I've long been fan of big real(or at
least realistic)-life adventure stories. As a kid I read Thor Heyerdahl's
"Kon Tiki" at least seven times and devoured books by Farley Mowat,
Jack London and Mark Twain. I read about sea voyages and shipwrecks, desert crossings
and awkward portages, glacier ascents and trips into the bowels of the earth.
It was the next best thing to being there, and as close as I could get from my
home in rural Maine.
Somewhere along the way, partly awakened
by the Reagan administration, I became aware of how transitory these places and
adventures were, how using the wild often means using it up, and that mankind
has the power to kick the crap out of the planet without the self-control not
to. I transitioned from adventure and exploration tales to studying the
apocalypse through "Alas, Babylon," "On the Beach,"
"No Truce with Kings," "Shadow on the Hearth" ...
