Tabula Peutingeriana (Road Map of the Roman Empire, 4th century AD).

The Peutinger Table (Tabula Peutingeriana) is a copied road map of the Cursus Publicus, the Roman road network, and its origins are from maps that potentially date from the 4th century AD. It may have been derived from the Porticus Vipsaniae monument of ancient Rome, or they could share a similar origin. The current available copy is a 16th century printed copy of a 13th century manuscript, it is named after the Peutinger family who kept the map until 1714. The last surviving member of the Peutinger family Desiderius Ignatius Peutinger "parted with it to a bookseller of Augsburg of the name of Kutz" (Valpy & Barker (Editors) 53 : 1821) .

Section of Mediterranean, showing parts of Italy, Sicily, North Africa and Dalmatia.

A scan of the whole Peutinger table, with reconstructions of the Iberian peninsula is below.

Reconstructed Peutinger Table.

The road network covers most of the Mediterranean basin and contains representations of travel times in days by hook marks and the location of rest stops. The map also contains representations of the Near East,  India and the Ganges River and an indication of the far East. The elaborate decoration of the three major Roman cities of Rome, Constantinople and Antioch and the prominence of Ravenna assist in a chronology of the iteration of its copies. The presence of Pompeii, destroyed in 79 AD is potentially anachronistic.

The twelfth century copy of this map is described by Emily Albu (2011) as being part of an argument against the centrality of  papal Rome by placing ancient Rome as a center piece of the Byzantine world view oikoumene, which suited the Swabian producers of the twelfth century version of the map (Albu 495 : 2011). Medieval Catholics tended to see Jerusalem as the religious center of the world, Medieval Orthodox Christians perceived Constantinople as their religious center but perceived a heritage descending from ancient Rome. Emily Albu (498 : 2011) presents evidence of this in a quote from Anna Comnene in the Alexiad (I.13.4),

"The truth is that when power was transferred from Rome to our country and the Queen of Cities, not to mention the senate and the whole administration, the senior archbishopiric was also transferred here. From the beginning the emperors have acknowledged the primacy of the Constantinopolitan bishop and the Council of Chalcedon especially raised that bishop to the place of highest honour and subordinated to him all diocese throughout the world" (Alexiad 1.13.4) (Albu 498 : 2011).

This was part of a argument against Pope Gregory VII (1073 -1085) who was allied with Robert Guiscard, duke of Apulia and Calabria and the Norman enemy of Alexios Komnenos and the Byzantine Empire. Anna Comnene describes them both sarcastically as "the man of peace, too, and the disciple of the Man of Peace" (Alexiad 1.13.7) (Albu 500 : 2011).

Emily Albu indicates (2011) that Anna Comnene's regrettably venomous prose represents the prevailing views of twelfth century Constantinople (Albu 501 : 2011), with significant anti papal sentiments, inflamed by increasing papal power and an assertion of universal (Catholicism) claims of authority over Christian diocese. Lars Brownworth, in a December 2009 lecture at the Smithsonian Institute, during an interesting digression, speculated that because the Western Roman Empire had only one major city, Rome, which was the Western Roman Empires dominant diocese that the decision making network associated with the Catholic Pope tended to reach more autocratic conclusions, while the Eastern Roman Empire had four major Roman cities, each a separate diocese, so that despite the authoritarian nature of the power structure of Eastern Roman Empire, the decision making network may have been more about discussion and the development of consensus, but this was a conjecture only. A major theme in Lars Brownworth's December 2009 Smithsonian Institute lecture was, Byzantines during the Crusades were diplomatic, while the Western Crusaders were engaged in "Holy War", not so much about diplomacy and thus this theme may have influenced his digression. The political situation of Pope Gregory VII may actually be used to argue against this conjecture, Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor of the Salian line (1024 -1125), appointed Clement III as an oppositional Pope.

