In the age of Trump

  This novel would have been important no matter who the US president happens to be, but in the age of Trump: novels like Thunder Road -Ice and Fire by Amos Keppler become more important than ever.

  There is just a desperate need for people speaking up against the narrow-minded view on climate change and life in general Trump and his people represent.

  This isn’t a documentary, even though it’s documenting in excellent ways the step by step results of human folly. It’s an engaging story describing the ultimate ramifications of recent human idiocy. We follow a group of people slowly turning into a tribe, following them as they travel from south to north in Europe, and even as climate change refugees from even farther away.

  Human civilization itself is collapsing around them, collapsing under its own weight. Extreme measures slowly, surely become needed and downright mandatory in order to survive. They fight on, against impossible odds, struggling beyond struggling to reach a place at least approaching a safe haven, in a world that has become so dangerous that death might strike at any time. This is a reality far removed from any ivory tower and especially those where Trump and his people reside.

  One of the greatest scenes in the novel is when a man stands in front of his house and the fast-rising ocean splashes his feet and he shouts: NOTHING BUT NATURAL VARIATIONS

  I will always visualize Trump in my mind when I think of that part…

Sighing wind

The wind is sighing between the tombstones. Even when there is no wind there is a whisper in the rotting ears of the walking dead. Skeleton feet are subbing on the wet ground. An ice cold howl casts its echo between the walls of the downtrodden castle. Blood is dripping from dirty branches and color the stone gray. Fangs and claws flash in the dirty moonlight. The thunderous sound of growth mixes with that of tasty raw meat torn apart. Blood and bones and slices of flesh decorate the overgrown garden. The ballet and the dance begin on the desolate yard. The ground is slick, causing many to slip and break their neck, and the ground turns even slicker. Blades turn golden metal in the light from the fires, and red upon being dipped in buckets of blood. The swimming pool in the backyard is used often and well. Virgins are being fucked to abandon, drawing their final breath through cut throats. Hot seed is pumped into cooling bodies. It’s raining and people calling the castle home are cheering and drinking the most exquisite wine. Skulls are the most practical of glasses. Bodies decorate the trees as the most beautiful of dreams, as art in red and gray. At dawn most people are rushing by. Only a few stop to admire the exhibition, the desolate beauty, and even fewer dare venture inside when the night once more grows ascendant. Huge eyes glow in the moonlight, while raindrops fall like knives in the three-dimensional painting breathing and panting and rocking on the enormously beautiful graveyard right by the city hall, where the undead politicians are making their final effort before nightfall.