Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction
Encyclopedia
Apocalyptic fiction is a sub-genre of science fiction
that is concerned with the end of civilization
due to a potentially existential catastrophe
such as nuclear warfare
, pandemic
, extraterrestrial attack
, impact event
, cybernetic revolt
, technological singularity
, dysgenics
, supernatural phenomena, divine judgement
, climate change
, resource depletion
or some other general disaster
. Post-apocalyptic fiction is set in a world or civilization after such a disaster. The time frame may be immediately after the catastrophe, focusing on the travails or psychology of survivors, or considerably later, often including the theme that the existence of pre-catastrophe civilization has been forgotten (or mythologized). Post-apocalyptic stories often take place in an agrarian
, non-technological future world, or a world where only scattered elements of technology remain. There is a considerable degree of blurring between this form of science fiction and that which deals with dystopia
s.
The genres gained in popularity after World War II
, when the possibility of global annihilation by nuclear weapon
s entered the public consciousness. However, recognizable apocalyptic novels have existed at least since the first quarter of the 19th century, when Mary Shelley
's The Last Man
was published. Additionally, the subgenres draw on a body of apocalyptic literature, tropes, and interpretations that are millennia old.
and mythology, some of which dealt with the end of the world and of human society. The scriptural
story of Noah
and his Ark describes the end of a corrupt civilization and its replacement with a remade world. The first centuries AD saw the creation of various apocalyptic works; the best known (due to its inclusion in the New Testament
) is the Book of Revelation
(from which the word apocalypse
originated, meaning "revelation of secrets"), which is replete with prophecies of destruction. In the study of religious works, apocalyptic texts or stories, are those that disclose hidden secrets either by taking an individual literally into the heavens or into the future. Most often these revelations about heaven and the future are used to explain why some currently occurring event is taking place.
Outside of the corpus of New Testament apocrypha
also includes apocalypses of Peter
, Paul
, Stephen
, and Thomas
, as well as two of James
and Gnostic
Apocalypses of Peter
and Paul
. The beliefs and ideas of this time, including apocalyptic accounts excluded from the Bible
, influenced the developing Christian eschatology
.
Further apocalyptic works appeared in the early Middle Ages
. The 7th century Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius
includes themes common in Christian eschatology; the Prophecy of the Popes
has been ascribed to the 12th century Irish saint Malachy
, but could possibly date from the late 16th century. Islamic eschatology
, related to Christian and Jewish
eschatological traditions, also emerged from the 7th century. Ibn al-Nafis's 13th century Theologus Autodidactus
, an Arabic
novel
, used empirical science to explain Islamic eschatology.
's 1826 novel The Last Man
, the story of a man living in a future world emptied of humanity by plague.
The 1885 novel After London by Richard Jefferies
is of the type that could be best described as genuine "post-apocalyptic fiction"; after some sudden and unspecified catastrophe has depopulated England, the countryside reverts to nature, and the few survivors to a quasi-medieval way of life. The first chapters consist solely of a description of nature reclaiming England: fields becoming overrun by forest, domesticated animals running wild, roads and towns becoming overgrown, London
reverting to lake and poisonous swampland. The rest of the story is a straightforward adventure/quest set many years later in the wild landscape and society; but the opening chapters set an example for many later science fiction stories.
Published in 1898, H.G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds
depicts an invasion of Earth by inhabitants of the planet Mars
. The aliens systematically destroy Victorian England with advanced weaponry mounted on nearly indestructible vehicles. Due to the famous radio adaptation
of the novel by Orson Welles
on his show, Mercury Theatre
, the novel has become one of the best known early apocalyptic works. It has subsequently been reproduced or adapted
several times in film, television program
ming, radio programming
, music, and computer games.
saw increased interest in this subgenre, as the threat of nuclear warfare
became real. Paul Brians published Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction
, a study that examines atomic war in short stories, novels, and films between 1895 and 1984. Since this measure of destruction was no longer imaginary, some of these new works, such as Mordecai Roshwald
's Level 7
, Nevil Shute
's On the Beach and Pat Frank's Alas, Babylon
, and Robert McCammon's Swan Song
shun the imaginary science and technology that are the identifying traits of general science fiction. Others include more fantastic elements, such as mutants, alien invaders, or exotic future weapons such as James Axler
's Deathlands
. A seminal work in this subgenre was Walter M. Miller, Jr.
's A Canticle for Leibowitz
(1959), in which a recrudescent Church (Catholic or other), pseudo-medieval society, and rediscovery of the knowledge of the pre-holocaust world are central themes. Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker
(1980) also has religious or mystical themes. Also, Orson Scott Card's post-apocalyptic anthology The Folk of the Fringe
deals with America post nuclear war.
According to some theorists, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in its modern past has influenced Japanese popular culture to include many apocalyptic themes. Much of Japan's manga
and anime
is filled with apocalyptic imagery.
Andre Norton
wrote one of the definitive, post apocalyptic novels, Star Man's Son (AKA, Daybreak 2250), published in 1952, where a young man, Fors, begins an Arthurian quest for lost knowledge, through a radiation ravaged landscape, with the aid of a telepathic, mutant cat. He encounters mutated creatures, "the beast things," which are possibly a degenerated form of humans. Most notably, the 1954 film Gojira (romanized as Godzilla
) depicted the title monster as an anagram for nuclear weapons, something Japan experienced first-hand.
In 2003, children's novelist Jeanne DuPrau
released the first of four books in a post-apocalyptic series for young adults. The City of Ember
has since been made into a film
starring Bill Murray
and Saoirse Ronan
.
Cormac McCarthy
's Pulitzer Prize
-winning The Road
(2006) is a recent work of post-apocalyptic fiction, which was made into a film by director John Hillcoat starring Viggo Mortensen
and Kodi Smit-McPhee
. The cause of the event that partially destroys the world is never explained in the text.
William W. Johnstone
wrote a long series of books over the course of twenty years (35 books all containing the word "Ashes" in the title) about the aftermath of worldwide nuclear and biological war.
CBS
produced the TV series Jericho
in 2006-2008, which focuses on the survival of the town after 23 American cities were destroyed by nuclear weapons.
In 1984 BBC made Threads
, a television program showing the Before/During/After a nuclear bomb is detonated over the British town of Sheffield after the Soviets refused to dismantle a nuclear launch base in Iran.
The series of post-apocalyptic video games Fallout focuses on a world after a massive nuclear war destroys most of the great powers in 2077. The games are usually based around "vaults", safe underground bunkers for long-term survival, and exploring the outside wasteland, in locations such as California
or Washington DC.
by M. P. Shiel
, published in 1901, is a "last man" novel in which most of humanity has been killed by a poisonous cloud.
The Scarlet Plague
by Jack London
, published in 1912, is set in San Francisco in the year 2072, 60 years after a plague has largely depopulated the planet.
Earth Abides
by George R. Stewart
(1949), deals with one man who finds most of civilization has been destroyed by a plague. Slowly a small community forms around him as he struggles to start a new civilization and preserve knowledge and learning.
Survivors
was a 1970s BBC television series, recently remade in 2008. The series focused on a group of British survivors in the aftermath of a genetically engineered virus that has killed 99.9% of the world's population. The first series examined the immediate after-effects of a pandemic
, while the second and third series concentrated on the survivors' attempts to build communities and make contact with other groups.