The script on the Peutinger Table indicates a writer educated in Swabia working between 1175 and 1225, the domain of the Hohestaufen German " Holy Roman" Emperors who struggled against the Papacy of Rome. Frederick Barbarossa was elected "King of the Romans" by German princes in 1152 and this Hohenstaufen line sought legitimacy for this title by claiming the imperial title held by Charlemagne and Otto the Great (Albu 507 : 2011). Though Frederick Barbarossa was reluctantly coronated by Pope Adrian IV in 1155 the Hohestaufen line eventually found itself in opposition to the papacy, significantly Pope Innocent III (1198 -1216). This would eventually lead to the puplic execution of Conradin, the last of the Hohenstaufen line in 1268 (Albu 508 : 2011). Internal evidence on the map suggests that the map was made during Pope Innocent III's papacy (1198 -1216), after the sack of Constantinople in 1204 by the fourth Crusade lead by Boniface of Montferrat (Albu 508 : 2011). Jerusalem is designated Aelia Capitolina, its Roman name but the map also features a depiction of the Mount of Olives, a Christian feature (Albu 509 : 2011). The swabian scriptorium has capitalized place names that have lost their opening letters (Albu 497 : 2011) and the tyche, personifications of fortune associated with the major cities of Rome and Constantinople resemble medieval emperors (Albu 509 : 2011).

The referred lecture/ talk at the Smithsonian Institute is a  you tube video of a lecture by Lars Brownworth. Lars Brownworth is the author of "Lost to the West : The Forgotten Byzantine Empire that rescued Western Civilization" (2010). The lecture provides a historical narrative that stretches from the 7th century of Heraclitus to the inclusion of the double headed eagle in the flag of the current Russian Federation. Lars Brownworth is the creator of "12 Byzantine Rulers" a popular series of lectures available as audio files on line, also described as "Podcast", "Webcast" educational lectures.

Bibliography

Albu, Emily. (2011). Viewing Rome from the Roman Empires. From Medieval Encounters. Volume 17. Pages 495 -511.

Brownworth, Lars. (prior 2006). 12 Byzantine Rulers : The History of the Byzantine Empire. @ http://12byzantinerulers.com. Uploaded prior 2006.  Last viewed 10-7-2013.

Brownworth, Lars. (December 2009). Lars Brownworth - Smithsonian Institute - Byzantium. @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ4ilVj1xLE. Approx 70 minutes long. Uploaded May 2011. Last viewed 10-7-2013.

Valpy, Abraham John & Barker, Edmund Henry. (Editors). (1821). The Classical Journal. Volume 23, March to June 1821. Published by the Cambridge Literary Collection. Page 53.

I Ching

Having read Phillip K Dicks "The Man in the High Tower", the centrality of the I Ching as a narrative device to maintain thematic continuity in the novel and the authors interest in it, I decided to read up on the I Ching. The I Ching can be described simply as a text used for bibliomancy as a form of divination. If you want to play with a random generator on line it's here

The I Ching 易經  (Book of Changes) is a classic book for divination used in ancient China, the surviving edition dates back to the Zhou Dynasty but there were at least three earlier editions (Hsu & Chiu 54 : 2008). It uses the symbols of Ying and Yang to designate objects and changing combinations of the two symbols to represent eight natural phenomena (the basic eight Kwas), developed by Fuxi to represent what will happen to people in eight situations. Over the period of three Dynasties (Zhou), (Xia 2070 -1600 BC), (Shang 1600 -1046 BC) the eight Kwa system was elaborated into 64 symbols with separate designations and interpretations.

Zhuxi describes the Emperor  Zhou Wenwang separated the 8 Kwas into upper Kwa and lower Kwas, creating 64 Kwa Ts'i and the Duke Zhou providing 6 Yaos per Kwa for the "divination to explain the recycling of things" (Hsu & Chiu 55 : 2008), designated Yao Ts'i.

From Hsu & Chu 2008.

Each Kwa Ts'i represents a general statement as well as a generalization of the Kwa, while the six Yao Ts'i of each Kwa are detailed explanations of the six situations. Confucius provided interpretations of the Kwa symbols with regards to education and life, a more philosophical approach and further influences over time included Taoism and Mosim. The I Ching was associated with Confucianism, thus part of an undercurrent of Late Choson thought but still essentially not popular as most Confucian scholarship in Korea focused on the "Four Books and the Book of Rites" (Wai-ming 65 : 2000) in Choson Confucianism (Wai-ming 65 :  2000) and had an increasing influence during the Tokugawa period of Japan. The Tokugawa Bakufu (徳川幕府) sought to govern along Neo-Confucian principles, which were argued in terms of rational and humanistic principles, the I Ching was associated with this so its use moved outside the temples into the wider secular educated strata of Tokugawa society (Wai-ming 568 : 1998). During the later Tokugawa period when there were attempts to separate indigenous Shinto thought by Kokugaku Shintoists from introduced Confucianism, many of the Kokugaku Shintoists were influenced by the metaphysics of the I Ching (Wai-ming 583 : 1998). Over time the interpretation and application of the I Ching has been extended to meet the historic demands of the societies where it has been a significant part of the societies intellectual repertoire.

