Voyage After the Collapse (Book III of The Pulse Series)

This is a quick note to let all my readers of Bug Out Survival know that the third installment of the ongoing series that began with The Pulse is my next book coming down the pipeline. Voyage After the Collapse is available for preorder on Amazon now (Kindle Edition only, at this point). There will be a paperback edition as well, of course, and it will probably be available sometime in November or early December when the ebook is actually released.

BOOK III OF THE PULSE SERIES—A STORY OF SURVIVAL IN THE AFTERMATH OF MASSIVE SOLAR FLARES THAT DESTROY THE POWER, COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSPORTATION GRIDS, BRINGING ABOUT A DESCENT INTO LAWLESS CHAOS AND UNBRIDLED SAVAGERY.

The crew of the sailing vessel, Casey Nicole has endured a harrowing ordeal on the dark waterways of the coastal swamps near New Orleans, but Artie Drager has escaped with what he came for—his only daughter, Casey.

They are free of the mainland but still too close for comfort. Now the crew of six aboard the big catamaran must plot a course and set sail into the unknown, hoping to find a place where the impact of the electromagnetic pulse was not so severe. Where that will be, they have no way of knowing. Did the solar flares impact the whole planet, or just the parts of the Western Hemisphere they have seen?

Voyage After the Collapse is a passage of hope into an uncertain future, leaving the terror of the U.S. mainland astern in the wake.

You can reserve your Kindle copy by preordering at the Amazon link below, where it is listed for $3.99 from now until release. You won't be charged until the release date when the book is delivered to your reading device. (Good know in case a real pulse hits first, rendering your ereaders useless!)

Preorder Voyage After the Collapse (Book III of The Pulse Series)

As I've mentioned before, you can get these book updates faster and before anyone else if you sign up for my newsletter by simply entering your email address here:

http://scottbwilliams.com/blog/newslettersignup/

Refuge (Book II of The Pulse Series)

Just a quick update on the expected availability of Refuge which I finished up in June.  My publisher has shipped the finalized files to the printer and I got word yesterday that copies will ship from the printer on August 21, which should put them in the warehouses of Amazon and other distributors and retailers about a week later.  So hopefully the book will be available to buy around the 1st of September instead of the 9th as posted on Amazon now.

Here's a view of the back cover, which I did not have at the time of my last update here:

As with all these books done through my publisher, the printed price on the cover is the list price only.  The selling price on Amazon and other online retailers will be significantly lower.  It's currently listed on Amazon for $11.26, but I expect that price to go lower upon release, but final selling price is up to Amazon.  The Kindle Edition will also be available at the time of the print release and should be under $10.

I want to thank all the readers of this blog and especially those of you who have purchased and enjoyed The Pulse and The Darkness After, making it possible for me to continue exploring the concepts presented here on Bug Out Survival through works of fiction.  I think fiction can in many ways be more thought-provoking than nonfiction when it comes to considering just what one might do in the event of a catastrophic disaster like the solar flare scenario explored in these novels.  I try to make the stories as realistic as possible, but at the same time, the goal is to entertain more so than to teach.  I look forward to continuing these stories as well as beginning new ones.  More to come soon with the announcement of the next project...

Sequel to THE PULSE Finished

   Days have turned into weeks with no contact from anyone outside of North America, where the power, communication and transportation grid has been completely destroyed by massive solar flares. In the ensuing chaos, grocery store shelves have been stripped bare and panicked survivors have fled the cities and towns, sweeping across the countryside in a desperate attempt to find sustenance and avoid the violence. 
   Artie Drager has risked everything to sail from the West Indies to New Orleans, where his daughter Casey was attending college. Finally catching up with her after discovering she had long since evacuated the city with her friends, Artie’s plan to get her to safe refuge on his brother’s sailboat begins to fall apart. Artie and his daughter must fight to survive, and hard choices must be made when part of their crew fails to return before they must set sail.
   This sequel to The Pulse explores the descent into anarchy that occurs when everything familiar in modern life is suddenly stripped away and survivors must adapt to a harsh new reality or die.

