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Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction is a
subgenre
Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...
of
speculative fiction in which the Earth's (or another planet's) civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The
apocalypse event may be climatic, such as
runaway climate change
In climate science, a tipping point is a critical threshold that, when crossed, leads to large and often irreversible changes in the climate system. If tipping points are crossed, they are likely to have severe impacts on human society. Tippin ...
; astronomical, such as an
impact event; destructive, such as
nuclear holocaust
A nuclear holocaust, also known as a nuclear apocalypse, nuclear Armageddon, or atomic holocaust, is a theoretical scenario where the mass detonation of nuclear weapons causes globally widespread destruction and radioactive fallout. Such a scenar ...
or
resource depletion; medical, such as a
pandemic, whether natural or human-caused;
end time, such as the
Last Judgment,
Second Coming
The Second Coming (sometimes called the Second Advent or the Parousia) is a Christian (as well as Islamic and Baha'i) belief that Jesus will return again after his ascension to heaven about two thousand years ago. The idea is based on messian ...
or
Ragnarök; or more imaginative, such as a
zombie apocalypse
Zombie apocalypse is a genre of fiction in which society collapses due to overwhelming swarms of zombies. Typically only a few individuals or small bands of survivors are left living. In some versions, the reason the dead rise and attack huma ...
,
cybernetic revolt
An AI takeover is a hypothetical scenario in which an artificial intelligence (AI) becomes the dominant form of intelligence on Earth, as computer programs or robots effectively take the control of the planet away from the human species. Possible ...
,
technological singularity,
dysgenics or
alien invasion
The alien invasion or space invasion is a common feature in science fiction stories and film, in which extraterrestrial lifeforms invade the Earth either to exterminate and supplant human life, enslave it under an intense state, harvest people ...
.
The story may involve attempts to prevent an
apocalypse event, deal with the impact and consequences of the event itself, or it may be post-apocalyptic, set after the event. The time may be directly after the catastrophe, focusing on the psychology of survivors, the way to keep the human race alive and together as one, or considerably later, often including that the existence of pre-catastrophe civilization has been mythologized. Post-apocalyptic stories often take place in a non-technological future world or a world where only scattered elements of society and technology remain.
Various ancient societies, including the Babylonian and Judaic, produced
apocalyptic literature and mythology which dealt with the end of the world and of human society, such as the ''
Epic of Gilgamesh
The ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' () is an epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia, and is regarded as the earliest surviving notable literature and the second oldest religious text, after the Pyramid Texts. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with ...
'', written c. 2000–1500 BC. Recognizable modern apocalyptic novels had existed since at least the first third of the 19th century, when
Mary Shelley
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (; ; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel '' Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also ...
's ''
The Last Man
''The Last Man'' is an apocalyptic, dystopian science fiction novel by Mary Shelley, first published in 1826. The narrative concerns Europe in the late 21st century, ravaged by a mysterious plague pandemic that rapidly sweeps across the enti ...
'' (1826) was published.
However, this form of literature gained widespread popularity after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, when the possibility of global annihilation by
nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bom ...
s entered the public consciousness.
Themes
The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as
runaway climate change
In climate science, a tipping point is a critical threshold that, when crossed, leads to large and often irreversible changes in the climate system. If tipping points are crossed, they are likely to have severe impacts on human society. Tippin ...
; natural, such as an
impact event; man-made, such as
nuclear holocaust
A nuclear holocaust, also known as a nuclear apocalypse, nuclear Armageddon, or atomic holocaust, is a theoretical scenario where the mass detonation of nuclear weapons causes globally widespread destruction and radioactive fallout. Such a scenar ...
; medical, such as a plague or virus, whether natural or man-made; or imaginative, such as
zombie apocalypse
Zombie apocalypse is a genre of fiction in which society collapses due to overwhelming swarms of zombies. Typically only a few individuals or small bands of survivors are left living. In some versions, the reason the dead rise and attack huma ...
or
alien invasion
The alien invasion or space invasion is a common feature in science fiction stories and film, in which extraterrestrial lifeforms invade the Earth either to exterminate and supplant human life, enslave it under an intense state, harvest people ...
