bruceb

Wow. Just wow.

Damnation Decade has been on my "check it out" list for a while now, and I succumbed today. Ever since downloading it, I've been bothering all my friends with lots and lots of quotes.

Instead of writing up an actual review sort of thing, I'm going to do more of the same here.

"What the hell happened? Nobody who knows the truth is telling. But it all seemed to start two years ago—on August 9, 1974.

President Stanton Spobeck’s dirty tricks had finally caught up with him, and he was about to resign before he could get booted from office in disgrace. Then a once-in-an-epoch earthquake snapped off the West Coast of Americo and plunged it into the ocean. Spobeck stayed in office in the interest of national stability, promising to face the music once the crisis was over (wink wink).

But over the next two years things just kept getting worse. The environment tanked. The monsters (or whatever they are) came out of the closet. And Spobeck put the entire Southwest of Americo under martial law. He claimed the area had been contaminated and was facing dangerous aftershocks from the quake. But everybody knows he’s trying to keep something trapped in there. You can’t turn on the news without seeing elliptical reports of massacres and riots across the farm belt. Something big and hungry is on the hunt. But what woke it up? And what does it want?

Nobody is taking this well. Americo’s cold war enemies are striking while the country is distracted, sending invasion forces across their borders and gobbling up huge chunks of the free world. And of course, back at home, the nation is partying in deep denial, shaking their moneymakers in lavish BootyDome dance halls or cheering along to Omegaball, the blood sport that has become the fastest-growing pastime in the world. Others have taken refuge in secular cults promising everything from a peek at your past lives to a ticket on an ancient astronaut’s flying saucer.

Just about the only people who aren’t partying up a storm or making a power grab are you and your team of adventurous friends. Why? You know something everybody else doesn’t. According to the prophecies of an obscure sixteenth-century mystic named Abednego Trestle, the world as we know it is going to end at the stroke of midnight on December 31, 1979—unless someone does something to stop it.

That’s your job. Welcome to Damnation Decade. "

The only true creative innovation since the great quake has been the tabletop game Booty and Bugaboos. Created far from Fun City, in a small lakeside town in the Middle West, B&B was supposedly inspired by the waves of horrible nocturnal armies that regularly menace the region. Highbrow critics, bored senseless by mainstream corporate offerings, have gushed over the game’s “outsider” artwork and unpolished prose style, not to mention the avant-garde dynamic it fosters among players—something between group therapy and doing your taxes."

"Gordon Lightfoot: A cargo vessel lost under mysterious circumstances in the Great Inland Oceans. Memorialized in a hit song by Stanardian folk singer Edmund Fitzgerald."

"Lean and looming, with tar-black hair and a horsy face, Herman Purvis rose to fame portraying Tanko, the numinous alien counselor on the cult television series The Sand Puppies. Now Purvis has traded the blue pajamas of the Extra-Terran Expeditionary Force for a beige blazer, black turtleneck and tight checkered slacks—his uniform of choice for leading viewers Beyond the Barrier once a week. In a little under a season’s worth of shows, Purvis has given audiences a glimpse of lost continents, lake monsters and size twenty-five footprints. For a team of adventurers battling the unseen enemies of mankind, Purvis’s program is a solid—if not always reliable—roadmap to the unknown."

"Muscle Cars: These powerhouses have big, thirsty engines and exhaust systems that can wake the dead. Popular favorites include the Turbonado, the Jackalope, the Pro Forma, the Nuevo, the Fontanelle and the El Topo. They come in two-door and four-door models; both are two squares wide and four squares long. 

Squaresville: The archetypal family sedan, the Squaresville is four doors of dull but sensible car. It is two squares wide and four squares long. 

Vandingo: A large van, often equipped with a kitchenette and bed and decorated on the outside with inspirational scenes from the mythic unconscious. It is two squares wide and four squares long. If the Vandingo’s rocking, don’t come knocking."

And finally, from the inspirations:

"Quintet
(Robert Altman, 1979)
If you see only one Altman movie about Paul Newman hunting seals and playing oddball board games after the apocalypse, this is the one to go with.

Star Wars
(George Lucas, 1977)
A cult hit that got buried by The Goodbye Girl at the box office. Hard to find on DVD, but it occasionally makes the rounds on the midnight-movie circuit."

This is a work of genius. It seems to hit every note in its target: Nixonian paranoia, Howard Hughes paranoia, lurking Nazis paranoia, cryptozoological paranoia, UFO paranoia, everything is here.

I hope I get to run it.