From Guey 2012. (64 Guas = 64 Kwas)

The methodology of using the I Ching can be argued to be a methodology to access intuitive perception, modes of experience which compose two different scales of personality on the Myers-Briggs type indicator, based on Jung's typology model.  The I Ching can be described as containing a core of ancient Chinese thought that integrates the "empirical achievements of the exploration of natural and social rules in the long  historical development of Chinese civilization by summing them up into subtle philosophical thinking" (Hsu & Chiu 53 : 2008).

The I Ching focuses on change and thus the symbols and bibliomancy may contain configurations that may have an interpretive value to events. Thus Hsu & Chiu (2008) have done a study seeking to compare the I Ching's early management decision making models to "western management decision making models" (Hsu & Chiu 2008) with the conclusion that there is similarity between the I Ching's early management decision making model and Intuitive decision making models. Other papers have made a problematic attempt to represent learners emotional states using the I Ching (Guey 2012) or investigated the effects of belief on using the I Ching for the purposes of divination (Storm  59 : 2002).

Bibliography

Guey, Ching-Chung. (2012). A Tentative Model on Emotions under Various Levels of Tension in Learning: Perspectives from Chinese I-Ching. From the International Journal of Business and Social Science. Volume 3. Number 4. [Special Issue -February 2012]. Pages 1 -19.

Hsu, Mu-Lan & Chiu, Kuan-Yao. (2008). A  comparison between I-Ching's early management decision making model and western management decision making models. In Chinese Management Studies. Volume 2. Number 1. Pages 52 -75.

Storm, Lance. (2002). A Parapsychological investigation of the I Ching : Seeking PSI in an Ancient Chinese System of Divination. In the Australian Journal of Parapsychology. Volume 2, Number 1. Pages 44 -62.

Wai-ming Ng. (1998). The I Ching in the Shinto thought of Tokugawa Japan. In Philosophy East & West. Volume 48. Issue 4. Pages 568 -583.

Wai-ming Ng. (2000). The I Ching in Late-Choson Thought. In Korean Studies. Volume 24. Pages 53 -68.

Day Z , Arma II mod.

Chernarus Map  mod version 1.7.7.1

Multiplayer game, point of game is to survive as long as possible. Survival is very problematic.

Players tend to create their own narratives.

Day 5 : Sunrise. Probably hubris.

Day 1 Otmel. Night. (25-6-2013)



On beach at Otmel. It's night, moving at night because less survivors and the Zs don't see very well. I have only a bandage and a flare. Run to Elektrozavodsk, watching out for bandits. Avoid the Zs. At the end of the day I have an axe, compass, assault backpack, knife, pistol and AK-74 with 4 magazines and two packets of antibiotics, the antibiotics are valuable because the Z's are infectious. Bandages. A lot of bad experiences with running. Take bicycles from stand outside school in Elektrovodsk and high tail it out of there. Stop by petrol station outside, north of Vyshnoye, logging out.

Day 2 Vyshnoye. Night. (26-6-2013)

It's night. The petrol stations cylinders I logged out nearby are on fire. First I thought it might be a helicopter, but no. Someone has been around. Hike towards Stary Sabor but end up running from a hoard of Zs, get lost and ended up near the coast. Take compass readings and head towards Chernogorsk. Two guys are yelling in side chat. We meet on road, they're friendly, although one of them points out how easy it would be to just shoot me and take my gear. Tense meeting, transfuse one of them. The three of us ride bikes to military airport, Balota, east of Chernogorsk. Over radio guy asks for medical help, guy comes out of airport. He is dressed as bandit, seriously consider wasting the bandit (Voodoo) but transfuse the guy. He is grateful, but it's the gratitude of a bandit. The Zs are problematic, we start using our firearms out of desperation, more Zs appear.  I aim the AK 74 assault rifle at an attacking Z, trying for a head shot, I miss at close range and it lashes out, I'm slow bleeding and infected. Fire several rounds into Z out desperation, it's a waste of ammunition. The bandit has gone, I think, I run into the forest, bandage myself and use one of my valuable antibiotics. Below my two partners are firing their guns, one is wounded and doesn't have a bandage. He is scavenging for a bandage in the airport hangers, it doesn't sound good. I try to help but end up attracting more Zs, so run back into the forest, towards Chernogorsk with the intention of losing the pursuing Zs. In the supermarket in Chernogorsk I find matches and  taking a bicycle I head north along coast. I now have enough equipment to be able to feed myself without raiding the cities and towns. On the way I shoot a cow, just off the highway, and gut it using the knife and put the raw steak into my Survivors back pack. I stop by a petrol station with a bicycle stand, just north of Solnichniy. Over the radio the bandit (Voodoo) is asking where I am? I say "I'm finding a safe place and logging out".