Empty World
a 1977 novel by John Christopher
about an adolescent boy who survives a plague which has killed off most of the world's population.
In 1978, Stephen King
published The Stand
, which follows the odyssey of a small number of survivors of a world-ending influenza
pandemic. Although reportedly influenced by the 1949 novel Earth Abides
, King's book includes many supernatural
elements and is generally regarded as part of the horror fiction
genre.
The award-winning novel Emergence
by David R. Palmer
(1984) is set in a world where a man-made plague destroys the vast majority of the world's population.
The Portuguese
Nobel laureate José Saramago
wrote Blindness
in 1995. It tells the story of a city or country in which a mass epidemic of blindness destroys the social fabric. It was adapted into the film Blindness
in 2008.
Oryx and Crake
by Margaret Atwood
is an example of dystopian post-apocalyptic fiction. The framing story is set after a genetically modified virus wipes out the entire population except for the protagonist and a small group of humans that were also genetically modified. A series of flashbacks depicting a world dominated by biocorporations explains the events leading up to the apocalypse. This story was later followed up with The Year of the Flood
.
Atwood's short story "Freeforall
" deals with a totalitarian society attempting to stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
Richard Matheson
's I Am Legend deals with the life of Robert Neville, the only unaffected survivor of a global pandemic that has turned the world's population into vampire
-like creatures.
The White Plague
(1982) a novel by Frank Herbert
. When a bomb planted by the IRA goes off, the wife and children of molecular biologist
John Roe O'Neill are killed on May 20, 1996 in a terrorist attack. Driven insane by loss, he plans a genocidal
revenge and creates a plague that kills women. O'Neill then releases it in Ireland
(which he hates for supposedly supporting the terrorists), England
(for oppressing the Irish and giving them a cause), and Libya
(for training said terrorists); he demands that the governments of the world send all citizens of those countries back to their countries, and that they quarantine those countries and let the plague run its course, so they will lose what he has lost; if they do not, he has more plagues to release.
Y: The Last Man
comic series by Brian K. Vaughan
and Pia Guerra
deals with the life of Yorick Brown and his monkey Ampersand after a plague wipes out all but three male life forms on the earth, leaving the whole planet to be controlled by women.
Author Jeff Carlson
wrote a trilogy of novels beginning with his 2007 debut, Plague Year, a present-day thriller about a worldwide nanotech contagion that devours all warm-blooded life below 10000 feet (3,048 m) in elevation. Its two sequels, Plague War and Plague Zone, deal with a cure that allows return to an environment that suffered ecological collapse due to massive increases in insects and reptiles.
"Zombieland
" (2009) is a film in which a disease mutates most Americans(rest of the world is not mentioned) and turns them into feral animal like creatures hungry for human flesh. The story is about a group of people who stick together to try survive against the zombies.
's 1909 novella The Machine Stops
, humanity has been forced underground due to inhospitable conditions on Earth's surface and is entirely dependent on "the machine," a god-like mechanical entity which has supplanted almost all free will
by providing for mankind's every whim. The machine deteriorates and eventually stops, ending the lives of all those dependent upon it, though one of the dying alludes to a group of humans dwelling on the surface who will carry the torch of humanity into the future.
In René Barjavel
's 1943 novel Ravage
, written and published during the German occupation of France, a future France is devastated by the sudden failure of electricity
, causing chaos, disease, and famine with a small band of survivors desperately struggling for survival.
Half a century later, S. M. Stirling
took up a similar theme in the 2004 Dies the Fire
, where a sudden mysterious worldwide "Change" alters physical laws so that electricity
, gunpowder
and most forms of high-energy-density technology
no longer work. Civilization collapses, and two competing groups struggle to re-create medieval technologies and skills, as well as master magic.
Afterworld is a computer-animated American
science fiction
television series about the failure of modern technology.
Harlan Ellison
's short story "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
", published in 1967, is set after the Cold War
, where a super-computer, named AM (Allied Mastercomputer/Adaptive Manipulator), created to run the war office, becomes self conscious, and destroys all but five human beings. In a vast subterranean complex, the survivors search the shadow of the former world in search of food, whilst being torture
d by AM on the way.
's 1839 short story "The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion
" has two souls in the afterlife discussing the destruction of the world by a comet that removed nitrogen from earth's atmosphere; this left only oxygen, resulting in a worldwide inferno.
In the 1933 novel When Worlds Collide
by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer, Earth is destroyed by the rogue planet Bronson Alpha. A selected few escape on a spaceship. In the sequel, After Worlds Collide
, the survivors start a new life on the planet's companion Bronson Beta, which has taken the orbit formerly occupied by Earth.
In the 1954 novel One in Three Hundred
by J. T. McIntosh
, scientists have discovered how to pinpoint the exact minute, hour, and day the Sun will go "nova
" – and when it does, it will boil away Earth's seas, beginning with the hemisphere that faces the sun, and as Earth continues to rotate, it will take only 24 hours before all life is eradicated. Super-hurricanes and tornadoes are predicted. Buildings will be blown away. A race is on to build thousands of spaceships for the sole purpose of transferring evacuees on a one-way trip to Mars
. When the Sun begins to go nova, everything is on schedule, but most of the spaceships turn out to be defective, and fail en route to Mars.
Lucifer's Hammer
by Jerry Pournelle
and Larry Niven
(1977) is about a cataclysmic comet hitting Earth, and various groups of people struggling to survive the aftermath in southern California
.
Moonbane by Al Sarrantonio
(1989) concerns the origin of werewolves (the Moon, which is why they are so attracted to it), and an invasion after an explosion on Luna sends meteoric fragments containing latent lycanthropes to Earth,who thrive in our planet's oxygen-rich atmosphere. It's tone is reminiscent of Wells' War of the Worlds.
Falling Skies
by Robert Rodat
and Steven Spielberg
is a 2011 TV show that follows a resistance who are fighting to survive after extraterrestrial aliens destroy and attempt to take over Earth. The resistance force in the story bases its operation in Massachusetts.
among British
science fiction
writers. A "cosy catastrophe" is typically one in which civilization (as we know it) comes to an end and everyone is killed except for the main characters, who survive relatively unscathed and are then freed from the prior constraints of civilization. The term was coined by Brian Aldiss
in Billion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction (1973). Aldiss was directing his remarks at English author John Wyndham
, especially his novel The Day of the Triffids
, whose protagonists were able to enjoy a relatively comfortable existence with little associated hardship or danger despite the fall of society.
The Catalan
author Manuel de Pedrolo
wrote Mecanoscrit del segon origen (Second origin typescript). It was published in 1974 and is a post-apocalyptic novel where two children accidentally survive an alien holocaust that eradicates all life on earth. They take up the mission of preserving human culture and repopulating the Earth.
has written a novel World Made By Hand
that imagines life in upstate New York
after a declining world oil supply
has wreaked havoc on the US economy and people and society are forced to adjust to daily life without cheap oil.
Canadian novelist Douglas Coupland
's 2010 book Player One
deals with four individuals taking refuge in a Toronto
airport bar while a series of cataclysmic events occur outside.
