Alexandria’s Genesis
About the Book
The world has ended.
What followed was not silence, but continuation. Roads still
lead somewhere. People still gather. Old words still carry weight, even after
the structures that gave them meaning have collapsed.
John moves through what’s left, carrying a past that refuses to stay buried. Kyra tries to hold onto something fragile in a landscape that rewards endurance more than mercy. Their lives intersect without design, in a world where endurance is mistaken for virtue and survival offers no absolution.
Alexandria’s Genesis is a post-collapse novel concerned
with what people hold onto when everything else is stripped away. Persistence
replaces hope. Memory endures as burden, shaping who people become when there
are no longer clear answers.
This is not a story about the end of the world.
It is about what continues—and the cost of allowing it to continue.
My review
Strackbein’s latest novel is, at its deepest level, a story of resilience. Some people cling to what they know, some people adjust for good, many adjust for personal gain at the expense of any level of humanity. What would you do when everything you know is changed?
We step into a desert with a man named John, robed against the flying sand and thinking in flashes of sarcastic contemporary pop culture. The story feels like a Western until things don’t add up. A woman hanged on the grounds of a modern school building. Mostly empty towns guarded by piles of junk and men with weapons. Secrets…lies…want…greed. Even kindness has an underlying price. John was forced by desperation out into this unforgiving landscape in search of some means to stay alive. When he visits a nearby town, he unwittingly gets caught up in a post-apocalyptic struggle between an unhinged community leader and a girl, Kyra, who carries a secret worthy of hope. When John reluctantly calls on his past skills and teaches Kyra survival strategies, he hopes he’s given her enough and moves on, only to fall into another compromising situation.
Gradually through related flashbacks we learn the depth of the world’s woe and John’s personal story of tragedy. He becomes a grudging hero in spite of his fears and failures, and for that, his character is perhaps the best test of what makes us human. Strackbein’s novel is a thoughtful and provocative look at a potential future, of courage, and choice, and of keeping the light in sight.
About the author
SW Strackbein began writing in his early thirties, during his
military training in the final days of the Iraq War. That season of intensity
and reflection sparked a lifelong pursuit of storytelling—one rooted in a
fascination with human nature and the hidden forces that shape people’s lives.
He went on to earn degrees in Psychology, Mental Health Counseling, and an MBA,
each one deepening his understanding of human behavior, motivation, and the
struggles that define us. His writing reflects that layered insight—an
exploration of the choices we make, the relationships we forge, and the moments
of joy and despair that transform us.
