Christopher Brown – Failed State Transcript
Note: This transcript was automatically generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and therefore typos may be present.
Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
Hey folks Rob McNealy here. And today, I’m going to be taking a little deviation from our normal kind of interviews. And I’m talking to author Chris Brown. He’s the author of failed state. And this is a kind of dystopian novel. And, you know, I don’t only cover books and novels on this show, but I think the topic that he addresses in a very clear and concise way has a lot of parallels to what we’re seeing out there in the world in the economy today. And I thought his take was really, really interesting, and I thought he was worth having on the show. So Chris Brown, welcome to the show. How are you today?
Christopher Brown – Failed State
I’m doing great, Rob. Thanks for having me on.
Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
Well, I appreciate you coming out. You’ve written some interesting fears. So I’m really want to hear you know what got you into this. But tell me a little about yourself. How did you get into being an author?
Christopher Brown – Failed State
I mean, I’ve been writing science for Rob, probably for close to 20 years now, but most of it was short fiction that I was selling to magazines. And then all I guess it was in the past decade, but really about five years ago that I started really trying my hand at writing novels. And I didn’t set out to write dystopian novels. But I wanted to write a novel that explored the scenario of what would it look like if we really had like a popular uprising in the United States? At the time, I was beginning to work on the book that became my my novel tropic of Kansas. occupy was kind of still in the air there was even like an occupy camp, and an old neon plant across the street from the place where I live in a kind of industrial neighborhood in Austin, Texas. And the Arab Spring was happening. I was like, what would that be like? What happened here and then immediately realized, well, that day happened here things would have to get a lot worse. And and imagining that scenario of things getting a lot worse, didn’t really turn out to be that hard because you can look at both kind of emergent trends in the world around you. And you know, available known history. And pretty quickly imagine scenarios where things could go a little loco so so it tropic of Kansas I imagined, which I wrote not 2013 2014 I imagined a charismatic CEO becoming a kind of authoritarian president. And there being a variety of factors that contributed to kind of a breakdown and then an uprising and in failed state which is the kind of follow on to that as well as the follow on to my novel last year, rule of capture, it takes in a little bit of a different direction it’s a kind of a little bit more utopian. I’m imagining like, okay, after we have the collapse of the American nation state, something that, to me feels like it’s a could plausibly happen. You know, the, the, the idea of the nation state is a kind of a 500 year old business model was starting to show its a turn into creak at the seams and various of its contemporary iterations. And I said, this is kind of like utopian legal thrillers like you might say, like Better Call Saul meets Mad Max, about a guy trying to play off to different factions that are trying to build a better future and, and kind of to the ultimate answer to your question. I’m interested in science fiction because I’m interested in that idea of like imagining what a better future looks like. I’m interested in the sort of literature of the possible and the idea that A lot of the really fundamental things we take for granted as kind of sacred institutions are impermanent things that have to grow and change and evolve. And and I’m interested in exploring where they can go and this particular sort of genre you know, that explores what happens in the aftermath of catastrophic events, if you will, also has the potential for a lot of fun and you know, a bit of adventure.
Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
So I think you brought up an interesting point is that, you know, things do change in it’s part of the human condition, though, that we hate that. And I always tell people change is the most natural, you know, thing that always is happening, change is always happening. Yet humans hate it. It’s like, and to me, I think, I don’t know if we just, you know, don’t want to believe that or we are just in the West. At least raised to believe that change is bad. But people hate change. People really, I think tend to like routine. And I think they get really freaked out when things happen. And things can change very quickly. And I think, you know, here in the West, especially in the United States, we’ve had probably compared to most in all of history, we’ve had a really good run a lot of stability in one place as big as it is, for a long time. And that’s actually pretty unusual. You know, if you look at a country having stability as long as the US mostly has. And so to me, I think just almost, it’s almost inevitable, that we’re going to have some big changes, probably in my lifetime in the United States, because that’s just we’re gonna host it. It’s just a statistics thing, right? It just over time, things will morph and change. And I think a lot of people view that as dystopian in your books before we get into new failed state and kind of the aftermath What would you see? or what have you been writing about as far as what do you see as the central story themes of the things that cause or could cause failure in the United States?
