Re:Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? (2019)
by krrrh on Monday December 07, 2020 @05:53PM
(#25338847)
Anyone who’s tried to shoot a sawed off shotgun from a bicycle knows how right you are. Thinking about the highway scenes in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and my own run-ins with gangs of street urchins in Berlin, you’re also vulnerable to attack on a bicycle in a way that you’re not in a vehicle or even on a horse. Post apocalyptic literature is as much about the fear of being hunted as being the hunter.
Re:Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? (2019)
by taneq on Monday December 07, 2020 @05:50PM
(#25338818)
> Squeaking down a deserted highway in a rickety ill-fitting bike, knees akimbo, does not cut quite as dramatic a figure even if it is infintely more realistic.
This is basically how Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts starts. :P
Because most post-apocalyptic media is individualism wish fulfillment porn. In most of those stories, the world has been destroyed because being that way serves to elevate the power and agency of the hero(es). Look at how bad ass they are to be able to thrive even in a world that bad!
Mowing down zombies in a Winnebago tricked out to be a rolling prepper bomb shelter is empowering and fun. Squeaking down a deserted highway in a rickety ill-fitting bike, knees akimbo, does not cut quite as dramatic a figure even if it is infintely more realistic.