Writer & Novelist Neal Stephenson recounts stories from cultures preserving the memory of unusually long winters, possibly caused by volcanic eruptions on the other side of the planet.1949
“What in the world was that?” said Philip at last. “An earthquake? Gosh, I was scared!”
“Oh, Philip! This mountain isn’t a volcano, is it?” said Lucy-Ann, gazing up at it fearfully.
“Of course not! You’d know a volcano all right if you saw one!” said Jack. “This is a perfectly ordinary mountain—and goodness knows why it should have rumbled like that, and trembled beneath us. It gave me a horrible feeling.”
“I told you I had one of my ‘feelings’ about this mountain,” said Lucy-Ann. “Didn’t I? I feel very queer about it. I want to go back to the farm-house and not stay here.”
“So do we all,” said Philip. “But we shouldn’t know the way, Lucy-Ann. It isn’t as if we’d followed a track—we left the track as you know, and part of the way we were in thick mist—we shouldn’t have the faintest idea of the way.”
“I know you’re right,” said Lucy-Ann. “But I don’t like this mountain—especially when it starts to rumble and shake! What made it?”
Nobody knew. They got up, cleared away the meal and went to splash in the little stream. The wind suddenly began to blow rather chilly, and, looking up, the children saw that big clouds were coming up from the south-west.
The Mountain of Adventure by Enid Blyton
Without complaining, Magda relinquished Rosa’s teats, first the left, then the right; both were cracked, not a sniff of milk. The duct-crevice extinct, a dead volcano, blind eye, chill hole, so Magda took the corner of the shawl and milked it instead.
Some people believe the painting below is inspired by the rapid industrialisation of England in the early nineteenth century.
The End of the World (1851–53) by John Martin (1789–1854)Mirko Rački, ‘City of Dis’, 1906Volcano of Vengeance Baffling Mysteries November 1951Baffling Mysteries magazine cover art September 1953 “You have dared witness the lava men’s sacred rites! Now the memory shall be burned from your minds through the ritual of cleansing flame!Troy Nesbit The Indian Mummy Mystery 1954Troy Nesbit The Indian Mummy Mystery 1954J.R.R. Tolkien (1892 – 1973) 1937 The Front Gate illustration for The HobbitNicola Bayley (born 1949) 1976 illustration for ‘The Tyger Voyage’ by Richard AdamsHannes Bok, pseudonym for Wayne Francis Woodard (1914 – 1964)Ponies of Mykillengi (1966) by Lonzo Anderson, art by Adrienne AdamsMount Vesiuvus erupts over the city of Pompeiipresumably before 1944
CONTEMPORARY FICTION SET IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND (2023)
On paper, things look fine. Sam Dennon recently inherited significant wealth from his uncle. As a respected architect, Sam spends his days thinking about the family needs and rich lives of his clients. But privately? Even his enduring love of amateur astronomy is on the wane. Sam has built a sustainable-architecture display home for himself but hasn’t yet moved into it, preferring to sleep in his cocoon of a campervan. Although they never announced it publicly, Sam’s wife and business partner ended their marriage years ago due to lack of intimacy, leaving Sam with the sense he is irreparably broken.
Now his beloved uncle has died. An intensifying fear manifests as health anxiety, with night terrors from a half-remembered early childhood event. To assuage the loneliness, Sam embarks on a Personal Happiness Project:
