Anaxagology for June 2025

Hi! Just wanted to remind everyone that The Tower audiobook is out now, and if you or your young teens are looking for your next listen for a summer road trip or lazy afternoon, I think you’ll have a fun time with this! One of my favorite GoodReads reviews said The Tower “is full of suspense and adventure that will keep you enthralled until the ending that you won't see coming.” If you’ve already given it a listen—thank you so much! And if you haven't checked it out yet, I hope you'll give it a listen.

Professional reviewers or voting members of the SFWA, HWA, or other awards body, please contact me for a free review copy!

Party at ground zero: Hope (or at least defiance) in the apocalypse

This month, I’m diving back into my Gen-X apocalypse anxiety by way of the music videos that defined my high school years. Last month, I talked about post-apocalyptic stories, particularly those set in the wastelands, and their appeal to fantasies of violence and domination. But there’s something unexpected in these music videos—a persistent thread of defiance, and dare I say, hope. Many of these videos portray a world in ruins, but the characters in them are neither warrior nor victim. They dance through the chaos, fight back with fire, or simply choose to go out on their own terms. There’s an undercurrent of resilience that feels more relevant today than ever. Let’s take a look at the videos:

All She Wants to Do is Dance, Don Henley (1985)

Crazy people walkin' round with blood in their eyes
And all she wants to do is dance, dance, dance

Crumbled buildings. Random fires. Dirty faces. Hat-stealing urchins. Though ostensibly a critique of US involvement in Central America, the post-apocalyptic vibe of Henley's music video is undeniable. Flames lick the screen in the foreground while Henley croons in the background. Set in a bombed-out bar, complete with illuminated dance floor, disco lights, and a jeep crashed part-way through the ceiling which dangles threateningly over the proceedings, the dancing here feels like brazen, life-affirming defiance—a celebration of survival in the face of destruction.

When the single was released in 1985, SPIN's John Leland called it a twisted "post-hedonist vision of apocalypse" and a welcomed it as a rousing departure from Henley's mellow rock days. It's a thundering, percussive, electric groove-that-makes-you-move thanks in large part to the grinding buzz of the Yamaha DX7, a synthesizer keyboard that would become an 80s standard. Apocalyptic, yes, but fun.

Just Another Day, Oingo Boingo (1985)

I had a dream last night
The world was set on fire
And everywhere I ran
There wasn't any water
The temperature increased
The sky was crimson red
The clouds turned into smoke
And everyone was dead

"Just Another Day" takes us to an apocalypse of the mind. Maybe. The band plays against a red, cloud-streaked sky on the cracked plinth of an ancient structure. Weed-choked moss-covered columns, broken and askew, threaten collapse. Unlike typical survivors of Armageddon, Danny Elfman and the band are clean and dressed in their 80s best. They seem to have landed like visiting aliens, time travelers, or gods. There's life underground, Danny Elfman sings, and the crack under his feet glows red and threatens to rupture. Will something emerge? Will the world blow apart? Elfman wolf-howls into the blood-red sky. In the end he is left alone, supine on the plinth. His smile suggests a refusal to be defeated. That, or madness has finally overtaken him. This might be the story of The Last Man on Earth, suffering mental collapse having been left in "a lonely place / that's always cold."

"Just Another Day" features a classic Oingo Boingo sound—melodic, layered, and lively. Our 80s friend, the Yamaha DX7, makes another appearance here, starting off the track with a looping arpeggio that gives the song a constant swirling edge. It threatens chaos, as if everything could blow apart at any moment. The tension never leaves us. It's a synthy witch's brew bubbling beneath the meaty guitar riffs, nearly subliminal at times, casting a dark spell as it threatens to boil over at any moment.

While "Just Another Day" wasn't a chart shaker, it has shown incredible resilience. The song was featured on soundtracks both back in the day (That Was Then... This is Now (1985)), and in more recent times on Netflix's Stranger Things. A live clip of "Just Another Day" made the rounds of YouTube reaction videos thanks to Elfman's gut-wrenching vocals which melt into spine-tingling cries of anguish. It's well worth a look.

