As I hastened through Covent Garden, Blackfriars and Billingsgate, more and more people joined the painful exodus. Sad, weary women, their children stumbling and streaked with tears, their men bitter and angry, the rich rubbing shoulders with beggars and outcasts. Dogs snarled and whined, the horses’ bits were covered with foam… and here and there were wounded soldiers, as helpless as the rest. We saw tripods wading up the Thames, cutting through bridges as though they were paper - Waterloo Bridge, Westminster Bridge… One appeared above Big Ben.
Never before in the history of the world had such a mass of human beings moved and suffered together. This was no disciplined march - it was a stampede - without order and without a goal, six million people unarmed and unprovisioned, driving headlong. It was the beginning of the rout of civilization, of the massacre of mankind.
Cities had become puddles of glass, surrounded by vast acreages of broken stone. While nations had vanished from the earth, the lands littered with bodies, both men and cattle, and all manner of beasts, together with the birds of the air and all things that flew, all things that swam in the rivers, crept in the grass, or burrowed in holes; having sickened and perished, they covered the land, and yet where the demons of the Fallout covered the countryside, the bodies for a time would not decay, except in contact with fertile earth. The great clouds of wrath engulfed the forests and the fields, withering trees and causing the crops to die. There were great deserts where once life was, and in those places of the Earth where men still lived, all were sickened by the poisoned air, so that, while some escaped death, none was left untouched; and many died even in those lands where the weapons had not struck, because of the poisoned air.
Description of episode one:
“Britain is in the grip of a deadly flu virus, which is now spreading throughout the world. When people start dying in their millions, a handful of survivors are left struggling to stay alive as society crumbles around them.
Abby Grant is a housewife and mother who begins the desperate search for her son. On her journey she meets a variety of people whom fate has spared.
The new world could be a dangerous place, and their only hope is to stick together.”
Fallout 3 and Oblivion
Okay, I’ve just been reading through user reviews for Fallout 3 and it’s depressing me.
Two reasons:
1. This is a bloody awesome game. Also: Securom is only used to check the disk is in the machine, not as some all-pervading spyware monitoring your every keystroke. Also: This thing boots up in a matter of seconds, and loads games quicker. There are no annoying loading screens or advertisements. Also: The game is amazing, conjuring up an effortless post-apocalyptic feel. It gives me the shivers at times. Also: Seriously, what the heck do you people WANT?! Come on…
(maybe that was more than one reason…)
2. Since when did Oblivion become a byword for “shit”? Oblivion was not a shit game. Seriously. Reading some of these reviews you’d think it was the most maligned game in existence. STOP IT! For goodness’ sake. Oblivion was an excellent, though flawed, epic. I’m not saying you can’t have a different opinion, but there seems to be some sort of hysteria spreading throughout user reviews which means its pretty much expected that you’ll take a swing or two at Oblivion in your Fallout 3 review. Just. Say. No…
Every morning they were counting every thing to see if any thing ben took off in the nite. How many goats how many cows how many measurs weat and barly. Cudnt stop ther counting which wer clevverness and making mor the same. They said, ‘Them as counts counts moren them as dont count.’
Counting counting they wer all the time. They had iron then and big fire they had towns of parpety. They had machines et numbers up. They fed them numbers and they fractiont out the Power of things. They had the Nos. of the rain bow and the Power of the air all workit out with counting which is how they got boats in the air and picters on the wind. Counting clevverness is what it wer.
When they had all them things and marvelsome they cudnt sleap realy they dint have no res. They wer stressing ther self and straining all the time with counting.
“
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Part of “Why the Dog Won’t Show It’s Eyes” from Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban.
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Abandonment and urban decay
“James Howard Kunstler follows the people of a small New York town through an eventful summer, as they struggle with life after a series of global catastrophes.”