Last Light and its sequel Afterlight by Alex Scarrow
narrate the fall of British civilization after a war in the Middle East eradicates the majority of the Earth's oil supply.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
that is concerned with the end of civilization
Risks to civilization, humans and planet Earth
Various existential risks could threaten humankind as a whole, have adverse consequences for the course of human civilization, or even cause the end of planet Earth.-Types of risks:...
due to a potentially existential catastrophe
Existential risk
Existential risks are dangers that have the potential to destroy, or drastically restrict, human civilization. They are distinguished from other forms of risk both by their scope, affecting all of humanity, and severity; destroying or irreversibly crippling the target.Natural disasters, such as...
such as nuclear warfare
Nuclear warfare
Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
, pandemic
Pandemic
A pandemic is an epidemic of infectious disease that is spreading through human populations across a large region; for instance multiple continents, or even worldwide. A widespread endemic disease that is stable in terms of how many people are getting sick from it is not a pandemic...
, extraterrestrial attack
Alien invasion
The alien invasion is a common theme in science fiction stories and film, in which extraterrestrial life invades Earth either to exterminate and supplant human life, enslave it under a colonial system, harvest humans for food, steal the planet's resources, or destroy the planet altogether.The...
, impact event
Impact event
An impact event is the collision of a large meteorite, asteroid, comet, or other celestial object with the Earth or another planet. Throughout recorded history, hundreds of minor impact events have been reported, with some occurrences causing deaths, injuries, property damage or other significant...
, cybernetic revolt
Cybernetic revolt
Cybernetic revolt or robot uprising is a scenario in which an artificial intelligence decide that humans are a threat , are inferior, or are oppressors and try to destroy or to enslave them potentially leading to...
, technological singularity
Technological singularity
Technological singularity refers to the hypothetical future emergence of greater-than-human intelligence through technological means. Since the capabilities of such an intelligence would be difficult for an unaided human mind to comprehend, the occurrence of a technological singularity is seen as...
, dysgenics
Dysgenics
Dysgenics is the study of factors producing the accumulation and perpetuation of defective or disadvantageous genes and traits in offspring of a particular population or species. Dysgenic mutations have been studied in animals such as the mouse and the fruit fly...
, supernatural phenomena, divine judgement
Eschatology
Eschatology is a part of theology, philosophy, and futurology concerned with what are believed to be the final events in history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred to as the end of the world or the World to Come...
, climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
, resource depletion
Resource depletion
Resource depletion is an economic term referring to the exhaustion of raw materials within a region. Resources are commonly divided between renewable resources and non-renewable resources...
or some other general disaster
Disaster
A disaster is a natural or man-made hazard that has come to fruition, resulting in an event of substantial extent causing significant physical damage or destruction, loss of life, or drastic change to the environment...
. Post-apocalyptic fiction is set in a world or civilization after such a disaster. The time frame may be immediately after the catastrophe, focusing on the travails or psychology of survivors, or considerably later, often including the theme that the existence of pre-catastrophe civilization has been forgotten (or mythologized). Post-apocalyptic stories often take place in an agrarian
Agrarian society
An agrarian society is a society that depends on agriculture as its primary means for support and sustenance. The society acknowledges other means of livelihood and work habits but stresses the importance of agriculture and farming, and was the most common form of socio-economic oganization for...
, non-technological future world, or a world where only scattered elements of technology remain. There is a considerable degree of blurring between this form of science fiction and that which deals with dystopia
Dystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
s.
The genres gained in popularity after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, when the possibility of global annihilation by nuclear weapon
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
s entered the public consciousness. However, recognizable apocalyptic novels have existed at least since the first quarter of the 19th century, when Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus . She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley...
's The Last Man
The Last Man
The Last Man is an apocalyptic science fiction novel by Mary Shelley, which was first published in 1826. The book tells of a future world that has been ravaged by a plague. The novel was harshly reviewed at the time, and was virtually unknown until a scholarly revival beginning in the 1960s...
was published. Additionally, the subgenres draw on a body of apocalyptic literature, tropes, and interpretations that are millennia old.
Ancient predecessors
Numerous societies, including the Babylonian and Judaic traditions, have produced apocalyptic literatureApocalyptic literature
Apocalyptic literature is a genre of prophetical writing that developed in post-Exilic Jewish culture and was popular among millennialist early Christians....
and mythology, some of which dealt with the end of the world and of human society. The scriptural
Biblical canon
A biblical canon, or canon of scripture, is a list of books considered to be authoritative as scripture by a particular religious community. The term itself was first coined by Christians, but the idea is found in Jewish sources. The internal wording of the text can also be specified, for example...
story of Noah
Noah
Noah was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs. The biblical story of Noah is contained in chapters 6–9 of the book of Genesis, where he saves his family and representatives of all animals from the flood by constructing an ark...
and his Ark describes the end of a corrupt civilization and its replacement with a remade world. The first centuries AD saw the creation of various apocalyptic works; the best known (due to its inclusion in the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
) is the Book of Revelation
Book of Revelation
The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament. The title came into usage from the first word of the book in Koine Greek: apokalupsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation"...
(from which the word apocalypse
Apocalypse
An Apocalypse is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception, i.e. the veil to be lifted. The Apocalypse of John is the Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament...
originated, meaning "revelation of secrets"), which is replete with prophecies of destruction. In the study of religious works, apocalyptic texts or stories, are those that disclose hidden secrets either by taking an individual literally into the heavens or into the future. Most often these revelations about heaven and the future are used to explain why some currently occurring event is taking place.
Outside of the corpus of New Testament apocrypha
New Testament apocrypha
The New Testament apocrypha are a number of writings by early Christians that claim to be accounts of Jesus and his teachings, the nature of God, or the teachings of his apostles and of their lives. These writings often have links with books regarded as "canonical"...
also includes apocalypses of Peter
Apocalypse of Peter
The recovered Apocalypse of Peter or Revelation of Peter is an example of a simple, popular early Christian text of the 2nd century; it is an example of Apocalyptic literature with Hellenistic overtones. The text is extant in two incomplete versions of a lost Greek original, one Koine Greek, and an...
, Paul
Apocalypse of Paul
The Apocalypse of Paul is a 4th-century text of the New Testament apocrypha. There is an Ethiopic version of the Apocalypse which features the Virgin Mary in the place of Paul the Apostle, as the receiver of the vision, known as the Apocalypse of the Virgin...
, Stephen
Apocalypse of Stephen
The Apocalypse of Stephen is one of the New Testament apocrypha's texts. The Stephen in question is one of the Seven Deacons to the Apostles.The text describes a conflict at the very beginnings of Christianity about the nature of Jesus of Nazareth...
, and Thomas
Apocalypse of Thomas
The Apocalypse of Thomas is a work from the New Testament apocrypha, apparently composed originally in Latin.The vision concerns the end of the world, and appears to be a rendering of the Apocalypse of John, though written in a somewhat less enigmatic or mystical manner.There are two known...
, as well as two of James
Apocalypse of James
Apocalypse of James is the name of two apocryphal early Christian works:*First Apocalypse of James*Second Apocalypse of James...
and Gnostic
Gnosticism
Gnosticism is a scholarly term for a set of religious beliefs and spiritual practices common to early Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism, Greco-Roman mystery religions, Zoroastrianism , and Neoplatonism.A common characteristic of some of these groups was the teaching that the realisation of Gnosis...
