After the Fall - Post-Apocalyptic Fiction, Science and Survival

What does military service teach you about leadership, survival, and the decisions people make when the world falls apart? In this episode of After the Fall , I sit down with U.S. Army Reserve veteran and author Eric Smith, creator of The Last Regiment series. Eric shares how his military background influences his post-apocalyptic fiction, from realistic tactics and crisis leadership to the human...

What does real preparedness actually look like when things go wrong? In this episode of After the Fall, I sit down with firefighter, EMS responder, rescue instructor, and TacMed1 founder Jon Bajek to talk about the reality behind emergency response, survival, and training. With nearly two decades of experience responding to fires, rescues, medical emergencies, and high-stress incidents, Jon breaks...

Before “prepping” became a trend, survival was simply part of everyday life. In this episode of After the Fall, John Michael Layne sits down for a conversation about growing up in rural West Virginia during the Great Depression and the practical skills that once defined ordinary American life. Hunting wasn’t recreation. Gardening wasn’t a hobby. Families preserved food, repaired what they owned, a...

What does real collapse actually look like? In 2005, Hurricane Katrina turned New Orleans into something unrecognizable. Power failed. Communication broke down. And for a period of time, people were left to figure things out on their own. In this episode of After the Fall , John Michael Layne sits down with Wes Gabb—a New Orleans native who lived through Hurricane Katrina as a teenager. Wes shares...

When things go wrong, most people don’t rise to the occasion—they fall to the level of their mindset. In this episode, I break down what I call The Shackleton Mindset —a way of thinking built on clarity, responsibility, discipline, and calm under pressure. Drawing from the real-world leadership of Ernest Shackleton and connecting it to modern life, we walk through the mental framework that actuall...

In this episode of After the Fall , I sit down with Garrett Holt—an indie author and U.S. Navy professional whose background in intelligence, history, and political science brings a unique level of realism to his writing. Garrett is the author of Siege of the Forgotten Order , a post-apocalyptic novel that blends military strategy, dark science fiction, and elements of horror. We talk about how hi...

Everyone talks about the end of the world—but what are the real risks? In this episode, we break down the ten most likely ways civilization could collapse based on science, history, and the systems we rely on every day. From global pandemics and nuclear war to super volcanoes, solar superstorms, and cascading system failures driven by artificial intelligence, this is a grounded look at how fragile...

What does real survival training actually teach you? In this episode of After the Fall , I sit down with Stuart Buchanan—former Australian Army infantryman, SERE instructor, and author of Dragon Rising —to explore what survival really looks like when systems begin to break down. We discuss the mental and physical realities of survival, the biggest mistakes people make in the early stages of a cris...

What does the word apocalypse actually mean? Most of us associate it with destruction—collapse, catastrophe, the end of the world. But the original meaning of the word tells a very different story. In this first episode of After the Fall , we explore the origins of the word apocalypse , how its meaning changed over time, and what that shift reveals about how humans think about the end of the world...