K.D. McAdams Evacuation Guest Post + Giveaway

Please welcome today's guest author K.D. McAdams!  K.D. is the author of The Seamus Chronicles (Annihilation, Evacuation).

Keep reading for a chance to win a Seamus Chronicles ebook!

What’s in your planetary go bag?

Food, water and a 3-D printer may be keys to survival.

What if Earth was going down the tubes and you had to Evacuate the planet? What would you put in your go bag?

Thanks to the Mayan apocalypse and the popular Doomsday Preppers show on National Geographic the concept of a survival “Go-bag” has gained mainstream understanding. Survival experts can debate the best contents for one of these go bags but in general they contain food, water, security and some protection from the elements. The idea is that when civilization goes down the tubes you grab the go bag on your way out the door and use its contents to survive.

Here on Earth a go bag has to help you get by. Get by until order is restored. Get by until you can make a supply trip to a safe place. But if you have to leave Earth you can’t just get by, you have to start over. You could bring plenty of stuff, but what happens when you run out? Even if you brought enough of something to last your lifetime what would your ancestors do?

Our world is littered with finished goods. Even after an electromagnetic pulse or a collapse of the world financial markets if you needed a nail, screw or fastener you could find one with just a few minutes of looking. You may have to recycle or up cycle it from a previous use, but it’s there. Even a straight or flat piece of wood is only a few miles away from the places in America where most people live.

Imagine building something without screws, nails or dimensional lumber.

Many of us are familiar with assembling things from furniture to power tools, but can you manufacture anything? Given a tree, can you make a straight board? The earliest pieces of steel are four thousand years old, but could you smelt ore?

Following directions from Ikea doesn’t mean you can make furniture.

There are a few things I’m on the fence about; seeds (would they grow?), weapons (will they work) and a bicycle (can it carry enough?) for example. Given unlimited space these would certainly make it but space will be tight. For the purposes of this exercise lets assume you are leaving Earth in Nissan Maxima; doors, windows and trunk have to close. What do you bring?

You need to figure out all the firsts. The first mill, the first sewer system, the first farm all things that won’t fit in your bag. So in addition to food and water here are five things that I would bring if I had to bug out from Earth and start over on another planet.

1.    A tent. The new planet will likely have a different weather system and you’ll need to protect against hot or cold.
2.    Basic hand tools. Hammer, shovels, axes etc.
3.    A hand crank or pedal generator for electricity
4.    A 3-D printer. You can make some of the core pieces needed to build almost anything.
5.    A tablet loaded with manufacturing how-to documents; How to build a sawmill, How to build an iron mill, How to make plastic etc.

What would you bring if you had to bug out from Earth and start over on another planet?

Evacuation (The Seamus Chronicles #2) by K.D. McAdams.

They have only one chance for survival, leave... the planet.

The virus that wiped out most of the human race is adapting to defeat the vaccine and kill the survivors. There is a government response protocol but it will kill them too, it involves a nuclear winter. The NASA scientists believe they can leave Earth and achieve faster than light travel, but Seamus doesn’t want to slog through space. He knows that to survive they have to go somewhere fast. To save them all he needs to invent a warp drive and evacuate the planet.

Release Date: March 7, 2014
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Thank you K.D. for joining us here today at From the Shadows!

To learn more about K.D. McAdams and his books, please visit his website.

***The Seamus Chronicles Ebook Giveaway***

We are giving away an ebook copy of Annihilation or Evacuation (winner's choice of The Seamus Chronicles book 1 or 2) to one lucky winner!

To enter, leave a comment on this post (please include your email address so we may contact you if you win).  This giveaway is INTERNATIONAL.  Giveaway ends March 31, 2014 midnight EST.  Good luck!

So, what would you put in your planetary go bag?