Christopher Brown – Failed State
Oh, that’s a great question Robin and it’s varied and each book kind of tries to tackle a different theme. tropic of Kansas, the first book really focuses in on the appetite for power that some people have and how the accretion of power and and to a lesser extent well, but there’s the accretion of power and a single person that kind of like a single leader or a small group of people. To quote Lord act and you know, corrupts power corrupts and leads to the erosion of institutional strength, rule of capture focused on on one level, the justice system and the ways in which it masks often through the veil of reason, a system that’s really about power and conquest and its route, the way that you know, most real property rights are ultimately founded like in this country in particular on, you know, a form of staffed or you know, power at the end of the gun to the kind of conquering of the American continent and that’s also true history of most nations of the world. failed state tries to dig into a much deeper historical problem that kind of get back gets back to your, your comment of a moment ago about the inevitability of change, and our resistance to it and that’s about the relationship we have with the natural world and the way in which I think the way that the human apprehension about change manifests itself. Most notably when you kind of step back and kind of take the vantage point of the visiting Martian is through our desire to really control the natural world around us. You know, our entire civilization is based on control, you know, control of the reproduction of others, other species in particular, right, you know, pasture agriculture, grain monocultures. And, and all of these things we do to like, put the natural world in our service to sustain the growth of our population. And, and I think, again, you see in some of our current issues, the potential for crisis that can come out of an imbalance in relationship with the natural world. And so those are the kinds of Yeah, those are some of the kinds of core trajectories that I’m trying to look at as failure points and the kind of contemporary Yeah, it the edges of contemporary civilization that I think are showing real strain and that are fun to explore, as fictional counterfactuals
Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
so as someone who, you know, thinks about these things, probably way more than I probably should, right. I always say, when I talk to people that are like these, you know, these different groups that are you know, now they’re called glue boys are the three percenters or you know, anti far these people that are, you know, at least on different sides kind of looking toward the same? I don’t know, ultimate conflict, right, I guess is the best way to describe it. Is is something is they say, we’re going to have this conflict and I always say what are you going to do afterward and you At least my reading of history, almost never do you end up with something better. On the other side of that, from a, you know, a governmental standpoint of freedom standpoint, when there’s a revolution, rarely is there more freedoms, it’s usually less. And what would be your take on that? Where do you see things going after a collapse? I don’t even know. I mean, we can talk about some of the ideas of what specifically could cause this. But how do you see us rebuilding and where do you think that ends up going ultimately from like the freedom and, and the governmental standpoint?
Christopher Brown – Failed State
Now? Well, big question. I mean, there’s a lot to cover. There are a lot of different directions you can take that. I mean, I think you’re right about these divergent sides of the the imagined coming conflict. And they, they, they I think they all represent You know, a desire for like real change or desire for something that feels like a more authentically participatory democracy that they feel like they really have a stake in. I think both of those sides are expressing and kind of the sentiment like, they don’t feel like the current system really represents or includes them in any meaningful way. And so they turn to other means of seeking a mode of political expression or engagement and agency over their own futures. In terms of the others is saying in, in science fiction, that it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than a real change in the political system. And I think I think there’s a lot of that you find even in contemporary science fiction and And I think when you get to these failure points, Rob, it’s it’s kind of like being in science fiction is full of these imagined scenarios of imagined revolutions. I mean, Star Wars is kind of all about an imagined revolution, right? But it’s like, well, wait a minute, what happens after the Ewok party? You know, I mean, there’s never any real politics to it. There’s never any real vision of what comes after. There are lots of great works of dystopian fiction. There are masterpieces of post apocalyptic fishing fiction, but the number of like really compelling utopian, science fiction’s is like, you know, I could kind of name on it, I can, you know, listen, you know, and on two hands. And so, my own vision is that I mean, what I talked about and failed state, I’m trying to explore exactly that issue, and It’s kind of bifurcated into two sort of extremes in a way that I have playing off each other. One is a kind of like, it’s almost like the Dallas utopia version of utopia, which is like corporate sovereignty. And people kind of banding together in small quazy corporate groups to kind of have a private property based version of the future. And the other is a more like communitarian. And an ecologically based approach that’s about rewilding and kind of hacking these problems that date back to the agricultural revolution and trying to figure out workarounds to that, that provide a more sustainable future. I don’t know if either of those are really the full answer. But I think you know, I think there are ways in which we need to both the one hand harnessed The power of the contemporary technological tools that we have to aid us in solving our problems, but at the same time, rediscovering authentic structures of community that I think have been a largely lost and kind of post World War Two world. And, and so kind of a mix of like the hyper modern or the cyber modern and the kind of modern primitive defined our new way.
Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
Family structures is interesting, you know, in the United States. And I’m not sure where it went wrong, what why we don’t have for instance, multi generational families for the most part anymore. And that used to be a very important part of, you know, the American structure and many world many places, but the United States we seem to have gotten away from that. And I do think that’s a problem in a lot of respects. And I think, you know, the building blocks of community are Basically family groups first, right? And then they expand out where you get multiple families kind of living together and you create these villages. What do you think the stumbling block is to why we don’t go back to that, why? Why did we leave that multi generational family structure in the United States?
Christopher Brown – Failed State
Well, we’re kind of uprooted from connection to place in a really profound way. And I think the modern economy really accelerates that. And if you look at kind of pre industrial societies, people tended to live their entire lives in close proximity to their dead ancestors. Talking about multi generational families, you would live in the place where you would be connected through place and as the like repository of the trajectory of all of the people in your bloodline that had come before you. Right and And that, by its nature by bringing a lot of people together around this shared place would create a sense of air quotes family that was broader, and that would encompass Yeah, multiple generations of your living blood relatives and even other members of your community. Right. And we’re kind of tied together and a kind of a kinship. You know, now, I mean, you know, I think like my own life, I mean, I grew up in Iowa and went to high school in New Hampshire and went to college in Louisiana and lived in Washington, DC and studied in Europe. And now I live in Texas, I moved here with my you know, family and when we like literally didn’t know anybody, and you just start over and you’re just like, we’re like constantly cycling through social connections and friendships and familial connections in a way and and then you have the added disruption of cyber culture and network culture and of life. Kind of living online versus like living in meatspace, with real engagement in the life of your local community. Which is isn’t an intrinsically bad thing. But I think you need to have elements of both to have kind of a healthy community. So I think that’s the I think that’s the basic problem. And, and I, I feel like I don’t know, I’m sort of optimistic about those things healing themselves over time. But but maybe not until the aftermath of some kind of more intense crisis in which this condition of alienation in which somebody exists at somebody else exists now is all through an experience that makes us appreciate just how good we’ve had it and the lives of those of us who were, you know, born in the latter half of the 20th century or the beginnings of the 21st and then living rather comfortably in ways we don’t even really appreciate
Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
Well, I think, you know, even like today, we’re like, you know, I’m not trying to get political here, but like, how the country came together after, you know, 911. I mean, we really did band together in for at least some period of time, Americans were proud to be Americans and people felt like we were one country for a while. And then you come, you fast forward, you know, 20 years and you look at how now, the country is responding to say, the global pandemic with COVID. And now, you know, we’re at each other’s throats over, you know, this pandemic, and we can’t come together yet. You can look at other countries, you know, like New Zealand, comes to mind where their response to the pandemic was much more unified. They viewed themselves as Kiwis and we’re going to solve this problem. Whereas the United States somehow got politicized early on to a very, really bad level. And it’s interesting, you know, I don’t know how we fix that in this country. Like you say, without some other kind of collapse that makes people feel unified because right now I don’t think we feel unified as one culture anymore in this country.
