Ragnarok, a Plausible Future

Book excerpt: Cole has crafted a provocative narrative, a What if? if our feel-good social structure were to "change" abruptly and drastically. How would otherwise successful people in the Petroleum Economy survive in a global upheaval; how might communities develop and evolve in such a time? He challenges the reader to think in ways antithetical to our current paradigm. Using the Old Norse saga of the Fall of the Gods as metaphor, Cole traces the rigors and privations people must endure in a post-Apocalypse world, maintaining cautious optimism for humanity's survival in this story set in the near-future Pacific Northwest.