In this episode, we dig into the real-world tools for communicating and coordinating without cell towers or cloud services: Meshtastic mesh radios, ham radio via Winlink and JS8Call, GMRS repeater networks, and the more radical vision of Reticulum — a cryptographic network stack built for a post-internet world. We also cover the surprisingly active landscape of community mesh networks already running in cities like New York and Philadelphia, and why building decentralized infrastructure now is mutual aid, not just prepper fantasy.

Offline Wikipedia via Kiwix, self-hosted media libraries with Jellyfin, Calibre, and Audiobookshelf, and knowledge preservation archives like Open Source Ecology and Appropedia can turn a Raspberry Pi into a local server that keeps your community informed, entertained, and capable.

Communications

• Meshtastic — https://meshtastic.org
• Reticulum Network — https://reticulum.network
• Winlink (email over radio) — https://www.winlink.org
• JS8Call — http://js8call.com

Local networks

• NYC Mesh — https://www.nycmesh.net
• Philly Community Wireless — https://phillycommunitywireless.org
• People's Open Network (Oakland) — https://peoplesopen.net

Entertainment / media

• Jellyfin — https://jellyfin.org
• Kiwix — https://kiwix.org
• Internet-in-a-Box — https://internet-in-a-box.org
• Calibre — https://calibre-ebook.com
• Navidrome — https://www.navidrome.org
• Audiobookshelf — https://www.audiobookshelf.org

Knowledge preservation

• Survivor Library — http://www.survivorlibrary.com
• Appropedia — https://www.appropedia.org
• Open Source Ecology — https://www.opensourceecology.org
• Farm Hack — https://farmhack.org
• Precious Plastic — https://www.preciousplastic.com

Support the show

Zombie Book Club Links

• Join us on on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/ZombieBookClub
• Join the Brain Muncher’s Zombie Collective: https://discord.gg/rn3nPDa4CB
• ZBC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zombiebookclubpodcast/
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• Zombie Book Club Voicemail: (614) 699-0006‬
• Zombie Book Club Email: ZombieBookClubPodcast@gmail.com

Horror and zombie author Joseph Pesavento joins us to dig into what really drives undead fiction; the freedom, the collapse of rules, and the uncomfortable truth that the living are often the bigger threat. We trace his writing journey from a childhood journal inspired by Nickelodeon's Doug through film school screenplays to seven published books, and get into the practical, unfiltered reality of going indie. Joseph also breaks down Death Cleanse, his militarized zombie road-trip novel about the man who caused the outbreak, now trapped in an eerie Montauk bunker steeped in real conspiratorial history with a gore level that doesn't flinch.

Guest Links & Contact

Joseph Pesavento

• Website: josephpesavento.com
• Instagram: @josephpesaventowrites
• Death Cleanse (signed copy): josephpesavento.com/product-page/death-cleanse-signed

Support the show

Zombie Book Club Links

• Join us on on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/ZombieBookClub
• Join the Brain Muncher’s Zombie Collective: https://discord.gg/rn3nPDa4CB
• ZBC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zombiebookclubpodcast/
• ZBC Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/710957975263518/
• Zombie Book Club Voicemail: (614) 699-0006‬
• Zombie Book Club Email: ZombieBookClubPodcast@gmail.com

A Kimberly-Clark warehouse worker lit a 1.2-million-square-foot facility on fire and filmed himself saying "all you had to do was pay us enough to fucking live." Media coverage mourned the inventory. Dan and Leah come in burned out but reach for a comfort watch (V for Vendetta) and find it hitting like current events. The movie may be twenty years old, but the machinery it describes; propaganda, scapegoating, fear-based unity, and a public conditioned to accept cruelty as normal — is running at full speed right now.

From the Kimberly-Clark fire to stock buybacks that consumed 106% of company profits, to union-busting and Amazon workplace horror stories, the episode traces the pressure that builds when a system refuses to reform. Then we talk about V for Vendetta itself: the Guy Fawkes mask, the long game of symbolism, queer liberation themes, and what it looks like when people stop believing the polite path leads anywhere.

