Shrader Marks and Keelhouse

Author Rob Smith draws from his studies of ancient societies and cultural anthropology to illustrate the vulnerability of a technology-based way of life. He does this through a fictional account of a group of family sailors who escape a sudden communal collapse which followed an asteroid strike in the southern hemisphere. While the story is speculative fiction, it is based on well-documented precedent. Geological evidence shows scars of an event about sixty-six million years ago when an asteroid strike led to an extinction event that erased the non-avian dinosaurs. Even today, it is estimated that about 17,000 meteorites reach the surface of the earth each year. Most of these "space rocks" go unnoticed, but astrophysicists are on the alert for larger asteroids and calculate their chances at colliding with the planet. The result of such a collision may not be sizeable enough to generate mass extinction, but could render useless those essential technologies of modern life.

This story is not a manual for survivalists. It is an exploration into values which sustain healthy societies. It celebrates the life-giving sensibility of communities which honor egalitarian leadership and the worth of its members.

Shrader Marks and Keelhouse: Revised Edition is a double novel that explores the psychological twists of those who would survive it, and how the technologies of stone-age life might even provide more hope than the twenty-first century fascination for silicon chips and nature defying lifestyles. While the main body of this saga was previously published as Shrader Marks: Keelhouse, this Revised Edition contains an extended glossary.