When I was a boy, I read novels (and even, have mercy, played role-playing games) set in post-apocalyptic worlds where an advanced civilization had collapsed, leaving behind fabulously dangerous technological artifacts in the remoter reaches of blasted landscapes. When I grew up a little, I thought those books were silly and juvenile. Now the world has places like this ruined Soviet biowarfare lab, on an island in what used to be the Aral Sea, regularly visited by scavangers on "two small boats, the last to ply the water".
Posted at January 29, 2003 12:35 | permanent link