Day 3 Solnichniy. Night. (27-6-13)

It's very early morning, I am in a forest overlooking a petrol station on a highway that is parallel to the sea. I walk down to the petrol station, grab a bicycle and making a compass reading start riding to Stary Sabor. On the way to Stary Sabor, near the village of Staroye, the server restarts (backs up). I am stranded on foot, making a compass reading I follow the main road south to Elektrozavodsk. Raiding the supermarket I don't find much, I still need a tent and a map (in game) and go inside a tavern, climbing up the stairs. I use most of a AK-74 magazine taking out the Zs that chased me inside. I make steady fire with mostly one shot head shots, because I am firing down a corridor and the Zs inside buildings move significantly slower. I bandage my wounds and eat some steak. Outside I can hear the fire of what sounds like an assault rifle, a dull crack, crack. Peeking through the window I can see a swarm of Zs following a survivor into a red brick house. I consider trying to make contact but I've had too many bad experiences in Elektrozavodsk and am feeling vulnerable. Upstairs in the tavern I log out, effectively hiding from the person below.


Day 4 Elektrozavodsk. Morning. (28-6-13)

It's daylight, but when I look outside the window I can still see the stars in the night sky. I go down stairs, quickly search the supermarket, eat the cans of tuna and baked beans that I find, then grab a bicycle from the school and high tail it out of Elektrozavodsk. Heading north west and passing through Stary Sabor, I make it to the North West airfield that is just west of Grishino. The morning sunrise is actually pretty, one of the "rosy fingered dawns" of Homer. The North West airfield is a prime location for bandits, the chances of being sniped are high, crouching I search the control tower and find a M4A1 CCO assault rifle with a total of 4 SANAG magazines, it's rare and is useful for close combat but also has range optics. I wistfully leave my trusty AK-74 in the control tower with the remains of one magazine. Cycling to Grishino I find a petrol station with a bicycle stand to the south. I hide in some bushes nearby and log out.

Day 5 Grishino. Night. (29-6-13)

It's night, I creep to the bicycle stand and grab a bike and ride to the North West airfield. Climbing a control tower I run into a Z, I try for a head shot with my M1911 but miss, it lashes out and I am bleeding, I fire my entire clip and it goes down. I bandage and can hear the Zs below attracted to the sound. I take out the M4A1 and try for headshots as they come up the stairs, one by one.

Its not perfect but the Zs are eliminated with less than a clip. My confidence in my M4A1 is decreased, the process was not as smooth as with my AK-74 but that could reflect my lack of familiarity. I find a G17 pistol with two clips, useful because it has a inbuilt torch. I crouch run to my bicycle that I've positioned for quick egress and start riding south. Over the radio a person called Jazz-Anon is asking for morphine, he has broken legs. He is at the North West airfield, barracks.  I've got a total of 3 morphine cartridges on me, so I respond "I'm on my way, 10 minutes", as well as sort of whining "Please don't shoot me", ahem.

When I get there, to the south of the airfield, he is standing, and Jazz-Anon is a bandit. It really irritates me that I am helping a bandit, I administer morphine and a blood bag, offer to trade sand bags and then bug out. He has a friends somewhere, they are talking over the radio and "Jazz" is a clan name.

I've begun to learn where the petrol stations with bicycle stands are and so cycle to  the north of Vyshnoye, before logging out.

Day 6. Vyshnove. Night. (30-6-13)

It's night. Creep to bicycle and head north. Stop In Stary Sabor. Head south towards Chernogorsk to gather medical supplies.

Just south of Kabanho I run into a road block, I hop off bicycle to take a screen shot. As I kneel, looking at the roadblock I am shot by Dalek Pepin, a bandit, who knew I was taking a screen shot. As my character is dying, bleeding out, he goes "How's that for a screen shot". It's an ambush and the Dalek clan are pretty merciless about who they snipe and I am still a tourist enough to fall for it. He plays "Seinfield" music, which is somewhat cathartic. Slightly depressed, I uninstall the game so I'm not tempted to spend the hours required to do this, again. I think I'll go finish that Phillip K Dick novel I was reading. Maybe go to the gym. Go look at flowers and puppies. So.. Day Z standalone alpha is coming out sometime, one site estimated December, whatever that week window is...

