The Steading: A Story of Survival and New Beginnings
The Steading: A Story of Survival and New Beginnings Map for Survival Fiction Novel
This map is for The Steading by Peter Wood.
The modern world has vanished, the human race is on the verge of extinction; Mother Nature is firmly back in charge. A desperate band of survivors seeks out a place of possible safety, The Steading, hoping to carve out a new life. However, simply staying hidden is not enough, it is a battle for survival in a world which is indifferent to their plight. Will mistakes of the past be repeated, can this remnant of humanity find a different path and save itself?
This tale is set in a world similar to our own, with various Nordic and Celtic influences, at some unspecified ‘post-modern’ point in the future. Society as we know it has long since vanished and the natural world has more or less fully reasserted itself, leaving a few isolated pockets of human-existence teetering on the verge of extinction. Birth rates are very low and infant mortality very high, the cause unclear, with remaining settlements slowly withering out of existence. The story starts with a group’s desperate flight from danger, their hope being to find a new home and safety.
The story is told almost entirely without spoken dialogue, as if it is being recounted around a campfire; a tale of new beginnings, which follows a small group surviving while carving out a new life, and hoping to thrive. This style of storytelling also reflects the author’s preferred means of communication as an autistic person. In a world full of verbal communication which is often difficult to correctly interpret, you are to a large extent told what the characters are thinking and feeling.
The story is intrinsically part guide to survival and the basics of homesteading; it also sets out a more positive possibility for a future where rampant and destructive ‘modernity’ has vanished. With a natural check on the human population, Earth has become a properly functioning ecosystem and is mostly a near Eden, and not a world where humanity does as it wishes with no thought for the consequences.
Readers may recognise influences for some locations, loosely based around the breath-taking landscapes of Snowdonia and beyond, the Author’s home in North Wales.
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