NEWS FROM THE DESK OF LINDA L. ZERN

A prequel, a short story, a kindle edition of the way they were before they found each other at The Strandline.

amazon.com/author/lindazern

TWO CAMPS & **SOLAR STORMS

Spent last weekend at the Authors for Authors Book Fair, selling books, chatting with authors, and explaining “prepper” fiction. My book “Beyond the Strandline” is realistic “prepper fiction.”

It was fascinating. There were definitely two camps of readers: those that were looking for books on cats or cats on books or escape to cat land and those that not only understood “prepper” fiction but were in to it.

The cat crowd was definitely the larger group. Please understand; I like cats and books about cats. I, myself, own some cat books. I have a cat.

But I have always enjoyed books that invited a reader into scenarios that stretched my understanding of what might be and placed me in worlds that require something of the characters involved and vicariously—me.

What would I do if my home were threatened by brutal civil war as in Gone With the Wind, and how would I save Tara?

Would I have the courage to pull the trigger and sacrifice my friend, Flag, like in The Yearling to ensure the survival of my family?

Where would I go to find salt, an essential nutrient for human health, in a collapse situation like that in Alas Babylon?

Prepper fiction allows us to safely peek through the windows of science fiction where the stakes are high, the consequences life altering, and the choices resulting in life and death.

Prepper fiction is the stuff of heroes and solar storms.

Cat books are good too.  

   It's all about the sun . . . or **solar flares. #beyondthestrandline WHAT IF?  

AN INTRODUCTION . . .

Dear Reader,

While Beyond the Strandline is a work of fiction, the atmospheric events leading up to the establishment of the S-Line Ranch as an oasis of prepared safety have been and might yet be very real.

Solar storms are a documented part of earth’s history. In 1859, a solar coronal mass ejection (a geomagnetic solar storm or solar flares) hit the earth. What little power grid existed at the time, mainly telegraphs, largely failed. 

Our modern world, with its complicated power grids and systems, has only grown more vulnerable to the massive influence of our closest star. According to some in the scientific community: EMP’s, pandemics, dirty bombs, nuclear attack, global economic collapse, and all the rest are statistically less likely than the storms that we cannot stop but can only try to prepare for.

In the character of Colonel Kennedy, I wanted to show the potential for all of us to be able to think ahead and prepare (prep) for whatever the universe or mankind might have in store.

Curious readers have asked me, “How did he [Tess’s grandfather] know what to do to get ready?”

I rejoice at the question. Thinking about what might happen is the beginning. I like to imagine that Colonel Kennedy looked up emergency preparedness on the Internet and started reading. Something any of us can do.

This is a story of possibilities and hope and courage and love and survival. In my mind, it’s better than a fairy tale because it’s a story about the best fairy tale of all—life—in all its unpredictability.

Linda L. Zern

www.zippityzerns.com