Apocalypses of Peter
Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter
The Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter, not to be confused with the Apocalypse of Peter, is a text found amongst the Nag Hammadi library, and part of the New Testament apocrypha. Like the vast majority of texts in the Nag Hammadi collection, it is heavily gnostic. It was probably written around 100-200 AD...
and Paul
Coptic Apocalypse of Paul
The Coptic Apocalypse of Paul is one of the texts of the New Testament apocrypha found amongst the Nag Hammadi library. The text is not to be confused with the Apocalypse of Paul, which is unlikely to be related....
. The beliefs and ideas of this time, including apocalyptic accounts excluded from the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
, influenced the developing Christian eschatology
Christian eschatology
Christian eschatology is a major branch of study within Christian theology. Eschatology, from two Greek words meaning last and study , is the study of the end of things, whether the end of an individual life, the end of the age, or the end of the world...
.
Further apocalyptic works appeared in the early Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
. The 7th century Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius
Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius
The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius is a 7th-century apocalypse that shaped the eschatological imagination of Christendom throughout the Middle Ages. The work was written in Syriac in the late 7th century, in reaction to the Islamic conquest of the Near East, and is falsely attributed to the...
includes themes common in Christian eschatology; the Prophecy of the Popes
Prophecy of the Popes
The Prophecy of the Popes, attributed to Saint Malachy, is a list of 112 short phrases in Latin. They purport to describe each of the Roman Catholic popes , beginning with Pope Celestine II and concluding with the successor of current pope Benedict XVI, a pope described in the prophecy as "Peter...
has been ascribed to the 12th century Irish saint Malachy
Saint Malachy
Saint Malachy was the Archbishop of Armagh, to whom were attributed several miracles and a vision of the identity of the last 112 Popes...
, but could possibly date from the late 16th century. Islamic eschatology
Islamic eschatology
Islamic eschatology is concerned with the al-Qiyāmah . Like the other Abrahamic religions, Islam teaches the bodily resurrection of the dead, the fulfillment of a divine plan for creation, and the judgement of the soul; the righteous are rewarded with the pleasures of Jannah while the unrighteous...
, related to Christian and Jewish
Jewish eschatology
Jewish eschatology is concerned with the Jewish Messiah, afterlife, and the revival of the dead. Eschatology, generically, is the area of theology and philosophy concerned with the final events in the history of the world, the ultimate destiny of humanity, and related concepts.-The Messiah:The...
eschatological traditions, also emerged from the 7th century. Ibn al-Nafis's 13th century Theologus Autodidactus
Theologus Autodidactus
Al-Risalah al-Kamiliyyah fil Siera al-Nabawiyyah , also known as Risālat Fād il ibn Nātiq , was the first theological novel, written by Ibn al-Nafis and later translated in the West as Theologus Autodidactus...
, an Arabic
Arabic literature
Arabic literature is the writing produced, both prose and poetry, by writers in the Arabic language. The Arabic word used for literature is adab which is derived from a meaning of etiquette, and implies politeness, culture and enrichment....
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
, used empirical science to explain Islamic eschatology.
Pre-1900 works
The first work of modern apocalyptic fiction in English may be Mary ShelleyMary Shelley
Mary Shelley was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus . She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley...
's 1826 novel The Last Man
The Last Man
The Last Man is an apocalyptic science fiction novel by Mary Shelley, which was first published in 1826. The book tells of a future world that has been ravaged by a plague. The novel was harshly reviewed at the time, and was virtually unknown until a scholarly revival beginning in the 1960s...
, the story of a man living in a future world emptied of humanity by plague.
The 1885 novel After London by Richard Jefferies
Richard Jefferies
John Richard Jefferies was an English nature writer, noted for his depiction of English rural life in essays, books of natural history, and novels. His childhood on a small Wiltshire farm had a great influence on him and provides the background to all his major works of fiction...
is of the type that could be best described as genuine "post-apocalyptic fiction"; after some sudden and unspecified catastrophe has depopulated England, the countryside reverts to nature, and the few survivors to a quasi-medieval way of life. The first chapters consist solely of a description of nature reclaiming England: fields becoming overrun by forest, domesticated animals running wild, roads and towns becoming overgrown, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
reverting to lake and poisonous swampland. The rest of the story is a straightforward adventure/quest set many years later in the wild landscape and society; but the opening chapters set an example for many later science fiction stories.
Published in 1898, H.G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds
The War of the Worlds
The War of the Worlds is an 1898 science fiction novel written by H. G. Wells.The War of the Worlds may also refer to:- Radio broadcasts :* The War of the Worlds , the 1938 radio broadcast by Orson Welles...
depicts an invasion of Earth by inhabitants of the planet Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
. The aliens systematically destroy Victorian England with advanced weaponry mounted on nearly indestructible vehicles. Due to the famous radio adaptation
The War of the Worlds (radio)
The War of the Worlds was an episode of the American radio drama anthology series Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938, and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker...
of the novel by Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
on his show, Mercury Theatre
Mercury Theatre
The Mercury Theatre was a theatre company founded in New York City in 1937 by Orson Welles and John Houseman. After a string of live theatrical productions, in 1938 the Mercury Theatre progressed into their best-known period as The Mercury Theatre on the Air, a radio series that included one of the...
, the novel has become one of the best known early apocalyptic works. It has subsequently been reproduced or adapted
Adaptations of The War of the Worlds
The War of the Worlds is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells. It describes the experiences of a character who travels through London as the Earth is invaded by Martians. It is said to be the first story that details a conflict between mankind and an alien race.Following its publication, The War...
several times in film, television program
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
ming, radio programming
Radio programming
Radio programming is the Broadcast programming of a Radio format or content that is organized for Commercial broadcasting and Public broadcasting radio stations....
, music, and computer games.
Nuclear war
The period of the Cold WarCold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
saw increased interest in this subgenre, as the threat of nuclear warfare
Nuclear warfare
Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
became real. Paul Brians published Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction
Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction
Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction, 1895–1984 was written by Paul Brians and published in 1987. This comprehensive study covers Nuclear holocaust fiction published in English-language works between 1895 and 1984. Brians notes that 1895 marked the first appearance of an atomic weapon in...
, a study that examines atomic war in short stories, novels, and films between 1895 and 1984. Since this measure of destruction was no longer imaginary, some of these new works, such as Mordecai Roshwald
Mordecai Roshwald
Mordecai Roshwald is an American academic and writer. Born in Poland, he later emigrated to Israel. His most famous work is the novel Level 7, a post-apocalyptic science-fiction novel...
's Level 7
Level 7
Level 7 is a 1959 science fiction novel by the American writer Mordecai Roshwald. It is told from the first person perspective of a modern soldier X-127 living in the underground military complex Level 7, where he was expected to reside permanently, fulfilling the role of commanding his nation's...
, Nevil Shute
Nevil Shute
Nevil Shute Norway was a popular British-Australian novelist and a successful aeronautical engineer. He used his full name in his engineering career, and 'Nevil Shute' as his pen name, in order to protect his engineering career from any potential negative publicity in connection with his novels.-...
's On the Beach and Pat Frank's Alas, Babylon
Alas, Babylon
Alas, Babylon is a 1959 novel by American writer Pat Frank . It was one of the first apocalyptic novels of the nuclear age and remains popular fifty years after it was first published...