Elevator Pitch

Neal Noakes on Instagram: @Neal.Noakes.Books

We Will Not Survive on Amazon: Pre Order Here

TOPICS DISCUSSED:

The Kimberly-Clark Fire / Chamel Abdulkarim

• Wikipedia summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Kimberly-Clark_Distribution_Center_fire
• Democracy Now! coverage: https://www.democracynow.org/2026/4/13/headlines/all_you_had_to_do_was_pay_us_enough_to_live_worker_sets_fire_to_california_paper_warehouse
• Jacobin deep dive on Kimberly-Clark financials: https://jacobin.com/2026/04/california-kimberly-clark-warehouse-arson

V for Vendetta

• Graphic novel (Wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta
• Movie quotes: https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/392838-v-for-vendetta
• Critical essay — V for Vendetta and the limits of liberal protest: https://bloodknife.com/v-for-vendetta-and-the-limits-of-liberal-protest/

Support the show

Zombie Book Club Links

• Join us on on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/ZombieBookClub
• Join the Brain Muncher’s Zombie Collective: https://discord.gg/rn3nPDa4CB
• ZBC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zombiebookclubpodcast/
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• Zombie Book Club Voicemail: (614) 699-0006‬
• Zombie Book Club Email: ZombieBookClubPodcast@gmail.com

Ray Jamison — writer, dungeon master, and creator of The Madcaps — returns to close out his medieval fantasy zombie miniseries in style. With his finale Kickstarter live for issues one through three, we dig into what it means to finish a story on purpose: one long night, four friends, and a necromancer standing between Ivywood and sunrise. We talk craft — how a DM mindset shapes pacing and payoff, why intrigue matters as much as action, and what makes these four characters (a brawny intellectual, a devout farmer, a good-hearted charlatan, and a social facilitator) ask the only question that really matters: who am I, and where do I fit?

We also get into the nuts and bolts of indie publishing — scripts, art, color, letters, Kickstarter tiers, specialty covers, and why building a complete, jumpable story from issue one is both a creative philosophy and a reader promise. If you've been waiting to get into The Madcaps, this is your window. Go back the Kickstarter now.

LINKS & CONTACT:

• Ray Jamison (DM Ray) on Instagram: @raymondthedm
• The Madcaps Issues #1–3 Kickstarter (finale campaign): kickstarter.com/projects/philboentertainment/madcaps-issue-3

Support the show

Zombie Book Club Links

• Join us on on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/ZombieBookClub
• Join the Brain Muncher’s Zombie Collective: https://discord.gg/rn3nPDa4CB
• ZBC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zombiebookclubpodcast/
• ZBC Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/710957975263518/
• Zombie Book Club Voicemail: (614) 699-0006‬
• Zombie Book Club Email: ZombieBookClubPodcast@gmail.com

Eight million people showed up, and many on the internet called it pointless. We don't buy the nihilism; but we also don't pretend a permitted Saturday rally is the same thing as disrupting power. This episode, we dig into what No Kings actually does well (making dissent visible, connecting you to neighbors and organizations, being the tip of a much larger iceberg), and what it doesn't do on its own. We talk Montgomery bus boycott logic, general strike groundwork, mutual aid, and how movements win by targeting pocketbooks and prestige. Paperwork is the unsexy engine of real organizing.

Then Dan takes us to Granby, Colorado, and the story of Marvin Heemeyer; a welder who spent 18 months secretly armoring a bulldozer in a shed, then spent two hours demolishing 13 buildings before dying alone in a basement. It's a story about how local capital weaponizes the law, what happens when every legal avenue closes, and why the internet's folk hero version of KillDozer conveniently strips out the part where the people who cheered for it would have sided with the Docheffs in todays political landscape.

Links Info

No Kings / Protest Organizing

• NoKings.org — find or host events, training resources: https://www.nokings.org
• Mobilize with No Kings — volunteer and event finder: https://www.mobilize.us/nokings/
• Indivisible (lead No Kings organizer): https://indivisible.org
• 50501 Movement (coined "No Kings"): https://www.fiftyfifty.one/
• MoveOn: https://front.moveon.org
• ACLU: https://www.aclu.org

Nonviolent Resistance Research

• Erica Chenoweth's 3.5% Rule explainer — Harvard Kennedy School: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty-research/policy-topics/advocacy-social-movements/35-rule-understanding-what-makes-protest
• Why Civil Resistance Works (Chenoweth & Stephan, 2011) — Columbia University Press
• Crowd Counting Consortium: https://ash.harvard.edu/programs/crowd-counting-consortium/

KillDozer / Marvin Heemeyer

• Wikipedia — Marvin Heemeyer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Heemeyer

Support the show

Zombie Book Club Links

• Join us on on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/ZombieBookClub
• Join the Brain Muncher’s Zombie Collective: https://discord.gg/rn3nPDa4CB
• ZBC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zombiebookclubpodcast/
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• Zombie Book Club Voicemail: (614) 699-0006‬
• Zombie Book Club Email: ZombieBookClubPodcast@gmail.com

Alice B. Sullivan is back, and this time she brought the apocalypse with her. We're celebrating the release of Tomorrow Never Came, Book 2 in her Aftermath series, and digging into everything that makes it tick; the virus science behind goners and vectors, infected animals that will haunt your nightmares, and get into the messy, beautiful question at the heart of this book: how far do you bend your morals before you don't recognize yourself anymore?

