By Piper Bayard

As humans, we seem, by and large, to have this idea that when we arrived, the planet, itself, arrived. Each generation has the notion that we are the final destination of both creation and evolution that will, somehow, some way, survive any apocalyptic event. Even more, we will survive with sexy fashions.

Tina Turner in Beyond Thunderdome

Tina Turner in Beyond Thunderdome

Who wouldn’t want Tina Turner’s chainmail peek-a-boo or Mila Jovovich’s short shorts and garters in the middle of a scorching desert?

Mila Jovovich in Resident Evil: Extinction

Mila Jovovich in Resident Evil: Extinction

Anybody?

The fact is that, while there’s quite an entertainment industry built up around making us feel like we will be among the few special ones to survive an apocalypse, chances are we won’t be, and if we are, we won’t have much use for peek-a-boo garters. We’ll need every fashion advantage we can get.

In FIRELANDS, Archer is facing the North American aftermath of the explosion of the Supervolcano Taupo in New Zealand. (Sorry Kiwis. I couldn’t exactly make it Yellowstone and have anyone here survive for a story.) Ash blanketed the earth, and lowered the average temperature of North America by 20 degrees for seven years. Twenty-eight years later, other volcanoes, awakened by the rapid reversal of the magnetic poles, still spew their ash, and smoke still blankets the land.

So while Archer would prefer to dress like this . . .

Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games

Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games

. . . she wears men’s pants and camouflage turtlenecks, grubby from days at a time spent hunting to feed her people. That’s because in a real apocalypse, we won’t have enough biore wipes or antibacterial hand wash to go around, and we’re going to have to dress a lot more like Mila Kunis in the Book of Eli if we expect to survive.

Mila Kunis in The Book of Eli

Mila Kunis in The Book of Eli

Until midnight MST on July 18, 2013, I’m running the FIRELANDS Apocalypse Reader/Blogger Challenge. It’s easy to enter whether you’re a reader or a blogger, and no purchase is necessary. The prize for readers is the FIRELANDS Apocalypse Survival Kit, which includes the FireKnife to gut your squirrel, split your kindling, and start your cooking fire, a can of Tactical Bacon for a chaser, candy cigarettes and a chocolate bar to barter, and a stuffed Grumpy Cat to keep you company. Bloggers, you can win a feature at Social In Worldwide and reach an audience of two million. See FIRELANDS Apocalypse Reader/Blogger Challenge for the details.

So what do you think? Have you got the thighs to pull off the Tina Turner or Mila Jovovich look in the event of a Supervolcano explosion? Or are you more of an Archer? What would be your ideal post-apocalyptic outfit?

FIRELANDS Cover

FIRELANDS

Available from Amazon in Paperback and on Kindle

Also in e-book at Barnes & Noble and Kobo,

and at iTunes for iPad and mobile devices.