Christopher Brown – Failed State
Yeah, I mean, there’s a wonderful book by Rebecca Solnit called Paradise Built in Hell, that takes a look at how people conduct themselves in the aftermath of catastrophe. Examples like Katrina, were the kind of the prevailing narrative of kind of Hobbes in free for all usually proves to be the opposite of what really happens, which is that people tend to help each other in those situations. And I think you see plenty of examples of that, coming out of the pandemic, notwithstanding our own kind of partisan sectarian freakout over you know, the people of the mask and the people without the mask. You know, I think you know, I hear you about 911. But I think when you look at, if you look at post 911 reality, I think you also see a kind of failure of the American narrative line in a way that is dissonant from what we expect and kind of fundamentally disappointing and, like, out of line with our own sense of identity, in a way that I think is kind of part of the problem of some of our, our current situations. I mean, the first couple of months after 911 were lives like everybody’s gonna, it’s kind of joined together and it was almost like the beginning of a Western like, we’re going to go get the bad guys and we’re going to bring them to justice. And, you know, we go and the you know, invasion of Afghanistan was kind of globally supported and, and, you know, we had, you know, Special Forces This guy’s drawing giant beards and riding horses through the desert and chasing down the bad guys and all that. And then you get to Tora Bora. And there’s this big build up, like it’s gonna be the final reel of the Western then it doesn’t happen the way it was supposed to happen. And then and then we’re just like, into this endless war and long emergency that like really has not ended, you know, and it’s, you know, 20 years is going on 20 years later, and you have, you know, lawyers can debate about the terms but you have, you know, people being tortured, you know, instead of brought in front of courts and what courts they have are these kind of like crazy, you know, military tribunals that, that they’re like martial law, fake courts. That’s actually what I use is the basis of my domestic version of such courts and rule of capture which is kind of like, you know, courtroom drama meets 1984. The financial crisis. Kinda like made people really doubt the, you know, utopian precepts of neoclassical economics. And, you know, we’ve had all these events from 2000 to 2016 to right now that make people anxious about whether like the electoral system really works. You know, like in 2000, we had an election, it was basically a statistical tie the presidential election, that’s kind of like, you wake up in the morning, you don’t know the President is Wait, this is weird, you know, and all of these things that I think create uncertainty about American identity and American reality in a way that’s unsettling for people. And so I think a lot of the current tomorrow, maybe rooted in that to some respect in the like desire to find, either to recover this identity that’s been lost, or that reality hasn’t kind of fulfilled, or to find a new identity and it’s one that feels like you have a sense of ownership of I don’t know if that makes sense, but that’s kind of my take.
Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
So In failed state, you have these kind of two factions that are trying to kind of self govern in kind of a very different way. How do those two groups coexist in the same area?
Christopher Brown – Failed State
Well, they’re like in different geographical areas, and one is and Dallas. And it’s kind of in doubt, the idea is that, you know, there’s a kind of a multifactor breakdown that that is comprised of, you know, climate failure that starts with causing, you know, failure in certain regions the Tropic of Kansas, that’s, you know, the title of the first book that’s, that’s a place it’s like a pejorative name people come up with for the kind of ecologically and economically exhausted heartland of the US and so you have like internal refugees coming to places like Texas that are a little healthier, but you have, you know, storms, you know, wiping out places like Houston and New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast. And food crisis coming from kind of farm failures, and then a political breakdown and a kind of a general uprising as things tighten up in Washington to try to kind of maintain order is all of these things are causing multiple failure points. And so by the time we get to failed state it’s like a couple of years after there’s been this uprising and the President has been removed from office by a mob and they have any male figure out someone to replace him with a they’ve like outlawed one of the political parties. And so Congress is kind of a shell of itself and, and the judicial system is kind of broken in our heroes, basically, like in state court trying to you know, it’s a rundown state court in Texas trying to settle scores of the past. And so in Dallas is like one of the places that sort of still like ecologically, essentially healthy, you know, they get bad summer storms and so on, but they’re okay and kind of lie to people. With money have gone there and and a New Orleans is basically like it got drowned and they just never even ungrounded never drained it. It’s it’s the swamp that it once was it’s kind of back and that people are living there basically the most radical of the rebels who were almost like what you would call in contemporary parlance like eco terrorists, and they’re letting the city go wild and trying to build some like green experiment from the future from the from the ruins. I mean, and but the problem at the heart of it is that there’s a solution to the food crisis, which is has to do with some GMO seeds for grain crops, and that the Dallas people have a patent on and the people in New Orleans the wacky eco poets, as my friend Paul McCauley would call them. They have gotten some copies of the seeds Now they started hacking. And that’s kind of the deeper heart of the story.
Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
How realistic Do you think that could be in the United States? You see something like this really possible?
Christopher Brown – Failed State
Um, well, I’ll make a couple of comments in that one. With each of the last two books, I wrote them, and I was like, Wow, this is so implausible. Nobody will ever buy this. And then like, stuff starts happening. I mean, like, the 2016 elections, and they kind of the, the, let’s just say that we get, again, without kind of getting into politics, just the feeling of division, and you know, what you saw in places like Charlottesville in the summer of 2017. And then, you know, and then things like Portland or Maine, you know, I thought the idea of New Orleans being an autonomous zone is sort of like pretty far out. And then you have people’s thinking, you know, big chunks of cities in the Pacific Northwest and making actual autonomous The sounds and the strengths and weaknesses of those kinds of little more micro experiments in urban self governance and you know block by block sovereignty are really interesting to watch and then you’ve got the like, stuff in Portland of these, you know, basically unidentified Border Patrol agents on the legal theory that they’re within 100 miles of the ocean aka the border from trolling you know, around federal buildings in Portland and just like showing up in crisis or grabbing grabbing people off the street without due process or an arrest like it’s Argentina 1975 or something. That’s like straight I was like, the plotter will look after I was just like, and so all summer is has been getting in my mentions, like, you know, treat me like I’m Nostradamus or sounds like oh, no, I mean, it’s just, you’re kind of like reporting what you see in a way and putting a funhouse mirror up to right The failed state stuff. I mean, I think both of the elements that I described in those different communities have elements of reality to them. I think corporate sovereignty, I mean, I have a background as a corporate lawyer, I think it’s a very real thing. I think that I mean, you look at it right now look at how investment capital is fleeing government securities, for Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, these big corporate institutions that are now viewed by like, the serious, you know, financial wizards is the one remaining like safe harbor and the storm and be that in precious metals, right? At least for people who don’t believe in crypto, right. Or who are, you know, not in a fiduciary position where they’re at liberty to put the other people’s money into crypto and so on. There’s that aspect and you have an emergent, you know, I think, Ben, what is wrote a great book a couple of years ago about how technological developments around things like drones, and you know, space based weapons, and all of these things are giving individuals access to the means of kind of military production that has never before existed in human history. There’s interesting stuff there, I think. And then on the kind of rewilding side, I mean, I think that’s happening all over the place. I mean, I’ve done it right here at my own house. It’s like taking a lot that was a rundown petroleum Brownfield where there was a pipeline used to run through it and turning it into a restored prairie. And, and all over the Midwest and kind of the Mountain West people are doing these kinds of experiments and trying to bring back something like the conditions that existed before and in the American context. That’s kind of like relatively easy. To do because really the history of the putting our landscape under the plow or into pasture is really relatively short. And most of the plants are still there and pockets and little fire and a little latitude. It’s pretty easy for that to come back. And people like the Land Institute up in Salina, Kansas are doing really interesting experiments with taking the Native American grasses that are like really attuned to recharging the soil with really deep roots and complex kind of micro raizel and rhizomatic structures, and hybridizing those with the major grain crops that are the core of our food system to create like really Hardy, you know, apocalypse re wheats, if you will. So I think there’s a lot of truth to that. There’s a narrative convenience Kind of like, you know, you know, having it like two warring gangs, right? That part maybe is a little bit of a stretch. But that’s the idea is that the, to me those like, two dipoles of like our experimental possibilities as a country do so solve our own problems without relying on government to help us because I really don’t think regardless of your politics, I just don’t think, you know, the system that was invented in the 1780s is necessarily the path to the future. looking, looking to these other examples for a toolkit of real change, I think is a way to build you know, elements of a plausible, plausibly interesting future you might actually want to live in.
Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
So you talk a little bit about this whole corporate kind of, you know, team pride, you know, corporate kind of like a corporatist Kind of genre and we I would view that as like a centralized entity. I’m wondering if there’s a third rail is there can you have elements of both and I mean this from I look at it from a you know cryptocurrency blockchain decentralized technologies descending like a down tenement like a dow and you know it’s funny because you know I put together every year we have a conference here in Salt Lake called off chain that’s a mixture of self reliance crypto and prepping and those and we kind of bring those two kind of topics together and mash them up and in a lot of these conversations like to me I’m I’m a capitalist I like you know, I’m an entrepreneur, but I also have an urban homestead you know, we have big garden you know, we have irrigation like you’d Laffy sama most people would don’t even know what’s in my backyard because it looks like a, you know, full blown farm at my house. But I’m also a big believer in decentralized systems and technologies and I’m wondering, is it Going forward in the United States, are these new thousand decentralized organizations that are starting to come out of the blockchain world? Is that a different rail that could maybe go to the future?
Christopher Brown – Failed State
I mean, yes, I think distributed modes of social and economic and political organization are, are kind of a fundamental part of that future. And in fact, in traffic of Kansas. I mean, when I set out to write that novel, it was kind of all about that about the idea of like, distributed democracy that was like more network based and like distributed direct democracy that broke down the centralized systems of the, you know, the 1780s constitution in favor of something that had a lot in common with the kinds of ideas that you see articulated through things like, you know, experiments with dows. And, and in the context of the pandemic, I mean, corporate life, you know, the organization of entrepreneurship is like, really super distributed now. And we’re saying like, you know, independently of, you know, people building those kinds of systems on the blockchain, you have people who are really proving the capacity of productive activity on a cooperative, collaborative corporatized basis being done kind of in a way that’s totally uncoupled from geography from physical presence. And, and I think that that’s, I think that’s interesting. What I concluded writing traffic of Kansas, through the eyes of my characters who were kind of dealing with very similar problems is we’re dealing with real world is that those kinds of Organizational innovations play a really important role. But you’re not able to really take full advantage of them unless you first take care of the ecological problems that are the kind of the really the root causes and mentioned the injustice is in the inequality in our society.
Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
I think it’s interesting, and you hit on a good point there is that these distributed systems now, you know, allow us to be more geography independent. And, you know, my wife and I had that as a goal, you know, 10 years ago that we wanted to be geography independent for our livelihood, because we like to travel and we like the flexibility and freedom that that gives us. And I’m wondering is if some of this, these distributed technologies that we’re seeing even just like talking a resume like we’re doing right now, allow for people to go Back to small towns in rural America. And, you know, you tend to find that people that tend to do the higher end white collar jobs tend to have the higher education levels. So there’s like, there’s a big disparity, you know, level of education between, you know, urban areas and rural areas. And, and I’m wondering if part of this, you know, if what could come out of COVID, in this pandemic is people one, learning that they can be productive from home or from a different location, and how that might, you know, be part of the seeds that are going to grow into a new society going forward? I personally would rather live in the country myself, and hopefully in a couple of years, you know, we will move on from where we live, but I’m just wondering, is it Where does it you know, if the pandemics and interesting pivot point right now, I see that..