This comic pretty much says it all.


Comic by Maki  2012.

The Man in the High Castle

The Man in the High Castle by Phillip K Dick (1962),

Currently reading "The Man in the High Castle" (1962), on recommedation from IO9 and because I have the brief luxury of time.

The science fiction books and short stories of Phillip K Dick have been mined by the popular media (Hollywood, whatever that means) to create movie classics such as Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report and others.

(2-7-13)

The novel "The Man in the High Castle" is a science fiction novel that though noticeably written in 1962 is ahead of the curve, as with a lot of Phillip K Dicks science fiction. It is a synchronic slice of a fictional alternative reality where Franklin D Roosevelt was assassinated in 1933 and America not developing the industrial infrastructure associated with Roosevelts "New Deal" during the Depression is unable to meet the military pressures placed on it when it enters World War 2 in 1941. This alternate 1962 world is divided into  two major power blocks with the characters predominantly in San Fransisco in the Japanese "Pacific States of America". Understanding the impact of biasis associated with hindsight, the setting is one of a hostile world changing from one where there is good made from compromise into a potential nightmarish blood bath, which with the benefit of hindsight again, must have happened elsewhere in this fictional alternate reality.

The novel is written as a number of interrelated character storylines, with three of the characters being practioners of the "I Ching". Although the influence of the I Ching in the novel seems to be more a feature of Phillip K Dicks interests, in the novel it does introduce a spiritual element and provides it with thematic connections. In many ways the novel meditates on connection, destiny, and change and seems to demonstrate the principles of the I Ching in the mechanics underlying the novels reality. The I Ching was introduced into Japan during the eighth century (Wai-ming 568 : 1998) and became part of a metaphysical component in the Neo Confucianism associated with the Tokugawa bakufu  徳川幕府 (1603 -1868) and was transformed by various scholars into a more Shinto or nativist movement over time (Wai-ming 568 : 1998) but in the context of the novel is more a feature of the authors interests and the fictional creation he is building. In my opinion.

There is a core narrative element associated with "Operation Dandelion" where some of the protagonists are attempting to diffuse a potential nuclear war amongst the power blocks and realize that the more moderate, reasonable elements in the Pan European Nazi government are responsible for backing the nightmarish genocidal plan, while the least desirable elements in the Nazi government are the ones opposing "Operation Dandelion", because they are politically unpopular and being forced to the periphery. It conveys the operations of a nightmarish bureaucratic hydra,.Phillip K Dick in researching for writing this novel read "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" by (1960) William Shirer.

It could be considered as one of a series of alternative history writings that explore an Axis victory during World War II, a popular point of divergence.

Biblography

Wai-ming, Ng. (1998). The I Ching in the Shinto though of Tokugawa Japan. In Philosophy East & West. Volume 48, Issue 4. Pages 568 -583.

Reading  The Passage by Justin Cronin.

In the beginning chapters there appears to be an unsentimental capriciousness in the world constructed by Justin Cronin, it's in the small details, the multiple protagonists are aware and intelligent in their social situations, yet lead inexorably to the events of the novel. The novel lavishly describes the technologies of control, communication, medicine, psychology and transport. The chapters are written mostly in the third person but also contain excerpts of emails, government documents and a hand drawn map. Bram Stoker's "Dracula" was a tale told through "diaries, letters, newspaper clippings and medical notes" (Halberstam 1993 : 335), and the first two hundred or so (208 pages to be exact) pages of  "The Passage" conveys the scene of malign influence by Subject Zero, and to me this evokes the malign influence of the Dracula. The beginning chapters dwell on death, cancer, poverty and the stresses of modern life, this may contrast with the later chapters. The protagonists or antagonists, because it blurs, are competent individuals with their own skill sets, the author shows the circumstances in which they are competent and in the end, how they fail and there is a sense of causality. Bram Stoker's "Dracula" is known for its technology fetish, the use of a dictaphone, type writers and transfusions, to quote Oliver Lubrich (1993), Dracula, a monster, "is hunted down by implementing the technologies of documentation and data processing, communications and mobility" ( Lubrich 1993 : 1).


In Justin Cronin's "The Passage" technology, military and deviated humanitarian efforts, are used in the creation of the monster. Technology and the systems of control create perverse, corrupted, expendable individuals in the "sweepers" and in the self aware soldiers, and in the form of means of control and communication it fails the "hunters". It is rather trite to point this out as potentially reflecting a more critical evaluation of modernity, but the difference is there. Perhaps it's evoking the points made in Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" as well.









