Notes from the Internet Apocalypse

When the Internet suddenly stops working, society reels from the loss of flowing data and streaming entertainment. Addicts wander the streets talking to themselves in 140 characters or forcing cats to perform tricks for their amusement, while the truly desperate pin their requests for casual encounters on public bulletin boards. The economy tumbles and the government passes the draconian NET Recovery Act. For Gladstone, the Net's disappearance comes particularly hard, following the loss of his wife, leaving his flask of Jamesons and grandfather's fedora as the only comforts in his Brooklyn apartment. But there are rumours that someone in New York is still online. Someone set apart from this new world where Facebook flirters "poke" each other in real life and members of Anonymous trade memes at secret parties. Where a former librarian can sell information as a human search engine and the perverted fulfill their secret fetishes at the blossoming Rule 34 club. With the help of his friends - a blogger and a webcam girl, both now out of work - Gladstone sets off to find the Internet. But is he the right man to save humanity from this Apocalypse? For those of you wondering if you have WiFi right now, Wayne Gladstone's Notes from the Internet Apocalypse examines the question "what is life without the web?"

About the Author :
Wayne Gladstone is a longtime columnist for Cracked.com. He is the creator and star of the Hate by Numbers online video series. His writing has appeared on McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Comedy Central's Indecision, and in the collections You Might Be A Zombie and Other Bad News and The McSweeney's Joke Book of Book Jokes. He lives in New York.

Review :
"An oddly heartfelt journey through the wasteland of a techno-collapse. Gladstone takes an admittedly far-fetched and off-putting story idea and breathes startling life into it. He gambles here, but he wins. Give it a read." --Patton Oswalt "This is satire in its purest form: an exaggerated, filthy and ridiculous world - which happens to be exactly the world we live in. Gladstone has conceived and successfully executed a clever thought experiment that illustrates just how crazy the Internet has made all of us. Witty, profane and entertaining. " --Charles Yu, author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe "Wayne Gladstone's satire is a high-concept page-turner brimming with LOL-worthy one-liners and observations about the web-addicted zombies we've become and the price we've paid for our sins. The best way to sum up the reading experience would be an emoticon that has yet to be invented." --Teddy Wayne, author of The Love Song of Jonny Valentine "Gladstone's novel makes it clear that losing the Internet would indeed be apocalyptic, but it would also be funny, thrilling, and would perhaps be necessary to remind us of who we really are. " --John Warner, Editor-at-Large of McSweeney's Internet Tendency and author of The Funny Man "A story whose humor is matched by its insight into technology's effect on our relationships. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll beg your Internet provider to never leave you." --Frank Lesser, writer for The Colbert Report and author of Sad Monsters "An amusing but thoughtful look at what might happen to our culture if the World Wide Web went down for good." --FantasyLiterature.com "An acid cultural satire that skewers what we would miss most about the online world. " --Kirkus Reviews "The punchlines are pitch-perfect. Anyone who spends time sharing jokes in web communities will find this satire irresistible." --Booklist "If someone's going to slap down the Internet and our relationship with it, the last place you'd likely expect them to do it is in a book. But that's exactly the medium to which Cracked.com writer Wayne Gladstone turns to write a belly-laugh account of what would happen if: Someone stole the Internet." --Toronto Star "With his sharp wit and Googlesque knowledge of the Web, Gladstone lays bare the ways viral communication has become the infrastructure of our economic and cultural identity. The conversations are vulgar at times, but then they throw us unexpectedly into the sublime. At its core, Notes from the Internet Apocalypse is a love story, which is why, even as our narrator spends a week in the Rule 34 club and finally makes a request, it will break your heart." --The Washington Post