Dancing with Tears in My Eyes, Ultravox (1984)

It's five and I'm driving home again
It's hard to believe that it's my last time
The man on the wireless cries again
It's over, it's over

In late 1983, the Soviet Union put a halt to all nuclear disarmament talks after the US deployed Pershing II and cruise missiles in Britain, West Germany, and Italy. The fear of nuclear annihilation reached its most literal music video expression in Ultravox's "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes," the story of a man who rushes home to have one last dance with his wife as the blast consumes them.

Despite the nuclear target on Britain's back, the music video depicts an impending explosion from a "reactor core overheat." We follow a man rushing through traffic, first in his car and then, as the road becomes blocked with panicked citizens, on foot. He stops briefly to check on a woman who fell in her panic, because in the end, kindness matters. He makes it home in time for the titular dance with his wife. One bottle of spilled Champagne later, the couple wraps themselves in a white sheet and lie down on the living room floor. It's time, Ultravox lead Midge Ure sings, it's time but I don't think we really care. The couple braves the end with a defiant act of creation.

It's a Mistake, Men at Work (1983)

Don't think that we don't know
Don't think that we're not trying
Don't think we move too slow
It's no use after crying
Saying
It's a mistake

Men at Work's "It's a Mistake" is in competition with "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes" for the most literal video interpretation mentioned here. But it serves its narrative purpose, and the video does feature some neat tricks.

We open with stop-motion animated toy soldiers engaged in battle (and driving a toy tank over what is possibly a friendly), and the video quickly connects the dots from there to kids (the band in short pants and propeller beanies) engaging in war play with toy guns before they are beckoned by a sinister officer (real pistol in hand) to join the "party". Said party consists of a handful of various officers drunk on champagne, stumbling among streamers, confetti, and balloons. It's a war party, and it's been going on for quite some time.

"It's a mistake," the band's characters protest as they are transformed by camera dissolves from working civilians to wartime soldiers marching through a desolate, burned-out forest, underscoring the way ordinary people—and especially the young—get caught in the undertow of war against their will.

The video brings us finally to a missile control room. Speaking to his foreign counterpart, lead Colin Hay as a military commander shouts "it's a mistake" into the phone receiver as he accidentally stubs out his cigar on the Big Red Button, mistaking it for his ashtray. Whoopsie his expression says, as he covers his mouth and turns to the camera. Well, it's just one of those things that happens, I guess!

In the context of the summer of blockbuster movie WarGames (1983), a movie about a child-like computer intelligence that brings the US to the brink of nuclear war, "It's a Mistake" expresses the pervading fear and feelings of helplessness at being at the mercy of a system beyond control and susceptible to errors, a system where the smallest mistakes can have world-ending consequences. It's a serious subject and yet the video is full of clowning and hijinks (including a gang of umbrella-wielding grannies who show up to batter the soldiers). The video isn't having fun in the name of war, though. It's an absurdity, a satire that expresses exasperation at having reckless children in charge of instruments of doom. If you think this video is ridiculous, the band seems to challenge us, wait until you hear about the arms race.

Forever Young, Alphaville (1984)

Heaven can wait we're only watching the skies
Hoping for the best, but expecting the worst
Are you gonna drop the bomb or not?

Lyrically, Alphaville's "Forever Young" is both a somber lament and desperate wish for safety against an uncertain, threatening future. At first blush it seems a bittersweet farewell to childhood, an airy synth-pop ballad destined for play at momentous occasions like proms, graduations, and possibly weddings. Yet the first verse is unquestionably an expression of nuclear anxiety—watching the skies and wondering if the bomb will drop.

