HOW TO SURVIVE AN APOCALYPSE

Two podcasters offer basic tips for young people caught in a variety of dangerous situations—from hurricanes and civil unrest to alien invasions and giant asteroid strikes.

“Let’s be real,” the authors write, recommending a flashlight as essential for scaring off wild animals or werewolves. They list other essentials to pack in a lightweight go bag that would be useful in any sort of emergency while reeling off general guidelines on how to prepare for and behave in a broad range of catastrophes. Some, like invasions of aliens or demons, are entertainingly improbable, but several—power blackouts, natural disasters, and riots, for instance—are too uncomfortably plausible to be treated, as they are here, in such a superficial way…even if the green-skinned zombie and alien on the title page, plus an early reference to household tech going murderously rogue, should be enough to give the game away. Stebleva plays along with melodramatic scenes of devastated landscapes, wildfires, angry rioters, and supernatural frights. All the while, racially diverse young survivors busily stock elaborate underground bunkers, flee or take shelter (as circumstances warrant), defiantly face a zombie attack, and, on the final spread, gather to repair and rebuild in the postapocalyptic aftermath.

Thrilling reading for armchair survivalists.