S1 E12: The Death and Resurrection of Baseball: Echoes from a Distant Past - Douglas Peterson

If you are interested in writing Dystopian fiction this is your episode. Meet William R. Douglas, from McHenry, Illinois. In this episode, William shares the motivation for his book, his team of critical friends and how he maintained focus. His book, a futuristic glance at the world in Post Second Civil War USA, where the sport of baseball is no longer part of the national memory bank. Imagine an America where no remembers baseball! This is a fictional tale but as the main character pieces together artefacts to reconstruct baseball, you can't help but wonder about a world so reliant on clouds to store data and the risks associated. William's book may be fictional but the underlying themes are current. 

You will enjoy this episode! Here is William explaining the inspiration for his book. 

Years ago, I saw an article that talked about games that kids used to play back in the 1850's and earlier that are now extinct. No kids play these games anymore, or even has any knowledge of them. Back in the 1990s, I read David Aickman's novel: When the Almond Tree Blossoms. This is a fiction book about a Second American Civil War that is fought along idealogical lines of Liberal vs Conservative. 10 years ago I read William Forstchen's novel: One Second After. This story is about en EMP attack against the United States that puts the country back into "horse and buggy mode". I have been a baseball fan all my life. Before I started writing the novel, I began to see early warning signs regarding the overall popularity of baseball, especially among youth, beginning a decline.  So, taking all the above inputs, a 'what-if' scenario started kicking around in my mind. What if baseball died as a sport? How could it die? What external event could hasten it's demise?  The end product is my speculative fiction novel: The Death and Resurrection of Baseball: Echoes from a Distant Past.

His book is available online on Amazon and other online retailers. 

Follow me on Twitter @mathter.