. The story may involve attempts to prevent an apocalypse event, deal with the impact and consequences of the event itself, or may be post-apocalyptic, and be set after the event. The time frame may be immediately after the catastrophe, focusing on the travails or psychology of survivors, the way to maintain the human race alive and together as one, 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 a non-technological future world, or a world where only scattered elements of society and technology remain.
Other themes may be
cybernetic revolt
An AI takeover is a hypothetical scenario in which an artificial intelligence (AI) becomes the dominant form of intelligence on Earth, as computer programs or robots effectively take the control of the planet away from the human species. Possible ...
,
divine judgment
Divine judgment means the judgment of God or other supreme beings within a religion.
Ancient beliefs
In ancient Sumerian religion, the sun-god Utu and his twin sister Inanna were believed to be the enforcers of divine justice. Utu, as ...
,
dysgenics,
ecological collapse
Ecological collapse refers to a situation where an ecosystem suffers a drastic, possibly permanent, reduction in carrying capacity for all organisms, often resulting in mass extinction. Usually, an ecological collapse is precipitated by a disast ...
,
pandemic,
resource depletion,
supernatural phenomena,
technological singularity, or some other general disaster.
The relics of a technological past "protruding into a more primitive... landscape", a theme known as the "ruined Earth", have been described as "among the most potent of sf's icons".
Ancient predecessors
The
biblical story of
Noah and his ark describes the end of the corrupted original civilization and its replacement with a remade world. Noah is assigned the task to build the ark and save the lifeforms so as to reestablish a new post-flood world.
The Biblical story of the destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrah also has post-apocalyptic elements. The daughters of
Lot, who mistakenly believe that the destruction had engulfed the whole world and that they and their father were the only surviving human beings, conclude that in such a situation it would be justified - and indeed vitally needed - to have
sex with their father in order to ensure the survival of humanity. Such situations and dilemmas occur in modern post-apocalyptic fiction.
Numerous other societies, including the Babylonians, had produced
apocalyptic literature and mythology which dealt with the end of the world and of human society, many of which also included stories that refer back to the Biblical Noah or describe a similar flood.
The ''
Epic of Gilgamesh
The ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' () is an epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia, and is regarded as the earliest surviving notable literature and the second oldest religious text, after the Pyramid Texts. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with ...
'', written ca. 2000–1500 BC, details a myth where the angry gods send floods to punish humanity, but the ancient hero
Utnapishtim and his family are saved through the intervention of the god
Ea.
A similar story to the Genesis flood narrative is found in the
71st Chapter of the
Quran
The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , s ...
. However, unlike the Biblical story, the Quranic account explicitly claims that the deluge was only sent to the tribe of the Prophet
Nūḥ (نُوح) ("Noah"
in Arabic), and therefore, the deluge did not engulf the entire world. While the
Islamic narrative of Noah is not a true post-apocalyptic tale (as only Noah's tribe was affected and not the entire human race), it can nevertheless be read with post-apocalyptic themes since Noah builds the ark and escapes the destruction of his tribe along with a handful of the believers and the animals of his tribe.
Even in the
Hindu
Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
Dharmasastra, the apocalyptic deluge plays a prominent part. According to the
Matsya Purana, the
Matsya
Matsya ( sa, मत्स्य, lit. ''fish'') is the fish avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu. Often described as the first of Vishnu's ten primary avatars, Matsya is described to have rescued the first man, Manu, from a great deluge. Matsya ...
avatar of Lord
Vishnu
Vishnu ( ; , ), also known as Narayana and Hari, is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. He is the supreme being within Vaishnavism, one of the major traditions within contemporary Hinduism.
Vishnu is known as "The Preserver" withi ...
, informed the King Manu of an all-destructive deluge which would be coming very soon.
[ Matsya Purana, Ch.I, 10–33] The King was advised to build a huge boat (ark) which housed his family, nine types of seeds, pairs of all animals and the
Saptarishis to repopulate Earth, after the deluge would end and the oceans and seas would recede. At the time of the
deluge
A deluge is a large downpour of rain, often a flood.
The Deluge refers to the flood narrative in the Biblical book of Genesis.
Deluge may also refer to:
History
*Deluge (history), the Swedish and Russian invasion of the Polish-Lithuanian Com ...