Bibliography

Cronin, Justin. (2010). The Passage. Published by Orion Books. Printed in Australia by Griffin Press.

Halberstam, Judith. (1993). Technologies of Monstrosity: Bram Stoker's Dracula. In the Journal of Victorian Studies. January 1993. Pages 333- 352.

Lubrich, Oliver. (1993). Dracula vertextet : Bram Stoker und Adolf Loos entsorgen ein archaisches Monster. In the International Journal for Literary Studies. July 2005.

Lacksadaisy Cats

Lacksadaisy Cats

A comic set in the 1920's prohibition era of the United States of America, with molls & gansters, as cats! Because the internet does not have enough pictures of cats. Actually the process of anthropomorphising the "cats" is quite interesting and Tracey Butler, who creates this comic is able to imbue her characters appearances with attributes that would be hard to represent using a purely human face. Some of the characters are cute because they have pedomorphic body characteristics. A lot of human evolution appears to be the retention of neotonic traits. The comic has high production values.

Look at the lines in the profile of that gangster. Lacksadaisy Cats.

The cuteness of the cartoon characters in terms of body characteristics is a property that is present in Disney cartoons and many examples of artwork predating this, such as the rotoscope creation of "Betty Boop" (Bouldin 48 :  2000), an aesthetic contemporaneous to the setting of the comic Lacksadaisy Cats. In Japan "cuteness" or "kawaii" (かわいい) is part of a cultural commodity that was introduced into toys during the 1970s (Allison 386 : 2003). The first postwar economic burst of 1968 saw a change in childrens styles from "moretsu" (hardwork) to "byuchifuru" (beautiful) (Allison 386 : 2003) which in retrospect was the development of the cultural commodity referred to by "kawaii" (Allison 386 : 2003). The term "kawaii" is derived from the 12th century term "kawayushi" which meant embarrassing, shy & pitiful and was in dictionaries  from the Taisho period (1912 -1926) to 1945 as kawayushi (Kinsella 221 : 1995), which in the 21st century has become semantically broad enough to include parasites displayed in a museum (Washida 57 : 2004).

Bibliography

Allison, Anne. (2003). Portable monsters and commodity cuteness: Pokemon as Japan's new global power. In Post Colonial Studies. Volume 6. No 3. Pages 381 -395.

Bouldin, Joanan. (2000). The Body, Animation and the Real: Race, Reality and the Rotoscope in Betty Boop. In the Conference proceedings for Affective Encounters : Rethinking embodiment in feminist media studies. Pages 48 - 54.

Kinsella, Sharon. (1995). Cuties in Japan. (Edited by Lise Skov & Brian Moeran) In Women, Media and Consumption in Japan. Published by the University of Hawaii. Pages 220 -254.

Washida, K. (2004). Kotoba no kao. Chuo koron shinsha. Tokyo. Page 57.

Finished reading "The Twelve" by Justin Cronin.

It is a continuation of  "The Passage"and has a similar structure of shifting times and places that are thematically linked, the early chapters dealing with a collapse of a contemporary society and later chapters describing a post apocalyptic future where the top predators in the ecosystem are feral vampire creatures that hunt in packs. It also continues the story of the main protagonist "Amy" and survivors of the "Colony", who are investigating the "Homeland" a city, showing signs of evolving from influences of contemporary society but is governed by a council of "ghouls", familiars of the "Twelve", who survive on a earlier generation ghouls blood. It is a description of a society run on near concentration camp conditions, despite the contemporary thought processes of the ruling council, who have survived for over 100 years on the ghoul blood.The institutions of the society, despite the titles and ways the council think about them have developed to meet the needs of the governing body, there is a dark comedy there.

I picked up "The Twelve" first, thinking it was similar to McCarthy's "The Road".

The beginning chapters, with some foreshadowing, further develop the apocalypse described in "The Passage", focusing on events and characters vaguely mentioned in the first book and introduces important antagonists such as "Deputy Director Horace Guilder", Lila and "Grey" , who are relatively well developed as characters in this type of fiction. One idea the author has is the feral vampires, "virals" are creatures that exist trapped in a particular memory symbolic to the individual creature, which is an interesting narrative device, it gives the "virals" a degree of pathos, and facilitates increased distinctiveness. There are a range of protagonists, some are more interesting than others but the characterizations are quite relatable.