We also pull back the curtain on Alice's wildly fun Facebook "choose your own adventure" apocalypse, what it's like to write fast and and how reader expectations (and the occasional one-star review) shape the way we talk about genre fiction. If you love post-apocalyptic thrillers, slow-burn relationships, lesbian zombie novels, and dogs that never die under any circumstance; this one's for you.

Guest & Relevant Links

Alice B. Sullivan — Contact & Socials

• Website: https://alicebsullivan.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AliceBSullivan01
• Newsletter: https://alicebsullivan.com/newsletter-signup/

Alice's Books — Amazon

• Tomorrow Never Came (Aftermath #2): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GRKHX4Z2
• Yesterday's Gone (Aftermath #1): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CK75RB5S
• Full Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Alice-B.-Sullivan/author/B09BX4BRR7

Support the show

Zombie Book Club Links

• Join us on on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/ZombieBookClub
• Join the Brain Muncher’s Zombie Collective: https://discord.gg/rn3nPDa4CB
• ZBC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zombiebookclubpodcast/
• ZBC Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/710957975263518/
• Zombie Book Club Voicemail: (614) 699-0006‬
• Zombie Book Club Email: ZombieBookClubPodcast@gmail.com

The heart of this bonus episode is writing craft and writer mental health. Dan breaks down why it wasn’t “writer’s block” so much as an emotional block, what it feels like to stare at the page and produce nothing but an ellipsis, and how he rebuilt momentum with a routine, a weekly word-count goal, and permission to skip ahead to the scenes that actually matter. We also swap notes on writing books that help, revision realities, and the long game of finishing a zombie novel without hating what you make.

We talk about coping in a nonstop political news cycle, why social media can turn into both therapy and trauma, and how roasting trolls on Threads becomes a pressure release when everything feels unreal. We also highlight a creator we’ve been following who baits bad-faith DMs into accidental lessons on history and feminism.

Support the show

Zombie Book Club Links

• Join us on on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/ZombieBookClub
• Join the Brain Muncher’s Zombie Collective: https://discord.gg/rn3nPDa4CB
• ZBC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zombiebookclubpodcast/
• ZBC Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/710957975263518/
• Zombie Book Club Voicemail: (614) 699-0006‬
• Zombie Book Club Email: ZombieBookClubPodcast@gmail.com

Fifteen years after its release, Zone One by Colson Whitehead hits differently. We dig into the novel's fractured, nonlinear structure; where corporate-funded sweeper crews reclaim a zombie-plagued Manhattan, and unpack why Whitehead uses the apocalypse not as an ending, but as a mirror. From skels and stragglers to Post-Apocalyptic Stress Disorder, we explore how the book blurs the line between the living and the already dehumanized, and what it means that most of our book club didn't even finish it.

We talk about the racist hidden meaning buried in Mark Spitz's nickname, the novel's unflinching critique of capitalism and "post-racial" mythmaking published during Obama's first term, and why the scariest thing in the book isn't zombies; it's everyone rushing to rebuild the exact world that made people disposable in the first place. If catastrophe forces a reset, shouldn't we be building toward something better?

Colson Whitehead

• Official site: colsonwhitehead.com

Zone One — relevant links

• Interview Magazine interview (source used in episode): interviewmagazine.com/culture/colson-whitehead-zone-one
• Zone One on Goodreads: goodreads.com
• GradeSaver study guide: gradesaver.com/zone-one

Support the show

Zombie Book Club Links

• Join us on on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/ZombieBookClub
• Join the Brain Muncher’s Zombie Collective: https://discord.gg/rn3nPDa4CB
• ZBC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zombiebookclubpodcast/
• ZBC Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/710957975263518/
• Zombie Book Club Voicemail: (614) 699-0006‬
• Zombie Book Club Email: ZombieBookClubPodcast@gmail.com