Doomsday Machines will be launching in July
Post-Apocalyptic Road Trips, End of the World-Building, and Interesting Times, coming very soon
Doomsday Machines is a new Substack newsletter from Alex Wellerstein that is launching in July 2024 which will explore the post-apocalyptic imagination in fact and fiction.
Final decisions are being made about how it will work, but the current plan is for at-least-weekly posts, each of which will be in one of the following categories:
Post-Apocalyptic Road Trips: Discussions of self-consciously fictional media (novels, films, games, etc.) portraying post-apocalyptic worlds, analyzed for their themes, tropes, and historical context.
Interesting Times: Profiles and analysis of historical documents, events, plans, and so on, relating to apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic conditions, which are not self-consciously fictional (however “imaginary” or “unreal” they may be). For example, discussions of US government nuclear war plans, or nuclear war survival plans.
End of the World-Building: Posts related to the development of the Oregon Road ‘83 post-apocalyptic video game that I’ve been working on for several years, ranging from things that are very strictly in the category of “game design,” as well as things that are really about creating a coherent conception of the underlying world.
Doominations: Conversations between me and various smart, interesting people I’ve met over the years who generally think about some aspects of the end of the world for a living. You know, as one does.
There will also be Mutually Assured Distractions (brief posts on interesting imagery; a post-apocalyptic Pinterest, perhaps) sprinkled in along with these regular sections. Each section will be its own sub-newsletter that can be subscribed to or unsubscribed from individually. Most of these will be written by me, but I’m excited about having guest contributors as well.
Sound like your cup of tea? Then Subscribe now, and you’ll be alerted the minute it goes live:
Once subscribed, you’ll continue to get the posts delivered to your e-mail inbox (or you can always find the blog at doomsdaymachines.net).
All of the posts in the above categories will always be free and un-paywalled. There will be some bonus content for people who have the means and desire to support this effort financially, but it is absolutely not required or expected in any case.
If you think this sounds interesting, considering sharing it with others — as Dr. Strangelove reminds us, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost if you keep it a secret! So make sure the tell the world, eh!?
More news and details coming soon. We’ll all go together when we go.