The video is one of the simpler concepts, consisting of a single location which appears to be an abandoned cathedral (actually the ornately Victorian interior of former Holloway Sanatorium in Surrey). Here we find a rag-tag group of survivors, huddled together asleep on the floor. They are a disparate clan—young and old and ethnically diverse. Alphaville singer Marian Gold wakes them as he croons, backed by two keyboardists (who get miraculous synth sounds from old upright pianos). They are a New Romantic Kraftwerk. Dressed in their best space-age jumpsuits, they could be a Ziggy Stardust tribute band with Bryan Ferry vocals.

The wakened sleepers approach the band. Could this be a wedding party? There's a man in frayed tux. But also a child in a dressing gown. And someone swathed in rags. They wear post-apocalypse whatever-you-can-find fashion. They look to the band expectantly, children drawn to the Pied Piper.

A flash of light signals, not a nuclear blast, but the opening of a diamond portal (Youth's like diamonds in the sun, / And diamonds are forever). Bright light pours forth as a synth pipes something resembling an electronic version of the piccolo trumpet in The Beatle's "Penny Lane". Cheery. Celebratory. Triumphant. The survivors enter the portal, departing for destinations unknown. Perhaps they are escaping to the promise of a better world and eternal youth. Perhaps they didn't survive Armageddon after all and are now ascending to a higher plane. Either way, "Forever Young" comforts the damned with the promise of a better (after)life. There's a youthful yearning for the day when this race is won. Gold's performance is intense and pleading: Oh let it come true.

Party at Ground Zero, Fishbone (1985)

Party at ground zero
A "B" movie starring you
And the world will turn to flowing
Pink vapor stew

The music video for “Party at Ground Zero” transplants Edgar Alan Poe's “The Masque of the Red Death” to an 80s fallout shelter as nightclub ("Atomic Underground," buzzes the neon sign), where oversized avant-garde masks hide the faces of glitzy party guests as they arrive under the blare of air-raid sirens.

Shark-masked armed guards hustle guests into the bunker six levels below the surface. It may be a concrete box, but it's festively adorned with balloons and streamers and the bar is open and the band is swinging. And do they swing. Fishbone is bright, brash and boisterous, and they threaten to break right through the TV screen. The song's brassy notes slip and slide around amid yelps and shouts. The bunker can barely contain the South Central LA band and their concoction of funk-rock-ska mixed with a half-dozen other musical spices.

As Fishbone rocks the room, symbols representative of pervasive nuclear anxiety are projected onto the walls—including an animated skeleton and its pet bomb (which grows ever larger as the skeleton feeds it alarming headlines about the nuclear arms race). A judge (mask resembling a man in a powdered wig) presides over all, drinking blood from a champagne glass. It's not subtle. It's not meant to be. Fishbone are too rowdy for subtlety.

There's a late arrival—a matador with a brilliant red cape draped over one shoulder. The seconds tick toward midnight and the masks come off. First the judge, then the party-goers one-by-one, revealing themselves to be wearing another kind of mask—translucent compressive masks typically used to treat burn patients. They presage the coming nuclear fire.

Finally, the matador's mask splits open revealing the modern-era Red Death—an atomic explosion. The guests are awash in white light. When we fade back in, only their distorted negative-shadows on the walls remain. But the party cannot be stopped, and the shadows begin to wiggle and dance beneath a flowing pink vapor stew.

The video is notably directed by Henry Selick, who would go on to direct stop-motion classics The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and Coraline (2009). Selick got the gig after entering a nationwide contest sponsored by 3M, in association with the American Film Institute. Nicholas Cage served on the judging panel, in case you were wondering how many degrees of separation there were between him and Fishbone.

The video went on to win Billboard magazine awards for Best Art Direction and Set Decoration. A fair accomplishment considering Selick was awarded a scant $28,000 budget (about $75,000 today). He clearly made the most of it. Any cheapness apparent in the production only adds to the vibe.

