"APOCALYPSE BOOKS TALKS" AT PHILOSOPHICAL RESEARCH SOCIETY (7/1/19) (7:30p) #LosAngeles

Event: Book Talks and Signings Program

Apocalypse Blues: Two Authors, Two Views

Date: Monday, July 1, 2019

Time: 7:30pm – 9:30pm

Place: Philosophical Research Society, Auditorium

3910 Los Feliz Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90027

Phone: (323) 663-2167

Website: http://www.uprs.edu/events.html

In the mood for a "Zombie Talk"?

Three days before Independence Day, on Monday, July 1 at 7:30 p.m., the Philosophical Research Society (PRS) of Los Angeles will host book talks by authors Thomas Allbaugh, author of the dark humor novel, Apocalypse TV, and Dahlia Schweitzer, author of Going Viral: Zombies, Viruses, and the End of the World, in the PRS auditorium.

Playfully entitled “Apocalypse Blues: Two Authors, Two Views,” the program will feature two views—one fiction and one nonfiction—of “Apocalypse Anxiety” in the 21st Century.

Apocalypse TV was recently named to Judd Apatow’s “Best Reality TV Show Books of All Time” list. The novel focuses on a mild-mannered intellectual professor at a Christian college who has to fight for his life as a participant in the reality TV game show, Race to the Apocalypse. Forced to struggle with reality, religion, and his own authenticity, will he take up arms against the troubles unleashed upon him by unseen production forces or end up slaughtered as the show's designated "sacrificial lamb"?

Going Viral considers how fictional outbreak narratives and official sources have influenced the ways Americans relate to their neighbors, perceive foreigners, and regard social institutions. This book examines how outbreak narratives both excite and horrify us, conjuring our nightmares while letting us indulge in fantasies about fighting infected Others. Going Viral raises provocative questions about the cost of public paranoia and the power brokers who profit from it.

The evening will include a Power Point presentation by Dr. Schweitzer, and Q&A session.

The books are now on sale at the PRS Bookstore, as well as at Vromans in Pasadena, Barnes & Noble in Rancho Cucamonga, and online at Amazon.

Reviews:

“Apocalypse TV argues against the extreme notion that only members of a certain faith are favored by God, while making a case for spiritual salvation through love, faith, hope, service...and the willingness to persevere." - Midwest Book Review


"Going Viral explores how popular cultural narratives in official media sources heighten and perpetuate the fears created through the outbreak narrative." – Rebekah Buchanan, New Books Network Review

YouTube Clip:




Apocalypse TV: http://apocalypsetv.blogspot.com

Going Viral: http://www.thisisdahlia.com

Tickets: FREE or $10.00 donation. Available at EventBrite or at the door.

To Book Book Talks:

Publicist | Marlan Warren | Book Publicity By Marlan | (323) 347-6762 | E-Mail memoircity@gmail.com

To Be or Not To Be: "Apocalypse TV" (My Midwest Book Review)

His whole life has been a sham because he can’t accept responsibility for his failure to live by his own convictions.—APOCALYPSE TV

What do reality TV game show contestants, religious fanatics, true believers, atheists, zombies, quarreling siblings, an FBI agent, Elvis impersonator, and an almost-fired English professor at a Christian college have in common?

They all come together to interlock as essential players in Thomas Allbaugh’s tightly wound, often hilarious, debut novel, APOCALYPSE TV.

Shakespeare today might muse that “All the world’s a reality TV game show, and all the men and women merely players in their quest for prizes amid layers of illusions and media hype.” It is upon this slippery platform that Allbaugh has built a metaphor for our contentious world as viewed through the lenses of good vs. evil, secular religion vs. spirituality, and love vs. indifference. 

The story kicks off when Christian intellectual, Walter Terry, takes a leave of absence from his conservative college in California to visit his dying father in Michigan. Walter has just been put on notice for allowing students to express non-conservative viewpoints, and fears his job is on thin ice. 

Walter and his sister are approached in a Midwestern diner by a talent scout for a new reality TV show that claims to be “an investigation into American religious ideas.” He describes himself to the pretty interviewer as an “outsider in terms of religion,” but sees her write down “soft and vulnerable.” This pigeon-holing is exactly what makes these shows maddening, but also makes them fun for the fans.

Seduced by the promise of money and his own rationalization that perhaps a show like this could use an educated analytical thinker, Walter embarks on what will turn out to be a character-building odyssey. After he is entrenched in “Race for the Apocalypse,” Walter hears the producer refer to him as the show’s “sacrificial lamb.” And after that…all bets are off.