We’re recording from a hotel bed at The Saguaro Palm Springs, hungover, sun-sensitive, and happy, after driving cross-country from Vermont for our friends Eric and Joe’s wedding. Zombie stories keep telling us the same thing: the monsters are never the point, the survivor group is. The wedding felt like proof, a tight-knit chosen family where everyone looked after each other. We briefly discuss why community beats rugged individualism, and the rare superpower that holds a group together: making someone feel like the most important person in the room and meaning it. Then we ask how you build that where you already live, one friendship at a time. If you want more of Eric, he joined us earlier to zombie-proof a house Home Alone-style.

Then we thought about the hotel as a survival haven: bars on every floor, a courtyard of silent ballet in sleepwear that might be a cult, and real bunker potential.

Relevant Links

Where We Recorded

• The Saguaro Palm Springs: https://www.thesaguaro.com/palmsprings

Eric’s Previous Episode

• Home Alone in the Zombie Apocalypse with special guest EricLloydDesigns | Ep 75: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2124392/episodes/16317584-home-alone-in-the-zombie-apocalypse-with-special-guest-ericlloyddesigns-zombie-book-club-ep-75

Road Trip and Progress

• Road Trip on the Bad Road | Ep 167: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2124392/episodes/19855230-road-trip-on-the-bad-road-zombie-book-club-ep-167
• Midwest Road Trip Update | Ep 169: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2124392/episodes/19922196-midwest-road-trip-update-zombie-book-club-ep-169

Support the show

Zombie Book Club Links

• Join us on on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/ZombieBookClub
• ZBC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zombiebookclubpodcast/
• ZBC Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/710957975263518/
• Zombie Book Club Email: ZombieBookClubPodcast@gmail.com

We’re recording from the least glamorous studio imaginable: a camper bed in Kansas, in full “dead bug pose,” while tornadoes, flooding, and rerouted travel plans turn the Midwest into a live weather report. Two weeks into our road trip, we’re tired enough to be incoherent and honest about it. We dig into what RV campground life is really like, from a party-heavy New York park with live music and string lights to a Kansas RV park full of oil field workers living there short-term because it’s the only affordable option.

Then comes the best stop so far: friends in Missouri. We attended a pride event, Leah got a tarot reading that wasn't so great, “tactical furries” that braved the Missouri heat, and a movie night with the low-budget apocalypse comedy Bored Games. We also talk about travel tattoos, including a Kansas piece inspired by pioneering tattoo artist Maud Wagner, and finish with a practical writing corner on beta readers, readability, and the eternal struggle of commas in dialogue.

Links

• Maud Wagner, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maud_Wagner
• Bored Games, IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31851933/
• Ozark PrideFest: https://ozarkspridefest.com/

Support the show

Zombie Book Club Links

• Join us on on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/ZombieBookClub
• ZBC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zombiebookclubpodcast/
• ZBC Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/710957975263518/
• Zombie Book Club Email: ZombieBookClubPodcast@gmail.com

What if the apocalypse isn't a sudden event, but the slow breakdown of the systems we depend on to survive? In this episode, we look at what climate collapse could mean for ordinary people by 2050: failed crops, flooded roads, extreme heat, wildfire smoke, and a power grid that can't keep up. We dig into the 1.5°C target, climate tipping points, and the quiet loss of predictable seasons, then ask why, if this is a crisis, we're all still living like it's a normal Tuesday.

Imagine Dan and Leah at 66 and 67 on a Vermont hilltop, with a well, aging solar panels, and a roof that needs replacing. Survival depends less on grit and more on medicine, repairs, supply chains, and other people. That brings us to community resilience and mutual aid, why rugged individualism is a myth, and the hard truth that renewable energy has to come with consuming less. It's dark, sometimes grimly funny, and it ends with one question: what do you hope the humans in our 2050 climate-apocalypse movie have figured out?

Links:

• WHO, Climate Change and Health: https://www.who.int/health-topics/climate-change
• 2024 State of the Climate report (BioScience): https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/74/12/812/7808595
• Climate Vulnerability Index map (U.S. only): https://map.climatevulnerabilityindex.org/map/cvi_overall/usa
• Futurism, UN failure to stop severe climate change: https://futurism.com/science-energy/united-nations-failed-stop-severe-climate-change
• NPR, UN climate change threshold: https://www.npr.org/2026/09/02/g-s1-141595/united-nations-climate-change-threshold

Support the show

Zombie Book Club Links

• Join us on on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/ZombieBookClub
• ZBC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zombiebookclubpodcast/
• ZBC Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/710957975263518/
• Zombie Book Club Email: ZombieBookClubPodcast@gmail.com