The Wild Boys, Duran Duran (1984)

The wild boys are calling
On their way back from the fire
In August moon's surrender to
A dust cloud on the rise

"The Wild Boys", both the song and the music video that followed, rose from the nuclear ashes of director Russell Mulcahy's attempt to adapt the William Burroughs novel of the same name into a feature film. Bassist and Duran Duran founder John Taylor explained in his book In the Pleasure Groove: Love, Death, and Duran Duran, that he and lead singer/lyricist Simon Le Bon "got excited and insisted to Russell that we should be allowed to compose the title song for his movie." The movie collapsed but the song survived, and Mulcahy had an overabundance of leftover visuals, special effects, characters and designs he could easily recycle for the video. Clearly, he left no idea untouched—the video is stuffed.

This post-apocalypse was the most-apocalypse. The video had the largest budget to date, and was filmed on the cavernous 007 sound stage at Pinewood Studios. Visually, it's richly imagined. The editing is fast paced, creating a kenetic narrative collage that skips and skitters back and forth in time. (If you were hoping the extended ten-minute video made for a more cohesive narrative...no).

When the video opens, we seem to be glimpsing the tail end of the Great Collapse here, with Very British Schoolboys in a nearly empty classroom smashing their chairs and desks (and breathing fire) in a final declaration of rebellion, though the authority figures are nowhere to be seen. The world has not only already imploded, but factions have had time to outfit themselves in the lasted post-apocalyptic rags and body paint. Steel pyramids and scaffolds have risen from the detritus of society, and the world is now a wasteland of scrap metal, chains, and random bursts of flame.

A lone stranger walks through a blue haze of 80s cinematography, his long, long, long cloak blowing dramatically behind him. A robot head breaths fire (there's a lot of fire breathing) while a video screen over his shoulder appears to monitor various members of the band. A bare-chested wild boy (there’s a lot of bare-chested wild boys) with "ANIMAL" stenciled on his torso struts through the metallic wasteland. Large swaths of fabric curtains big enough to sail a windjammer fall. Fire explodes. Wild boys blast out of the walls carrying more fire. Wild boys execute punchy dance moves. It’s a lot.

The band members are in various states of capture and torment. John Taylor is crucified on a car and forced to watch photos of himself, guitarist Andy Taylor is chained to a ship’s figurehead, and keyboardist Nick Rhodes is caged (but he has some electronic equipment to keep him busy).

Finally, we find Le Bon in his wasteland-leather best (light armor adorns his right arm). He’s strapped to the blade of a windmill which periodically dunks his head in a pool of water as it spins. There’s a virtuoso shot of the camera locking in sync with the windmill, rotating with Le Bon so that the world turns around us. Both John Taylor and choreographer Arlene Phillips recall Le Bon nearly drowning on set. Phillips said in an interview in BirminghamLive, "The windmill stopped when he was under the water and he couldn’t breathe. He was stuck there and they had to send divers in to rescue him." (Le Bon denies ever being in danger).

Finally our wasteland hero escapes the Le Bon Dipping Machine—in real life as well as the video—braving an angry water chicken with baby T. rex arms. He’ll live to sing another day. And miraculously, the rest of the band survives as well. They tried to break us / Looks like they'll try again.

Perhaps the most radical thing about this video is that the band as protagonists are almost completely inactive. They’re trapped and awaiting rescue (with the possible exception of Roger Taylor who appears for a split second in some kind of gondola, perhaps flying some makeshift contraption).

There’s an implied optimism here—in surviving the apocalypse, in the ongoing struggle to form a new society and rebuild, and the tenacity to hang in there long enough to be saved. The video ends with our heroes celebrated in a confetti-choked parade.

Wild boys always shine.

How I wrote “The Last Time I Went on a Prowl with Farrell Jenkins”

Last month I had two flash fiction pieces published, the second of which was “The Last Time I Went on a Prowl with Farrell Jenkins.”