, and Robert McCammon's Swan Song
Swan Song (novel)
Swan Song is a 1987 horror novel by American novelist Robert R. McCammon. It is a work of post-apocalyptic fiction describing the aftermath of a nuclear war that provokes an evolution in humankind.- Plot :...
shun the imaginary science and technology that are the identifying traits of general science fiction. Others include more fantastic elements, such as mutants, alien invaders, or exotic future weapons such as James Axler
James Axler
James Axler is a house name used by the publishing company Gold Eagle Publishing, the action adventure series published by Harlequin Enterprises Ltd....
's Deathlands
Deathlands
The Deathlands is a series of novels published by Gold Eagle Publishing. The first novel 'Pilgrimage to Hell' was first published in 1986. This series of novels was first written by Christopher Lowder, under the pen name Jack Adrian. Mr. Lowder became ill after developing the plot and writing most...
. A seminal work in this subgenre was Walter M. Miller, Jr.
Walter M. Miller, Jr.
Walter Michael Miller, Jr. was an American science fiction author. Today he is primarily known for A Canticle for Leibowitz, the only novel he published in his lifetime. Prior to its publication he was a prolific writer of short stories.- Biography :Miller was born in New Smyrna Beach, Florida...
's A Canticle for Leibowitz
A Canticle for Leibowitz
A Canticle for Leibowitz is a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by American writer Walter M. Miller, Jr., first published in 1960. Set in a Roman Catholic monastery in the desert of the southwestern United States after a devastating nuclear war, the story spans thousands of years as...
(1959), in which a recrudescent Church (Catholic or other), pseudo-medieval society, and rediscovery of the knowledge of the pre-holocaust world are central themes. Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker
Riddley Walker
Riddley Walker is a science fiction novel by Russell Hoban, first published in 1980. It won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best science fiction novel in 1982, as well as an Australian Science Fiction Achievement Award in 1983...
(1980) also has religious or mystical themes. Also, Orson Scott Card's post-apocalyptic anthology The Folk of the Fringe
The Folk of the Fringe
The Folk of the Fringe is a collection of post-apocalyptic stories by American writer Orson Scott Card. These stories are set sometime in the near future, when World War III has left America in ruins. The stories are about how a few groups of Mormons struggle to survive...
deals with America post nuclear war.
According to some theorists, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in its modern past has influenced Japanese popular culture to include many apocalyptic themes. Much of Japan's manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
and anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
is filled with apocalyptic imagery.
Andre Norton
Andre Norton
Andre Alice Norton, née Alice Mary Norton was an American science fiction and fantasy author under the noms de plume Andre Norton, Andrew North and Allen Weston...
wrote one of the definitive, post apocalyptic novels, Star Man's Son (AKA, Daybreak 2250), published in 1952, where a young man, Fors, begins an Arthurian quest for lost knowledge, through a radiation ravaged landscape, with the aid of a telepathic, mutant cat. He encounters mutated creatures, "the beast things," which are possibly a degenerated form of humans. Most notably, the 1954 film Gojira (romanized as Godzilla
Godzilla
is a daikaijū, a Japanese movie monster, first appearing in Ishirō Honda's 1954 film Godzilla. Since then, Godzilla has gone on to become a worldwide pop culture icon starring in 28 films produced by Toho Co., Ltd. The monster has appeared in numerous other media incarnations including video games,...
) depicted the title monster as an anagram for nuclear weapons, something Japan experienced first-hand.
In 2003, children's novelist Jeanne DuPrau
Jeanne DuPrau
Jeanne DuPrau is an American writer, best known for The Books of Ember, a series of novels for young people. She lives in Menlo Park, California.-Home life:...
released the first of four books in a post-apocalyptic series for young adults. The City of Ember
The City of Ember
The City of Ember is a post-apocalyptic novel by Jeanne DuPrau that was published in 2003. Similar to Suzanne Martel's The City Under Ground published in 1963, the story is about Ember, an underground city that is slowly running out of power and supplies due to its aging infrastructure...
has since been made into a film
City of Ember
City of Ember is a 2008 science fiction-fantasy film based on the 2003 novel of the same name by Jeanne DuPrau. It was directed by Gil Kenan from a screenplay by Caroline Thompson, and stars Saoirse Ronan, Harry Treadaway, Bill Murray, Mackenzie Crook, Martin Landau and Tim Robbins.-Plot:In the...
starring Bill Murray
Bill Murray
William James "Bill" Murray is an American actor and comedian. He first gained national exposure on Saturday Night Live in which he earned an Emmy Award and later went on to star in a number of critically and commercially successful comedic films, including Caddyshack , Ghostbusters , and...
and Saoirse Ronan
Saoirse Ronan
Saoirse Una Ronan is an Irish film actress. She began her career as a child and came to international prominence in 2007 after co-starring in the film Atonement, which gained her nominations for a BAFTA, a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.Ronan has since appeared in...
.
Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road...
's Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
-winning The Road
The Road
The Road is a 2006 novel by the American author Cormac McCarthy.The Road may also refer to:* The Road , a 2001 Kazakhstani film* The Road , a 2009 film adaptation of the McCarthy novel...
(2006) is a recent work of post-apocalyptic fiction, which was made into a film by director John Hillcoat starring Viggo Mortensen
Viggo Mortensen
Viggo Peter Mortensen, Jr. is a Danish-American actor, poet, musician, photographer and painter. He made his film debut in Peter Weir's 1985 thriller Witness, and subsequently appeared in many notable films of the 1990s, including The Indian Runner , Carlito's Way , Crimson Tide , Daylight , The...
and Kodi Smit-McPhee
Kodi Smit-McPhee
Kodi Smit-McPhee is an award-winning Australian actor, most known for his roles as The Boy in the The Road and Owen in Let Me In. He has also appeared in Australian films, Romulus, My Father and Matching Jack....
. The cause of the event that partially destroys the world is never explained in the text.
William W. Johnstone
William W. Johnstone
William Wallace Johnstone was a prolific American author, mostly of western, horror and survivalist novels.- Biography :...
wrote a long series of books over the course of twenty years (35 books all containing the word "Ashes" in the title) about the aftermath of worldwide nuclear and biological war.
CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
produced the TV series Jericho
Jericho (TV series)
Jericho is an American action/drama series that centers on the residents of the fictional town of Jericho, Kansas, in the aftermath of nuclear attacks on 23 major cities in the contiguous United States...
in 2006-2008, which focuses on the survival of the town after 23 American cities were destroyed by nuclear weapons.
In 1984 BBC made Threads
Threads
Threads is a British television drama produced by the BBC in 1984. Written by Barry Hines and directed by Mick Jackson, it is a documentary-style account of a nuclear war and its effects on the city of Sheffield in northern England....
, a television program showing the Before/During/After a nuclear bomb is detonated over the British town of Sheffield after the Soviets refused to dismantle a nuclear launch base in Iran.
The series of post-apocalyptic video games Fallout focuses on a world after a massive nuclear war destroys most of the great powers in 2077. The games are usually based around "vaults", safe underground bunkers for long-term survival, and exploring the outside wasteland, in locations such as California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
or Washington DC.
Pandemic
The Purple CloudThe Purple Cloud
The Purple Cloud is a "last man" novel by the British writer M. P. Shiel. It was published in 1901. H. P. Lovecraft later praised the novel as exemplary weird fiction, "delivered with a skill and artistry falling little short of actual majesty." Frank Belknap Long deemed it "the most unutterably...
by M. P. Shiel
M. P. Shiel
Matthew Phipps Shiel was a prolific British writer of West Indian descent. His legal surname remained "Shiell" though he adopted the shorter version as a de facto pen name....
