---
title: Army Veteran and Nurse Nik Nanoski Releases DUMB 31, a Post-Apocalyptic Novel Ten Years in the Making
description: Army veteran and nurse Nik Nanoski spent ten years writing DUMB 31, a post-apocalyptic novel where survival depends on teamwork, not lone heroes.
author: Darie Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
date: 2026-07-17T15:03:17.148Z
updated: 2026-07-17T15:03:17.171Z
canonical: https://richbooksmagazine.com/article/nik-nanoski-dumb-31-post-apocalyptic-novel
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/dumb31-bunker-featured.webp
categories: Authors & Writers
content_type: Spotlight
region: Texas
publication: Rich Books
schema_type: Article
about:
  - type: Person
    name: Nik Nanoski
    description: "Nik Nanoski is an Army veteran and healthcare professional with nearly twenty years of experience caring for patients in both military and civilian settings. Throughout his career, he witnessed firsthand how people overcome extraordinary challenges, not through individual heroics but through teamwork, trust, and compassion under pressure.\n\nHe spent more than a decade writing DUMB 31 around a full-time nursing career and raising two children. Drawing on his experience in medicine, military service, and a lifelong fascination with systems, resilience, and human nature, he created a post-apocalyptic world where rebuilding society matters more than winning battles.\n\nDUMB 31 is his debut novel and the first installment in a planned science fiction series. He lives in Texas and continues to write stories that explore humanity, hope, and the choices that define us."
    jobTitle: Author
    sameAs:
      - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61591516786602
---

Nik Nanoski, an Army veteran and healthcare professional with nearly twenty years in medicine, has released DUMB 31, a science fiction novel that follows a community of survivors emerging from an underground bunker more than 300 years after humanity's collapse. He wrote it over ten years, in the hours left over from a full-time nursing career and raising two children.

### Book: DUMB 31
By Nik Nanoski

More than 300 years after humanity's collapse, the residents of DUMB 31, a facility built to preserve civilization through global catastrophe, live by carefully maintained systems. When power instability, fluctuating oxygen levels and structural failures force an emergency evacuation, they emerge into an unfamiliar world. Rather than centering on a lone hero, the story follows an ordinary group of friends forced to solve impossible problems together, where every major victory comes through cooperation and strategy. Their greatest challenge is not defeating an enemy but rebuilding civilization without repeating the mistakes that destroyed it.

[Amazon (Paperback & Kindle)](https://www.amazon.com/DUMB-31-Nik-Nanoski-ebook/dp/B0H7FR4DZK/)

The novel opens inside a facility designed to preserve civilization through a global catastrophe. Its residents belong to a society whose survival depends on carefully maintained systems, and after centuries of continuous operation, the bunker's critical systems begin failing, forcing an emergency evacuation, sending people who have never seen the surface into an unfamiliar world. The greatest challenge they face is not defeating an enemy but rebuilding civilization without repeating the mistakes that destroyed it.

## Post-Apocalyptic Fiction Without a Lone Hero

Much of post-apocalyptic fiction turns on a single capable survivor. DUMB 31 goes the other way. The story follows an ordinary group of friends forced to solve impossible problems together, and every major victory depends on people combining their different strengths, showing that survival is built on trust, cooperation, and shared responsibility rather than a single hero saving the day. Readers follow the characters as they learn to navigate the world after the collapse, confront difficult decisions, adapt to changing environments and work out what their community should become.

Nanoski approaches survival as a systems problem: how food, power, medicine and trust actually keep a group of people alive. The operational records and facility documentation woven into the story give the bunker the texture of a real institution, drawing on the author's years working in military and medical systems.

## From Combat Medic and Nurse to Science Fiction Author

That career is the novel's foundation. Nanoski served as a combat medic in the Army and went on to spend nearly two decades in healthcare, most recently as a nurse manager. Both worlds run on the same thing: teams trained to trust each other completely, so that when an emergency comes, everyone knows who is doing what and going where.

He traces the book's view of teamwork to the first cardiac arrest call he was part of. He was doing CPR while the room around him called orders, confirmed them and reported changes in the patient's condition.

> " My first code situation showed me what real teamwork looks like under pressure: people walking into chaos, assuming a role without being told, and working together like clockwork. That feeling never left me, and it's woven into the DNA of DUMB 31. "
> — Nik Nanoski

## A Story That Started in a Sixth-Grade Contest

The seed of DUMB 31 was planted long before the manuscript existed. In sixth grade, Nanoski entered a story contest with a piece set in the future: a boy in a dome house, watching dust storms through the window, asks his grandfather what trees were. The grandfather tells him about climbing them, sword-fighting with the sticks, the way they smelled, everything that had been lost. The story took second place, and the image never left him.

## Ten Years of Writing Around a Full-Time Nursing Career

The novel itself took a decade. Nanoski wrote it between 50 and 60-hour weeks as a nurse manager, going back to school, and raising two children with their own schedules of soccer practice and hula class. In the stretches when there was no time to write, he kept the world alive by sketching maps and building character sheets the way a player would draft a Dungeons and Dragons class. "The story never left me," he says.

Thousands of hours of revision went into strengthening the characters and expanding the world, and the finished book balances suspense with the emotional weight of people deciding what kind of society to be.

"I hope DUMB 31 gives readers exciting adventures, memorable characters, and moments that stay with them long after they've finished the final page," said Nanoski. "More than anything, I hope it reminds people that even during the darkest circumstances, kindness, courage, and community are always worth fighting for."

DUMB 31 is available now in paperback and Kindle editions, and is planned as the first book in a series.

**About Nik Nanoski**
Author

Nik Nanoski is an Army veteran and healthcare professional with nearly twenty years of experience caring for patients in both military and civilian settings. Throughout his career, he witnessed firsthand how people overcome extraordinary challenges, not through individual heroics but through teamwork, trust, and compassion under pressure.

He spent more than a decade writing DUMB 31 around a full-time nursing career and raising two children. Drawing on his experience in medicine, military service, and a lifelong fascination with systems, resilience, and human nature, he created a post-apocalyptic world where rebuilding society matters more than winning battles.

DUMB 31 is his debut novel and the first installment in a planned science fiction series. He lives in Texas and continues to write stories that explore humanity, hope, and the choices that define us.

## FAQ

**Q: What is post-apocalyptic fiction?**
Post-apocalyptic fiction is set after a civilization-ending event, following survivors as they adapt to what remains. DUMB 31 sits at the community-rebuilding end of the genre: its survivors emerge from a bunker into an empty world and must work out how to live in it together.

**Q: What should I read if I like Silo or Fallout?**
Readers who enjoy underground bunker stories like Silo or Fallout will recognize the premise. DUMB 31, however, shifts the focus away from factions and warfare toward rebuilding civilization, asking not just how humanity survives, but what kind of society it chooses to become. As the survivors explore the surface, they begin uncovering evidence that humanity's past, and perhaps its future, has been shaped by forces they never imagined.

**Q: Is DUMB 31 part of a series?**
Yes. DUMB 31 is the first book in a planned series, and Nanoski says the wider story of the survivors' new world will unfold across the coming volumes.