On the last night before he disappears, enigmatic Farrell Jenkins—a boy possibly raised by cats—takes reluctant Autumn on one final, magical prowl through the strange spaces between growing up and letting go.

This piece had a couple of origins. Firstly, I’ve had the character of Farrell in one form or other skulking around in my head for quite a while. I’ve always been fascinated with wild or feral kids as characters. I also find hybrids interesting. And, I’m a cat person—I grew up with seven cat siblings. My cat Alex, named after the computer AI in a Bionic Woman episode, lived to be 23. It seems inevitable I’d write about a cat-boy at some point.

I had attempted to introduce a proto-Farrell character in an episode of Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street but at that point, Amazon was pretty much dismissing all of my ideas. (Amazon has a love-hate relationship with creators. They love to hate them, har har.) I also had planned to introduce a Schrödinger’s cat/boy hybrid character in an (as yet unwritten) sequel to my novelette “Anything Short of Death of Death is Survivable,” about a kid imprisoned by a nebula-spanning supercomputer.

But this iteration of Farrell first showed up as the central character in what I thought might be a loosely-connected series of stories pretending to be a middle-grade novel which I called Ten Totally True Tales about Farrell Jenkins, a Boy Raised by Cats Probably (Told by the Kids Who Were There and Maybe Also by a Few Who Weren’t). As an experiment, I wrote a few opening paragraphs but never went much further than that after realizing I had no idea how to make the book work. I moved on to other projects.

A few years later, I found myself participating in a flash fiction contest run by my writer’s group, Codex. The contest runs for six weeks. Each week, writers are provided a selection of story prompts. Writers choose a prompt and have the weekend to create a maximum 750-word flash fiction story. (You may have heard of this contest as it has produced many published stories).

One week I chose this prompt:

Find a book you stopped reading (or any other book nearby). Open to page 72 and choose a sentence on that page. Use something in that sentence to inspire your story.

As it happened I had Stephen King’s You Like It Darker lying nearby. I found this sentence:

"He's got a bottle filled with fireflies in Grandpa's room."

Which reminded me of the firefly in the opening sentences of my abandoned book. But to preserve Farrell’s enigmatic appeal, I needed to see him through another character’s eyes. So there was Autumn, struggling diligently to do her homework while free spirit catboy Farrell crouched in a tree, talking to fireflies and doing his best to distract her. When I realized Autumn had a tube of Grape Crush lipstick rolling around her desk drawer which she didn’t yet have the courage to try, I knew she needed to go on a prowl with Farrell so she could leave childhood with a little bit of Wonder intact—and that was my story.

The creative process is messy and rarely ever moves in a straight line. This was a long way to go for 765 words (I expanded a bit after the contest), but it was worth it to finally put Farrell in a story. And I hope it won’t be his last.

You can read this story in the April 2025 (Version One) issue of Worlds of Possibility.

If you read and enjoy this or any of my stories, please shout about them on social media or drop me a note on Bluesky. Members of the SFWA can add to or upvote my stories on the Nebula Reading List.

Short fiction reading log

“400 Boys” (1983) by Marc Laidlaw in Mirrorshades The Cyberpunk Anthology (1986) [also available free on the author’s website]. Savage giants (or Gods) lay waste to Fun City and Croak's gang is forced to unite with their rivals to save all their skins. An electrifying thunderbolt of a story. Cracking, vivid, visceral prose. Wildly imaginative and very voicey. I wasn’t always sure what was happening on the first read, but I was totally along for the ride. A nightmarish vision, but with a flickering candle-flame of hope at its core. Even in the collapse of everything, a fighting spirit remains. Note: this story was adapted for Love, Death & Robots but the episode does not do it justice. Not even close.

“Super-toys Last All Summer Long” (1969) by Brian Aldiss in We, Robots. Quaint in the way it's dated. Didn't impact me like it should, perhaps because the twist was obvious (or just well-known). Works as a study of crushing loneliness in a technological world. Questions what is real—the robot child is emotionally sincere while the humans are emotionally stunted. More delicate and nuanced than the eventual movie adaptation (A.I. Artificial Intelligence).

