to some other place?
(Depends on advanced warning, congested traffic conditions, gasoline availability, etc.)

AVB-AMG

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On 10/17/2018 at 10:20 PM, AVB-AMG said:

@gleninjersey:

Another good book in the same genre is “Lights Out”, by Ted Koppel, is a well-researched question about an important topic concerning the current vulnerability of the electrical power grid in the US, followed by a number of possible "what if" scenarios. For me, it is a very sobering wakeup call on what we should and can do individually, as a family, as a state/region and maybe most importantly, as a country, to prevent what could become a real catastrophic disaster.

AVB-AMG

Lights Out: A Cyberattack, a Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath
by Ted Koppel
https://www.amazon.com/Lights-Out-Cyberattack-Unprepared-Surviving/dp/0553419986/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1479531630&sr=8-3&keywords=Lights+out

I read Ted Koppel's book after reading the Forstchen trilogy. It was quite a bit informative, while being a bit dry, but mostly it scared me by putting SO MUCH of the information in one place. I knew of a good bit of this, but he clarified things and put them more in perspective. And showed just how horribly our gov't has "prepped" for it. (unless they really DO have bunkers for the select few) 

The One Second after series, as well,  gave a lot of "pause for thought", and made me really wish I had a closer circle of like-minded folk near me.  Or had more family in the vicinity. 

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4 hours ago, 345Sire said:

The One Second after series, as well,  gave a lot of "pause for thought", and made me really wish I had a closer circle of like-minded folk near me.

Maybe post your location under your avatar. You never know what other members live near by.

 

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25 minutes ago, Sniper22 said:

Maybe post your location under your avatar. You never know what other members live near by.

 

I just might do that, even if it goes against (a little) my preference for keeping private info private. 

I'm no super-survivalist, but the concept of operational security isn't completely lost on me.

I'll have to give that some real consideration.

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Two other excellent prepping/SHTF series of books are the “Going Home” series by Angery American (Chris Weatherman) and “The Borrowed World” series by Franklin Horton. Both deal with grid down scenarios from either an EMP or terrorist attack. So far there are ten books in the former and six in the latter. These guys aren’t professional writers by any means, but they are pretty good at it. In addition to being excellent stories, there’s a lot of knowledge in prepping and gear to be gained as well. They read a bit less like a “manual” like the Rawles series, which I like. 

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I just started Patriots, and have how to survive when I finish. I find it hard to read just strait up "how to" books, without getting a little bored or in some cases overwhelmed with how much it takes to actually prep. I like the way Patriots reads.. It's a purpose driven prepping book that brings situational scenarios to life. It can also help you prioritize the important aspects of prepping. I'm also enjoying in particular some of the mistakes that were made by the individuals, such as leaving behinds lots of useful gear when it came time to bug out. The books are great in some ways, such as pointing out obvious strategies required for survival. Prepping gear is only half the battle. 

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