, Vishnu appeared as a horned fish and
Shesha
Shesha (Sanskrit: शेष; ) , also known as Sheshanaga (Sanskrit: शेषनाग; ) or Adishesha (), is a serpentine demigod ( Naga) and Nagaraja (King of all serpents), as well as a primordial being of creation in Hinduism. In the P ...
appeared as a rope, with which
Vaivasvata Manu
Vaivasvata Manu (), also referred to as Shraddhadeva and Satyavrata, is the current Manu—the progenitor of the human race in Hindu mythology. He is the seventh of the 14 Manus of the current kalpa (aeon) of Hindu cosmology.
Forewarned about ...
fastened the boat to the horn of the fish. Variants of this story also appear in
Buddhist
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
and
Jain
Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current time cycle being ...
scriptures.
The 1st centuries AD saw the recording of the
Book of Revelation
The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament (and consequently the final book of the Christian Bible). Its title is derived from the first word of the Koine Greek text: , meaning "unveiling" or "revelation". The Book of ...
(from which the word
apocalypse originated, meaning "revelation of secrets"), which is filled with prophecies of destruction, as well as luminous visions. In the first chapter of Revelation, the writer
St. John the Divine explains his divine errand: "Write the things which thou hast seen, the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter" (Rev. 1:19). He takes it as his mission to convey—to reveal—to God's kingdom His promise that justice will prevail and that the suffering will be vindicated (Leigh). The apocalyptist provides a beatific vision of Judgement Day, revealing God's promise for redemption from suffering and strife. ''Revelation'' describes a new Heaven and a new Earth, and its intended Christian audience is often enchanted and inspired, rather than terrified by visions of Judgment Day. These Christians believed themselves chosen for God's salvation, and so such apocalyptic sensibilities inspired optimism and nostalgia for the end times.
In society
Such works often feature the loss of a global perspective as protagonists are on their own, often with little or no knowledge of the outside world.
Furthermore, they often explore a world without modern technology
whose rapid progress may overwhelm people as human brains are not adapted to contemporary society, but
evolved to deal with issues that have become largely irrelevant, such as immediate physical threats. Such works depict worlds of less complexity, direct contact,
[ and primitive needs, threats and behavior. According to Professor Barry Brummett, it is often the concept of change as much as the concept of destruction that causes public interest in apocalyptic themes.][
Such fiction is studied by ]social science
Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of so ...
s and may provide insights into a culture's fears[as well as things like the role imagined for ]public administration
Public Administration (a form of governance) or Public Policy and Administration (an academic discipline) is the implementation of public policy, administration of government establishment (public governance), management of non-profit est ...
.
Since the late 20th century, a surge of popular post-apocalyptic films can be observed.
Christopher Schmidt notes that, while the world "goes to waste" for future generations, we distract ourselves from disaster by passively watching it as entertainment. Some have commented on this trend, saying that "it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism".
Pre-1900 works
Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the ...
's 1816 poem "Darkness", included in '' The Prisoner of Chillon'' collection, on the apocalyptic end of the world and one man's survival, was one of the earliest English-language works in this genre. The sun was blotted out, leading to darkness and cold which kills off mankind through famine and ice-age conditions. The poem was influential in the emergence of "the last man" theme which appeared in the works of several poets, such as "The Last Man" by Thomas Campbell (1824) and "The Last Man" (1826) by Thomas Hood
Thomas Hood (23 May 1799 – 3 May 1845) was an English poet, author and humorist, best known for poems such as " The Bridge of Sighs" and " The Song of the Shirt". Hood wrote regularly for ''The London Magazine'', '' Athenaeum'', and ''Punch' ...
, as well as "The Last Man" by Thomas Lovell Beddoes
Thomas Lovell Beddoes (30 June 1803 – 26 January 1849) was an English poet, dramatist and physician.
Biography
Born in Clifton, Bristol, England, he was the son of Dr. Thomas Beddoes, a friend of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Anna, sister o ...
. The year 1816 was known as the Year Without a Summer because Mount Tambora had erupted in the Dutch East Indies in 1815 that emitted sulphur into the atmosphere which lowered the temperature and altered weather patterns throughout the world. This was the source for Byron's poem.
Mary Shelley
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (; ; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel '' Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also ...
's novel, ''The Last Man
''The Last Man'' is an apocalyptic, dystopian science fiction novel by Mary Shelley, first published in 1826. The narrative concerns Europe in the late 21st century, ravaged by a mysterious plague pandemic that rapidly sweeps across the enti ...
