Feral Nation Series: A New Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller

I am in the process of finishing up the first book in a new survival fiction series that I think readers of this blog and my other novels will relate to. Set in America in the near future, this series of stories will deal with a collapse scenario caused by coordinated terror attacks, riots and widespread civil unrest. Considering the situation that is unfolding in Europe now and potentially spreading, I think this type of SHTF scenario is more likely than the solar EMP collapse I have written about in my previous novels.

Regardless of the premise though, these books will be full of action and adventure as the main character navigates the dangers of a country torn by anarchy in an attempt to find his ex-wife and daughter he left behind while fighting the wars in Europe. Here is the cover for the first book: Feral Nation - Infiltration, with the description below. It is available for preorder on Amazon now, and will be released in the Kindle edition and paperback early next month:

INFILTRATION: FERAL NATION SERIES BOOK ONE: POLITICAL ASSASSINATIONS, TERROR ATTACKS, MASSIVE RIOTS...

In the near future, a nation is in peril as anarchy spreads in the wake of coordinated attacks by foreign and domestic terrorists. The growing civil unrest and insurrection in the aftermath forces those in power to enact harsh countermeasures in an effort to maintain order and security. Battles between dissident factions rage in the streets from coast-to-coast as many cities and towns become war zones. Travel and communications are severely restricted, food and fuel supplies disappear, and the economy teeters on the brink of collapse...

Professional security contractor, Eric Branson, has been plying his trade overseas, fighting the ongoing insurgencies raging across Europe, when he realizes America faces the same fate. Before he can make his way home to south Florida, a powerful hurricane deals the final blow to an infrastructure already ravaged by burning and looting, leaving survivors cut off and on their own. It is here amid the death and destruction that Eric begins his search for those he left behind, and here that his warrior skills will be tested as never before.

Preorder Feral Nation - Infiltration on Amazon

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...

Two New Books for 2013

I've been holding off on posting the details of my forthcoming books due to some changes in the order of publication and the publication dates.  Before The Pulse was published last summer, I had worked out a contract with my publisher to do another non-fiction project under the title: The Prepper's Workbook.  I was also eager to get started on the sequel to The Pulse, as that novel was written with a larger story in mind and plans for at least one sequel from the beginning. 

Instead of giving me the go-ahead immediately on the sequel, however, my publisher suggested an entirely different novel set in the scenario of The Pulse - the same grid- collapse event caused by a solar flare - but with a different storyline and different characters.  Most of the characters in the new novel (which will also likely be followed with one or more sequels) are young adults or teenagers, so the book is targeted to both young adult and adult readers.  The Darkness After will be an action-filled adventure story with a somewhat faster pace than The Pulse.  Here is the cover image:

 I am still in the middle of writing this one now, but have also worked out a contract with my publisher to do the sequel to The Pulse later this year, after the June publication of The Darkness After.  In addition, I will be completing The Prepper's Workbook later this spring, and the new publication date for it is set for sometime in September.  The other change regarding that book is that I will now be working on it with my friend and fellow-adventurer, Scott Finazzo.  The cover for the book should be updated soon to show both of us as coauthors.

Though I have not posted anything about the forthcoming Prepper's Workbook, I'm sure many of my readers have found the listing on Amazon, which still incorrectly shows the publication date as tomorrow, January 15.  I apologize for the confusion that may have caused, but I was expecting my publisher to change the book details to reflect the new publication date before now.  At any rate, if you have pre-ordered the book as many people do on Amazon, it will still be shipped as soon as it is released.  I will post more details on both of the projects soon:

What to Do When Help is NOT On the Way

What would you do in a post-SHTF scenario if your partner or a member of your group suffered a severe, deep cut to a leg or arm with a tool such as a machete or axe?  What if the blow was so hard the blade penetrated not only flesh but nearly severed the bone in the limb as well?  It's not far-fetched at all that a person could suffer such a cut by accident or in an intentional attack.

When I was traveling through the Caribbean on my solo sea kayak journey of 1988-90, I met a young man in the town of Samana, in the Dominican Republic, who had suffered just such a horrible wound at the hands of a jealous husband wielding a machete.  He was lucky to have survived, as the attacker meant to split his skull with it.  Using his forearm to block the vicious strike, he almost lost the arm, but absorbed most of the force before it hit his face.  Far more stitches than I could count encircled the forearm that was slashed to the bone and another row extended from the top of his scalp all the way across his forehead, eyebrow, bridge of his nose and cheekbone.  All this just from one strike.  While it is certain he would have been killed instantly if he had not sacrificed his arm to block the blow, if he had been in a situation where he could not get quick medical attention, he probably would have bled out from the cut artery in his arm anyway. 

So what would you do in a case like that if you couldn't get outside help?  I was thinking about this a lot over the last two days as I worked on a scene in my current book project (the post-apocalyptic novel I'm now writing) in which one of the characters is cut almost the same way.  Getting to a hospital or calling for an ambulance is out of the question, so what choices does the person attending the victim have?  Stopping the flow of blood is obviously the first priority, and depending on the severity and location of the wound, you may have only minutes to do so.  Applying a tourniquet used to be the accepted wisdom, but it is now known that doing so almost guarantees the loss of the limb.  Applying direct pressure is much safer, and can be just as effective.  As it happens, just as I was sorting through various references on the correct way to do this, a message came through on my Twitter account informing me of a new follow by James Hubberd@thesurvivalMD, and the timing could not have been better. 

I followed the link back to his website: The Survival Doctor, and found an excellent resource on just the kind of trauma first aid information I was looking for.  Dr. Hubberd's blog posts only go back to September, but all of them are informative, with illustrations and videos that show and explain in simple terms how to deal with some pretty severe medical emergencies in the field.  Dr. Hubberd is a family M.D. with 30 years of experience in the field. What's interesting about his approach, is that as his site title suggests, he's writing this for those interested in medical preparedness in the event of a disaster, social upheaval or other situation where you're isolated and "help is not on the way."  I think this site is going to be a useful resource for all of us and I've added The Survival Doctor to my blogroll so we can all look forward to learning something new from Dr. Hubberd's updates.  And thanks to the quick-thinking actions of his brother who knew just the right thing to do because of this new site, my badly-slashed character will not only live, but may even regain full use of his right arm again.