Horizon

Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction

I feel a strange urge to read bleak things when winter descends upon Central Texas. The thermometers drop into the sixties, and my back porch becomes really comfortable precisely when the days are too short to take advantage of it. For a few years I broke out Solzhenytsin's Gulag Archipelago when December rolled around, but this year I've been plowing through post-apocalyptic sci-fi. In the hope of getting something out of this spree — other than a vague desire to move somewhere with a better water supply — I'm thinking of posting a few reviews of the best and the worst of the genre, but there's so much that I feel like I need to adopt some sort of structure for them.

What are the essential elements of apocalyptic fiction? We've argued here before about the difference between dystopia and apocalypse, and were never able to come to any sort of conclusion. So I'll describe what I think are the important elements of an end-of-the-world story, in the hope that you folks will add to the list.

• Preparation: Usually before the world ends, somebody knows about it. Perhaps they spend their time as Cassandra, or maybe they just retreat into a bunker with lots of guns. The preparation section is where survivalist-minded authors should battle the temptation to lecture but usually don't.
• Flight: Nothing but standard thriller elements here.
• Terminal Idiocy: In the moment of crisis, there's always someone too stupid or self-centered to take the pragmatic steps necessary to avoid their own demise. Writers usually make this person a cypher for their political opponents or some class of people (usually women) they've despised. For a long time I assumed these characters had no basis in real life, but have since learned otherwise.
• Carnage: Liberty's torch rising from the sands. Need I say more?
• Homesteading:This is one of the differences between apocalyptic fiction and post-apocalyptic fiction, and is probably the element I enjoy most. Post-apocalyptic fiction has this type of improvisational agrarianism in common with a few other subgenres — especially castaway tales like Mysterious Island. Survivalist authors use this section to gloat about their preparation and ramble about non-hybrid seeds .
• Final Conflict: No matter how the crops are doing, there are always flesh-eating zombies. Or cannibal luddite armies. Or impending barbarism of one sort or another.