“Far As You Can Go” (2006) by Greg van Eekhout in The Year's Best Science Fiction - Twenty-fourth Annual Collection. Cool robot/boy buddy story as they embark on a quest to escape their crumbling hellscape and see the ocean. Love the world and the voice. Fast paced with richly drawn characters and world-building. It’s a stand-out story with a great sense of adventure and heart. The last line made me choke up. This story gave me courage to finally write my own post-apocalypse boy/robot story.

“The End of the Whole Mess” (1986) by Stephen King in Wastelands — Stories of the Apocalypse (and Nightmares and Dreamscapes). A blend of “Flowers for Algernon” and “brilliant mind goes too far.” Narrated by a familiar King archetype (first-person writer). The science is implausible (King's science is always a bit soft and wonky), and the story leans more on tone and concept than depth. It’s mostly a loving character profile of the narrator’s little brother. Nominated for a World Fantasy Award, but didn’t strike me as award-worthy.

“10 Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days” by Samantha Mills in Uncanny #63, March 4, 2025. A hellgate has opened off the coast of California and that's just the starting point for many potential horrific futures as viewed via a bargain-basement witch's ball, on sale from Amazon (free shipping included). Mill's story is a wrenching, raw, honest and fantastical ride. She has a knack for creating characters and worlds that are instantly recognizable and real—perhaps a little too real. Mills never flinches but still offers moments of grace, shows us that in the small spaces between horrors we can find gratitude, find peace, and hopefully find each other. No easy answers here, but worthwhile reminders to hold on to our humanity and to fight the darkness by loving ourselves and each other.

Featured author newsletter: Glen Engel-Cox

This month, I’m excited to introduce fellow writer Glen Engel-Cox and his free daily newsletter Book of Days. Glen Engel-Cox has published a novel, Darwin’s Daughter; a non-fiction compilation, First Impressions; and short fiction in The Daily Tomorrow, Phano, Triangulation, LatineLit, Utopia, Nature, and elsewhere. Glen grew up in Texas and has since lived and worked in California, Malaysia, Ohio, Saudi Arabia, and Washington (both state and District of Columbia), as well as traveling to 90+ other countries. Book of Days is a daily newsletter about authors and literary events, celebrating books and book people. You can subscribe to Glen’s newsletter here: patreon.com/gengelcox

ICYMI

If you’re just joining the party, here’s a rundown of what I’ve been up to and where you can find my work.

Forthcoming: “Five Dispatches from Conflict Zone W-924/B Regarding Post-battle Deployment of A. Thanatensis” in Lightspeed.

I am the author of the middle grade mystery horror audiobook original, The Tower (Recorded Books, 2025), narrated by Christopher Gebauer. Now available wherever audiobooks are sold, or check your local library.

My most recent fiction, “The Last Time I Went on a Prowl with Farrell Jenkins,” is available in the April 2025 (Version One) issue of World of Possibilities.

Other recent fiction includes, “The Everlasting Wound of Polyphemus,” “Three Birds That Came Out of Grayson Huff and a Bunch More That Fell from the Sky,“ and “Under a Star, Bright as Morning.” Visit my Bibliography for a full list of fiction and other works.

I wrote for Nickelodeon’s Glitch Techs, an animated sci-fi adventure about teens who hunt video game monsters that have broken out into the real world. I also created and co-executive produced Amazon Studio’s first live-action kids and family series, Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street, about three kids whose life is anything but normal.

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About this newsletter

Anaxagology is a free monthly(ish) newsletter from author and speculative fiction writer David Anaxagoras featuring essays, previews of works in progress, behind-the-scenes story notes, reading logs, and the occasional giveaway. Subscribe now! You can learn more about Dave at his website, or follow him on Bluesky or Instagram.