Christopher Brown – Failed State
I think I think that’s a really great and insightful point. Rob is, I think I think there’s some there really is something there because that that you know, small town America again, going back to the book, tropic of Kansas. I mean, that’s partly about just how like, I mean, if you go you drive through the rural Midwest, like where my folks live in southern Iowa, there are a lot of towns all over the heartland and the rust belt that the 21st century is kind of left behind. There have a lot of empty and beautiful but empty buildings and you know, places that feel a lot more Mad Max than anybody would care to really admit and that are really ready for some fresh infusions of people and economic and cultural vitality. And that you know, are still full of good people, those who are hardworking and and i think that the there are many examples have places like that, in the past 20 years that have started to occur. I mean, there’s a kind of a an odd one and Texas which is the town of Marfa, which, you know, basically got taken over by artists by like, high end you know, New York conceptual artists, people like that kind of sculpture and conceptual artist Donald Judd. And that took a town that was historically just a, you know, cattle ranching town, you know, in the, in the kind of way down to the Big Bend region of West Texas. Right before the, you know, the last network connection runs out and turned it into this incredibly vital place where the legacy community and the kind of new inhabitants have created something really interesting. And you’re starting to see that in some allies like little towns closer to Austin, where similar things are happening in the Midwest. You have a lot of people starting to Yeah, I mean, you know, move out to these kind of outer like bedroom communities but which are like small towns and I think that the potential that represents to help people escape from the debt prison of home mortgages, and these things that I think are really like the enemies of freedom that people get really hooked on by our kind of socio economic model. Those are the things that keep people chained to the treadmill and limit people’s life options and if you can go to you know, get people around the idea that like you could go to some small town and buy an old building or a beautiful house and repurpose it for your own needs and, and also in the process also become part of a small enough community where you can kind of really know your neighbors and sort of, on the one hand, be participating through networks. You know, electronic communications networks and some kind of national economic or global economic and cultural life, but also be part of like, a real, vibrant community. I think there’s tremendous possibility there.
Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
Well, I try to be optimistic about the future, as much as I do see, challenging times coming ahead. For a lot of people, I think there’s going to be a lot of opportunity for those that are flexible and adaptable and embrace the changes that are coming, because they are coming. There’s no doubt about that. We’re not living I don’t believe we’re living a sustainable culture in the United States right now in a lot of different levels. So are you working on any other books? what’s the what’s the next book idea you got coming out?
Christopher Brown – Failed State
I think for the next book, I’m gonna be doing a different take on the novel of catastrophe. One that’s not so much about kind of failure political systems, but really engaging with our relationship with nature. A kind of Almost like eco horror, if you will, a kind of horror novel in which the thing that’s scary is our fear of the future, especially our fear of the climate future. We have a kind of rich literature out there. There’s a story type in science fiction called the cozy catastrophe where there’s, you know, a good weather sort of one or a small group of survivors who usually are, you know, kind of affluent, educated people and the world has ended and everybody’s dying off, but there’s a few people that seem to actually be kind of well prepared and having a good time of it. You think of like all those Charleton Heston movies from the 60s and 70s, like the Omega man where it’s, you know, it’s like apocalypse is fantasy, which I don’t think I don’t think those fish really entirely tell the truth. But they’re interesting and they make good story. And I want to take that kind of story type and turn it on its head. So that’s what I’m working on now. So I’m reading a lot of these great novels of catastrophe right now. Especially have like climate catastrophe and from Maven across different cultures and it’s a pretty interesting undertaking. But in the meantime, I’m just launching failed state and trying to connect with readers about that new book which is you know, people can find about on my website Christopher brown calm or in any any any bookstore, online or in real life as it were. You beat me to the
Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
punch, I was gonna ask you, where can people get the book? But I will have all those links available as well as all your socials up at Rob McNealy calm. And Chris Brown, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I’ve really enjoyed talking with you.
Christopher Brown – Failed State
Thanks so much for having me. Rob. It was a really interesting conversation.
Rob McNealy – RobMcNealy.com
I think we’ll do it again. Let me know when the next book comes out. We’ll have you back on.
Christopher Brown – Failed State
All right, right on it was a blast. I hope you have a great weekend. Thank you.