I have been working hard at wrapping up the manuscript for Refuge, the sequel to my first novel: The Pulse and it is now in the hands of the editors and hopefully on track for release later this summer in July or August.  Refuge picks up right where The Pulse left off, after a series of strong solar flares has shut down the grid over the southern U.S. and maybe even worldwide, as far as the characters in the story know.

My intention all along while writing The Pulse in late 2011-early 2012 was that there would be one or  more sequels, as there were so many possibilities for this unlikely group of characters thrown into such a life-altering event.  I wanted to move forward on the first sequel immediately after the release of The Pulse in the summer of 2012, but at the suggestion of my publisher,  I agreed to first write the parallel story for young adults, The Darkness After.  Response to that book has been extremely positive as well and I also plan one or more sequels to it, although they will likely be independently published so that I can get them out there sooner.

Hopefully, readers of The Pulse will not have forgotten too much of the story and will be able to pick up Refuge and move forward with ongoing dilemma that Larry, Artie, Casey, Jessica, Grant and Scully have gotten themselves into.  Things certainly get even more complicated for them in Book II, but setbacks and disappointments are to be expected in a major SHTF event like the one in this series.

I will post updates here as the publishing process moves forward, and there will almost certainly be a GoodReads Giveaway that you can sign up for as well.  As with all my books, review copies will be available for other bloggers and writers with related sites who wish to receive one.

Interview Tomorrow on Destiny Survival Radio

I'll be talking with John Wesley Smith on his Destiny Survival Radio show again tomorrow.  We'll spend an hour discussing a variety of topics, and especially how works of fiction can sometimes be more effective than nonfiction in opening the eyes of those who might not otherwise take an interest in prepping or survival topics.  I've had a lot of comments to this effect already since the release of The Pulse, especially among some of my own friends and family who could not really relate to books like Bug Out and may perceive interest in such topics as fanatical.  Reading a fictional story of an unfolding SHTF scenario sheds a whole new light on the matter though, and people can start to visualize how such an event could really happen.

You can join us tomorrow (Thursday, July 26) at 1:00pm CDT right here on the embedded player, or listen in later anytime you like after the show:

Listen to internet radio with Preparedness Radio on Blog Talk Radio

And here's a link to a newspaper review written by a friend with the perspective mentioned above - a seasoned outdoorsman and experienced adventurer, but not a person who considers himself to be a survivalist:  http://www.enterprise-journal.com/sports/outdoors/article_ad4130e0-ce3a-11e1-8f64-0019bb2963f4.html

For a review from the perspective of a prepper and survivalist, here's Jim Cobb's take on the book from his blog, Survival Weekly:  http://survivalweekly.com/2269/the-pulse-by-scott-b-williams/  Jim will soon be a fellow Ulysses Press author, with his own book: Prepper's Home Defense coming out in October.

Interview Tomorrow on EMPact Radio

Tomorrow, March 14, at 12:00 Noon EST,  I will be a guest on the EMPact Radio Show:

Empact America is dedicated to preparing, protecting and recovering from an EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) event - a very real threat that could plunge our electricity-dependant civilization into total chaos.  This interview comes at a good time, when I have been thinking a lot about just such a scenario.  Last week I just finished the manuscript of my latest book: The Pulse: A Novel of Surviving the Collapse of the Grid, which will be published in July.  Here's the completed manuscript: all 109,415 words.

I'll be posting more about that book here on Bug Out Survival as soon as details like the cover are finalized.  It does involve a major grid-down scenario, putting the main characters in a variety of dangerous situations, requiring them to use many of the techniques and methods I've written about here on this site and in my previous non-fiction books.

If you have time to listen in on tomorrow's interview,  you can do so on the embedded player right here:

Listen to internet radio with Empact Radio on Blog Talk Radio