, published in 1901, is a "last man" novel in which most of humanity has been killed by a poisonous cloud.
The Scarlet Plague
The Scarlet Plague
The Scarlet Plague is a post-apocalyptic fiction novel written by Jack London and originally published in London Magazine in 1912.The story takes place in 2073, sixty years after an uncontrollable epidemic, the Red Death, has depopulated the planet...
by Jack London
Jack London
John Griffith "Jack" London was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone...
, published in 1912, is set in San Francisco in the year 2072, 60 years after a plague has largely depopulated the planet.
Earth Abides
Earth Abides
Earth Abides is a 1949 post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by American writer George R. Stewart. It tells the story of the fall of civilization from deadly disease and its rebirth. Beginning in the United States in the 1940s, it deals with Isherwood "Ish" Williams, Emma, and the community they...
by George R. Stewart
George R. Stewart
George Rippey Stewart was an American toponymist, a novelist, and a professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley...
(1949), deals with one man who finds most of civilization has been destroyed by a plague. Slowly a small community forms around him as he struggles to start a new civilization and preserve knowledge and learning.
Survivors
Survivors
Survivors is a British post-apocalyptic fiction television series devised by Terry Nation and produced by Terence Dudley at the BBC from 1975 to 1977...
was a 1970s BBC television series, recently remade in 2008. The series focused on a group of British survivors in the aftermath of a genetically engineered virus that has killed 99.9% of the world's population. The first series examined the immediate after-effects of a pandemic
Pandemic
A pandemic is an epidemic of infectious disease that is spreading through human populations across a large region; for instance multiple continents, or even worldwide. A widespread endemic disease that is stable in terms of how many people are getting sick from it is not a pandemic...
, while the second and third series concentrated on the survivors' attempts to build communities and make contact with other groups.
Empty World
Empty World
Empty World is a science fiction novel written by John Christopher aimed at an adolescent audience. It was Christopher's eleventh such novel. The German station ZDF produced a TV adaptation of Empty World in 1987...
a 1977 novel by John Christopher
Samuel Youd
Samuel Youd is a British author, best known for his science fiction writings under the pseudonym John Christopher, including the novel The Death of Grass and the young adult oriented novel series The Tripods...
about an adolescent boy who survives a plague which has killed off most of the world's population.
In 1978, Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
published The Stand
The Stand
The Stand is a post-apocalyptic horror/fantasy novel by American author Stephen King. It demonstrates the scenario in his earlier short story, Night Surf...
, which follows the odyssey of a small number of survivors of a world-ending influenza
Influenza
Influenza, commonly referred to as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae , that affects birds and mammals...
pandemic. Although reportedly influenced by the 1949 novel Earth Abides
Earth Abides
Earth Abides is a 1949 post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by American writer George R. Stewart. It tells the story of the fall of civilization from deadly disease and its rebirth. Beginning in the United States in the 1940s, it deals with Isherwood "Ish" Williams, Emma, and the community they...
, King's book includes many supernatural
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
elements and is generally regarded as part of the horror fiction
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
genre.
The award-winning novel Emergence
Emergence (novel)
Emergence is a science fiction novel written by David R. Palmer. It first appeared as a novella published in Analog Science Fiction in 1981. Analog also published Part II, 'Seeking,' in 1983. The completed novel then was published by Bantam in 1984. The plot follows a precocious 11-year-old...
by David R. Palmer
David R. Palmer
David R. Palmer , Highland Park High School , is a science fiction author who has been nominated three times for Hugo Awards. He is married and lives in Florida , where he works as a court reporter.-Published works:...
(1984) is set in a world where a man-made plague destroys the vast majority of the world's population.
The Portuguese
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
Nobel laureate José Saramago
José Saramago
José de Sousa Saramago, GColSE was a Nobel-laureate Portuguese novelist, poet, playwright and journalist. His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the human factor. Harold Bloom has described Saramago as "a...
wrote Blindness
Blindness (novel)
Blindness is a novel by Portuguese author José Saramago. It was originally published in Portuguese and then translated into English. It is one of his most famous novels, along with The Gospel According to Jesus Christ and Baltasar and Blimunda....
in 1995. It tells the story of a city or country in which a mass epidemic of blindness destroys the social fabric. It was adapted into the film Blindness
Blindness (film)
Blindness is a 2008 English-language film that is an adaptation of the 1995 novel of the same name by the Portuguese writer José Saramago about a society suffering an epidemic of blindness. The film is written by Don McKellar and directed by Fernando Meirelles with Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo...
in 2008.
Oryx and Crake
Oryx and Crake
Oryx and Crake is a novel by the Canadian author Margaret Atwood. Atwood has at times disputed the novel being science fiction, preferring to label it speculative fiction and "adventure romance" because it does not deal with 'things that have not been invented yet' and goes beyond the realism she...
by Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood
Margaret Eleanor Atwood, is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. She is among the most-honoured authors of fiction in recent history; she is a winner of the Arthur C...
is an example of dystopian post-apocalyptic fiction. The framing story is set after a genetically modified virus wipes out the entire population except for the protagonist and a small group of humans that were also genetically modified. A series of flashbacks depicting a world dominated by biocorporations explains the events leading up to the apocalypse. This story was later followed up with The Year of the Flood
The Year of the Flood
The Year of the Flood is a novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, released on September 22, 2009 in the United States, and September 7, 2009, in the United Kingdom...
.
Atwood's short story "Freeforall
Freeforall (short story)
"Freeforall" is a 1986 short story by Margaret Atwood.-Summary:The story is set in the near future, a time of widespread and rampant sexually transmitted disease, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It describes a dystopian society with extremely limited freedoms tightly regulated by a totalitarian state...
" deals with a totalitarian society attempting to stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
Richard Matheson
Richard Matheson
Richard Burton Matheson is an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. He is perhaps best known as the author of What Dreams May Come, Bid Time Return, A Stir of Echoes, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and I Am Legend, all of which have been...
's I Am Legend deals with the life of Robert Neville, the only unaffected survivor of a global pandemic that has turned the world's population into vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
-like creatures.
The White Plague
The White Plague
The White Plague is a science fiction novel by Frank Herbert.-Plot:When an IRA bomb goes off, the wife and children of molecular biologist John Roe O'Neill are killed on May 20, 1996. Driven halfway insane by loss, his mind fragments into several personalities that carry out his plan for him. He...
(1982) a novel by Frank Herbert
Frank Herbert
Franklin Patrick Herbert, Jr. was a critically acclaimed and commercially successful American science fiction author. Although a short story author, he is best known for his novels, most notably Dune and its five sequels...
. When a bomb planted by the IRA goes off, the wife and children of molecular biologist
Molecular biology
Molecular biology is the branch of biology that deals with the molecular basis of biological activity. This field overlaps with other areas of biology and chemistry, particularly genetics and biochemistry...
John Roe O'Neill are killed on May 20, 1996 in a terrorist attack. Driven insane by loss, he plans a genocidal
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
revenge and creates a plague that kills women. O'Neill then releases it in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
(which he hates for supposedly supporting the terrorists), England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
(for oppressing the Irish and giving them a cause), and Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
(for training said terrorists); he demands that the governments of the world send all citizens of those countries back to their countries, and that they quarantine those countries and let the plague run its course, so they will lose what he has lost; if they do not, he has more plagues to release.
