I’ve been fascinated by Mad Max since I was a kid in the early 80’s. I picked things up with Road Warrior and Thunderdome, then went back later to watch the original. More recently, Fury Road was my favorite movie of 2015. As a writer it would be tempting to write something very similar to those movies, since I really enjoy that world.
Buy Post Apocalyptic Ponies on Kindle
However, because an author always needs to cut new ground, I’ve created a new series based on a time period closer to our own. By that I mean the world is post-apocalyptic, but it hasn’t yet devolved into a Mad Max-style of kill-or-be-killed driving. Regular people are still driving regular cars, but they are doing it at high speeds and most of the action takes place in high plains Kansas. If you’ve ever been there it would remind you of Max’s Australian outback–but instead of sand it would be endless grasslands and farms. Towns are few and far between. If the world blew up, and if cars were still on the road, they could be used to transport goods and people between those wide open towns. I call the courier system the Prairie Express.
Here’s the setup:
The wheels came off the world two years ago. It was a global war to be sure, but without television or internet people quickly forgot the specifics. Survival itself became the 24-hour news cycle.
With her father’s high performance sports car, Perth Hopkins managed to outrun the plagues, famines, riots, and most other refugees. She’d made it to safety, far from the ruined cities.
Today, years later, she drives as a high-speed courier between the small farming towns in the breadbasket of a new nation. She’s learning the rules of the road in the safe interior—the pony pastures—but she craves the speed and danger of the interstate. Those routes are run by the older girls…
When one of those girls shows up at just the right time, Perth’s opportunity to move up arrives. But can she handle it? Is she willing to trade safety for speed? And really, how much worse can it be out there?
This is a KINDLE SHORT READ (90-120 minutes) and begins the Revolutions Per Mile series.
And here’s the introduction to Perth.
The long ribbon of pavement brought me to this place when I was fifteen. It chewed on my leg like a feral dog for two years until I was old enough and talented enough to get behind the wheel and tame it. Once I tasted the road, I bled gasoline.
I now live in high plains Kansas. It’s an island of safety between the glowing nuclear pyres. Girls my age must work to survive, same as everyone else. My unfortunate sisters have to toil in the fields or wrench in garages. They go slow.
I’m one of the lucky few: I spend my life going fast as a courier. I feel the wind through my hair. I get to see what’s over the horizon. I do everything in the top gear. Without us drivers, this place would be nothing more than tumbleweeds and hawks.
I never look back, except for my dad. He perished with the rest of the world. Truth be told, I wanted to die with him. But some days, when I drive very fast, he returns to me. Tells me I’m pushing too hard.
He always forgets. Out here, there’s no slowing down.
These aren’t full-length books (my Sirens books are about 300 pages a piece. These are more like 70) but they are full-length stories. I have plans to write full-length books in this world. I already have 3 short stories plus two larger books sketched out on my idea pad. As a writer I have to keep testing the market to see what readers enjoy. Their interest and mine crossed with the Since the Sirens books. Perhaps the same will happen with these.
I hope you enjoy them.
E.E. Isherwood
April 20, 2016
