Read Apocalyptic Fiction During the Apocalypse

David Hopkins is the person responsible for my move to Dallas in 2004. I was writing for an online magazine that he edited. I made friends with this small group of thinkers here; I even came out to visit them before I moved to Europe. When that adventure quickly concluded, it just made sense to come here for a little while. 16 years later…


He recently released a new novel in three parts. Here’s the first part, which is free. Like drugs.

It’s a zombie-infested, sword-swinging post-apocalyptic adventure set in Dallas. Reading it over the last few days was a surreal and scary experience. I highly recommend it.


If Douglas Coupland wrote horror

This could just as easily been a clever commentary on modern life with really interesting characters and witty, on-point dialog. But it’s not. It’s all that with the addition of pandemics, moral conflict, zombie beheadings, and several main-character casualties.

Just as with his short story collection, We Miss All the Great Parties, it is clear that David cares deeply about his characters. It’s just that this time he’s not afraid to have some of them have their faces eaten off by zombie hoards.

This series is somehow a delicious soup of Douglas Coupland, David Lynch, Wes Anderson, and Stephen King. Read it now, during our current pandemic crisis, for extra flavor.


The apocalyptic genre needs to be retitled the “It could be worse” genre. Because that’s essentially what we’re doing…we’re going, “Wow, this coronavirus is really scary, but I just read Wear Chainmail to the Apocalypse. That’s much worse.”

So much of the apocalyptic genre is about the fragility of existence.

David Hopkins

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