Y: The Last Man
Y: The Last Man
Y: The Last Man is a comic book series by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra published by Vertigo beginning in 2002. The series is about the only man to survive the apparent simultaneous death of every male mammal on Earth...
comic series by Brian K. Vaughan
Brian K. Vaughan
Brian Keller Vaughan is an American comic book and television writer. He is best known for the comic book series Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina, Runaways, and Pride of Baghdad, and was one of the principal writers of the television series Lost, during seasons three through five...
and Pia Guerra
Pia Guerra
Pia Guerra is an award-winning Canadian comic book artist best known for her work as co-creator and lead penciller on the Vertigo title Y: The Last Man.-Career:...
deals with the life of Yorick Brown and his monkey Ampersand after a plague wipes out all but three male life forms on the earth, leaving the whole planet to be controlled by women.
Author Jeff Carlson
Jeff Carlson
Jeff Carlson is a retired American ice hockey forward. Carlson is best known for his role in the movie Slap Shot as one of the Hanson Brothers. Carlson also played in the World Hockey Association with the Minnesota Fighting Saints. Carlson is now an electrician in Muskegon, Michigan.-Regular...
wrote a trilogy of novels beginning with his 2007 debut, Plague Year, a present-day thriller about a worldwide nanotech contagion that devours all warm-blooded life below 10000 feet (3,048 m) in elevation. Its two sequels, Plague War and Plague Zone, deal with a cure that allows return to an environment that suffered ecological collapse due to massive increases in insects and reptiles.
"Zombieland
Zombieland
Zombieland is a 2009 American zombie comedy film directed by Ruben Fleischer from a screenplay written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. The film stars Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin as survivors of a zombie apocalypse...
" (2009) is a film in which a disease mutates most Americans(rest of the world is not mentioned) and turns them into feral animal like creatures hungry for human flesh. The story is about a group of people who stick together to try survive against the zombies.
Failure of modern technology
In E. M. ForsterE. M. Forster
Edward Morgan Forster OM, CH was an English novelist, short story writer, essayist and librettist. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society...
's 1909 novella The Machine Stops
The Machine Stops
"The Machine Stops" is a science fiction short story by E. M. Forster. After initial publication in The Oxford and Cambridge Review , the story was republished in Forster's The Eternal Moment and Other Stories in 1928...
, humanity has been forced underground due to inhospitable conditions on Earth's surface and is entirely dependent on "the machine," a god-like mechanical entity which has supplanted almost all free will
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
by providing for mankind's every whim. The machine deteriorates and eventually stops, ending the lives of all those dependent upon it, though one of the dying alludes to a group of humans dwelling on the surface who will carry the torch of humanity into the future.
In René Barjavel
René Barjavel
René Barjavel was a French author, journalist and critic who may have been the first to think of the grandfather paradox in time travel. He was born in Nyons, a town in the Drôme department in southeastern France...
's 1943 novel Ravage
Ravage (novel)
Ravage is a science fiction novel written by René Barjavel, set in 2052 France. It was first published in 1943 by Denoël. The English title is Ashes, ashes...
, written and published during the German occupation of France, a future France is devastated by the sudden failure of electricity
Electricity
Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...
, causing chaos, disease, and famine with a small band of survivors desperately struggling for survival.
Half a century later, S. M. Stirling
S. M. Stirling
Stephen Michael Stirling is a French-born Canadian-American science fiction and fantasy author. Stirling is probably best known for his Draka series of alternate history novels and the more recent time travel/alternate history Nantucket series and Emberverse series.-Personal:Stirling was born on...
took up a similar theme in the 2004 Dies the Fire
Dies the Fire
Dies the Fire is an alternate history, post-apocalyptic novel by S. M. Stirling and the first installment of the Emberverse series. The book is a spin-off from the Stirling's Nantucket series. In that series, modern-day Nantucket is thrown back in time to the Bronze Age...
, where a sudden mysterious worldwide "Change" alters physical laws so that electricity
Electricity
Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...
, gunpowder
Gunpowder
Gunpowder, also known since in the late 19th century as black powder, was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the mid 1800s. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate - with the sulfur and charcoal acting as fuels, while the saltpeter works as an oxidizer...
and most forms of high-energy-density technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
no longer work. Civilization collapses, and two competing groups struggle to re-create medieval technologies and skills, as well as master magic.
Afterworld is a computer-animated American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
television series about the failure of modern technology.
Harlan Ellison
Harlan Ellison
Harlan Jay Ellison is an American writer. His principal genre is speculative fiction.His published works include over 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, teleplays, essays, a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media...
's short story "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
"I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" is a postapocalyptic science fiction short story by Harlan Ellison. It was first published in the March 1967 issue of IF: Worlds of Science Fiction. It won a Hugo Award in 1968. The name was also used for a short story collection of Ellison's work, featuring...
", published in 1967, is set after the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, where a super-computer, named AM (Allied Mastercomputer/Adaptive Manipulator), created to run the war office, becomes self conscious, and destroys all but five human beings. In a vast subterranean complex, the survivors search the shadow of the former world in search of food, whilst being torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
d by AM on the way.
Extraterrestrial threats
Edgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
's 1839 short story "The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion
The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion
"The Conversation of Eiros And Charmion" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, an apocalyptic science fiction story first published in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine in 1839.-Plot summary:...
" has two souls in the afterlife discussing the destruction of the world by a comet that removed nitrogen from earth's atmosphere; this left only oxygen, resulting in a worldwide inferno.
In the 1933 novel When Worlds Collide
When Worlds Collide
When Worlds Collide is a 1933 science fiction novel co-written by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer; they both also co-authored the sequel After Worlds Collide...
by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer, Earth is destroyed by the rogue planet Bronson Alpha. A selected few escape on a spaceship. In the sequel, After Worlds Collide
After Worlds Collide
After Worlds Collide was a sequel to the 1933 science fiction novel, When Worlds Collide, both of which were co-written by Philip Gordon Wylie and Edwin Balmer. After Worlds Collide first appeared as a six-part monthly serial in Blue Book magazine...
, the survivors start a new life on the planet's companion Bronson Beta, which has taken the orbit formerly occupied by Earth.
In the 1954 novel One in Three Hundred
One in Three Hundred
One in Three Hundred is a science fiction novel written by J. T. McIntosh. It was originally published as 3 novellas in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1953-54 [One in 300 , One in a Thousand , and One Too Many ], and was then published by Doubleday & Company, Inc....
by J. T. McIntosh
J. T. McIntosh
J. T. McIntosh was a pseudonym used by Scottish writer and journalist James Murdoch MacGregor.-Biography:Born in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland, but living largely in Aberdeen, MacGregor used the McIntosh pseudonym as well as "H. J...
, scientists have discovered how to pinpoint the exact minute, hour, and day the Sun will go "nova
Supernova
A supernova is a stellar explosion that is more energetic than a nova. It is pronounced with the plural supernovae or supernovas. Supernovae are extremely luminous and cause a burst of radiation that often briefly outshines an entire galaxy, before fading from view over several weeks or months...
" – and when it does, it will boil away Earth's seas, beginning with the hemisphere that faces the sun, and as Earth continues to rotate, it will take only 24 hours before all life is eradicated. Super-hurricanes and tornadoes are predicted. Buildings will be blown away. A race is on to build thousands of spaceships for the sole purpose of transferring evacuees on a one-way trip to Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
. When the Sun begins to go nova, everything is on schedule, but most of the spaceships turn out to be defective, and fail en route to Mars.
Lucifer's Hammer
Lucifer's Hammer
Lucifer's Hammer is a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, first published in 1977. It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1978. A comic book adaptation was published by Innovation Comics in 1993....
by Jerry Pournelle
Jerry Pournelle
Jerry Eugene Pournelle is an American science fiction writer, essayist and journalist who contributed for many years to the computer magazine Byte and has since 1998 been maintaining his own website/blog....
and Larry Niven
Larry Niven
Laurence van Cott Niven / ˈlæri ˈnɪvən/ is an American science fiction author. His best-known work is Ringworld , which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics...
(1977) is about a cataclysmic comet hitting Earth, and various groups of people struggling to survive the aftermath in southern California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
.
Moonbane by Al Sarrantonio
Al Sarrantonio
Al Sarrantonio is an American horror and science fiction author who has published, over the past thirty-five years, more than forty-five books and eighty short stories...
(1989) concerns the origin of werewolves (the Moon, which is why they are so attracted to it), and an invasion after an explosion on Luna sends meteoric fragments containing latent lycanthropes to Earth,who thrive in our planet's oxygen-rich atmosphere. It's tone is reminiscent of Wells' War of the Worlds.
Falling Skies
Falling Skies
Falling Skies is an American science fiction dramatic television series created by Robert Rodat and produced by Steven Spielberg. The series picks up six months into a world devastated by an alien invasion...
by Robert Rodat
Robert Rodat
Robert Rodat Robert Rodat Robert Rodat (born Keene, New Hampshire, 1953 is an American screenwriter. Best known for Saving Private Ryan (1998), Rodat also wrote The Comrades of Summer (1992), Tall Tale (1995), Fly Away Home with Vince McKewin (1996), and The Patriot (2000). He recently worked on...
and Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
is a 2011 TV show that follows a resistance who are fighting to survive after extraterrestrial aliens destroy and attempt to take over Earth. The resistance force in the story bases its operation in Massachusetts.
Cosy catastrophe
The "cosy catastrophe" is a name given to a style of post-apocalyptic science fiction that was particularly prevalent after World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
among British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
writers. A "cosy catastrophe" is typically one in which civilization (as we know it) comes to an end and everyone is killed except for the main characters, who survive relatively unscathed and are then freed from the prior constraints of civilization. The term was coined by Brian Aldiss
Brian Aldiss
Brian Wilson Aldiss, OBE is an English author of both general fiction and science fiction. His byline reads either Brian W. Aldiss or simply Brian Aldiss. Greatly influenced by science fiction pioneer H. G. Wells, Aldiss is a vice-president of the international H. G. Wells Society...
in Billion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction (1973). Aldiss was directing his remarks at English author John Wyndham
John Wyndham
John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris was an English science fiction writer who usually used the pen name John Wyndham, although he also used other combinations of his names, such as John Beynon and Lucas Parkes...
, especially his novel The Day of the Triffids
The Day of the Triffids
The Day of the Triffids is a post-apocalyptic novel published in 1951 by the English science fiction author John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris, under the pen-name John Wyndham. Although Wyndham had already published other novels using other pen-name combinations drawn from his lengthy real...
, whose protagonists were able to enjoy a relatively comfortable existence with little associated hardship or danger despite the fall of society.
The Catalan
Catalan people
The Catalans or Catalonians are the people from, or with origins in, Catalonia that form a historical nationality in Spain. The inhabitants of the adjacent portion of southern France are sometimes included in this definition...
author Manuel de Pedrolo
Manuel de Pedrolo
Manuel de Pedrolo i Molina was a Catalan author of novels, short stories, poetry and plays. He's mostly known for his sci-fi novel Second origin typescript.-Mini-biography:...
wrote Mecanoscrit del segon origen (Second origin typescript). It was published in 1974 and is a post-apocalyptic novel where two children accidentally survive an alien holocaust that eradicates all life on earth. They take up the mission of preserving human culture and repopulating the Earth.
Post-peak oil
James Howard KunstlerJames Howard Kunstler
James Howard Kunstler is an American author, social critic, public speaker, and blogger. He is best known for his books The Geography of Nowhere , a history of American suburbia and urban development, and the more recent The Long Emergency , where he argues that declining oil production is likely...
has written a novel World Made By Hand
World Made By Hand
World Made by Hand is a dystopian novel by James Howard Kunstler published in 2008. Set in the fictional town of Union Grove, New York, the novel follows a cast of characters as they navigate a world stripped of its modern comforts, ravaged by terrorism, epidemics, and the economic upheaval of peak...
that imagines life in upstate New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
after a declining world oil supply
Peak oil
Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline. This concept is based on the observed production rates of individual oil wells, projected reserves and the combined production rate of a field...
has wreaked havoc on the US economy and people and society are forced to adjust to daily life without cheap oil.
Canadian novelist Douglas Coupland
Douglas Coupland
Douglas Coupland is a Canadian novelist. His fiction is complemented by recognized works in design and visual art arising from his early formal training. His first novel, the 1991 international bestseller Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, popularized terms such as McJob and...
's 2010 book Player One
Player One
Player One: What Is to Become of Us is a book written by Douglas Coupland for the 2010 Massey Lectures. Each of the book's five chapters was delivered as a one hour lecture in a different Canadian city: Vancouver on October 12, Regina on October 14, Charlottetown on October 19, Ottawa on October 25...
deals with four individuals taking refuge in a Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
airport bar while a series of cataclysmic events occur outside.
Last Light and its sequel Afterlight by Alex Scarrow
Alex Scarrow
Alex Scarrow is a British author, whose books include A Thousand Suns, Last Light, Afterlight, October Skies, and the young adult science fiction series TimeRiders.-Early life:...
narrate the fall of British civilization after a war in the Middle East eradicates the majority of the Earth's oil supply.
See also
- ApocalypticismApocalypticismApocalypticism is the religious belief that there will be an apocalypse, a term which originally referred to a revelation of God's will, but now usually refers to belief that the world will come to an end time very soon, even within one's own lifetime...
- Doomsday eventDoomsday eventA doomsday event is a specific, plausibly verifiable or hypothetical occurrence which has an exceptionally destructive effect on the human race...
- Dying Earth subgenre
- List of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction
- List of apocalyptic films
- SurvivalismSurvivalismSurvivalism is a movement of individuals or groups who are actively preparing for future possible disruptions in local, regional, national, or international social or political order...
- Survivalism in fictionSurvivalism in fictionPortrayals of survivalism, and survivalist themes and elements such as survival retreats have been fictionalised in print, film, and electronic media. This genre was especially influenced by the advent of nuclear weapons, and the potential for societal collapse in light of a Cold War nuclear...
- Zombie apocalypseZombie apocalypseA zombie apocalypse is a particular scenario of apocalyptic literature that customarily has a science fiction/horror rationale. In a zombie apocalypse, a widespread rise of zombies hostile to human life engages in a general assault on civilization....
External links
- Empty World – A website dedicated to apocalyptic fiction
- Sub-Genre Spotlight: Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction – An overview of the sub-genre at Internet Review of Science Fiction
- Quiet Earth – A website dedicated to post apocalyptic media