'' (1826), is a continuation of the apocalyptic theme in fiction.[ The story follows a group of people as they struggle to survive in a plague-infected world. The story centers on a male protagonist as he struggles to keep his family safe but is inevitably left as the last man alive. However, Shelley's novel is predated by ]Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville
Jean-Baptiste François Xavier Cousin De Grainville (3 April 1746 – 1 February 1805) was a French writer who wrote a seminal work of fantasy literature: '' Le Dernier Homme'' (''The Last Man'') (1805). This was the first modern novel to depict ...
's French epic prose poem '' Le Dernier Homme'' (English: ''The Last Man'' (1805)) and this work is also sometimes considered the first modern work to depict the end of the world. Published after his death in 1805, de Grainville's work follows the character of Omegarus, the titular "last man," in what is essentially a retelling of the Book of Revelation
The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament (and consequently the final book of the Christian Bible). Its title is derived from the first word of the Koine Greek text: , meaning "unveiling" or "revelation". The Book of ...
, combined with themes of the story of Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman. They are central to the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors. ...
. Unlike most apocalyptic tales, de Grainville's novel approaches the end of the world not as a cautionary tale, or a tale of survival, but as both an inevitable, as well as necessary, step for the spiritual resurrection of mankind.
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wid ...
's short story " The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion" (1839) follows the conversation between two souls in the afterlife as they discuss the destruction of the world. The destruction was brought about by a comet that removed nitrogen from Earth's atmosphere; this left only oxygen and resulted in a worldwide inferno. Similarly, Giacomo Leopardi's short dialogue " Dialogue between a Goblin and a Gnome" (1824) features a world without the presence of the human beings, most likely because they "violate the laws of nature, and entcontrary to their welfare".
Richard Jefferies' novel ''After London
John Richard Jefferies (6 November 1848 – 14 August 1887) 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 influ ...
'' (1885) can best be described as genuine post-apocalyptic fiction. After a sudden and unspecified catastrophe has depopulated England, the countryside reverts to nature and the few survivors return 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 is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
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.
H.G. Wells wrote several novels that have a post-apocalyptic theme. ''The Time Machine
''The Time Machine'' is a science fiction novella by H. G. Wells, published in 1895. The work is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel by using a vehicle or device to travel purposely and selectively for ...
'' (1895) has the unnamed protagonist traveling to the year 802,701 A.D. after civilization has collapsed and humanity has split into two distinct species, the elfin Eloi and the brutal Morlocks. Later in the story, the time traveler moves forward to a dying Earth beneath a swollen red sun. ''The War of the Worlds
''The War of the Worlds'' is a science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells, first serialised in 1897 by ''Pearson's Magazine'' in the UK and by ''Cosmopolitan (magazine), Cosmopolitan'' magazine in the US. The novel's first appear ...
'' (1898) depicts an invasion of Earth by inhabitants of the planet Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...
. The aliens systematically destroy Victorian England with advanced weaponry mounted on nearly indestructible vehicles. Due to the infamous radio adaptation
Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine t ...
of the novel by Orson Welles on his show, ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air
''The Mercury Theatre on the Air'' is a radio series of live radio dramas created and hosted by Orson Welles. The weekly hour-long show presented classic literary works performed by Welles's celebrated Mercury Theatre repertory company, with mus ...
'', the novel has become one of the best known early apocalyptic works. It has subsequently been reproduced or adapted several times in comic book
A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...
s, film, music, radio programming
Radio programming is the process of organising a schedule of radio content for commercial broadcasting and public broadcasting by radio stations.
History
The original inventors of radio, from Guglielmo Marconi's time on, expected it to be use ...
, television program
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...
ming, and video game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
s.
Post-1900 works
Aliens
'' Childhood's End'' is a 1953 science fiction novel by the British author Arthur C. Clarke, in which aliens come to Earth, human children develop fantastic powers and the planet is destroyed.
Argentine comic writer Héctor Germán Oesterheld's comic series '' El Eternauta'' (1957 to 1959), an alien race only mentioned by the protagonists as ''Ellos'' ("Them") invades the Earth starting with a deadly snowfall and then using other alien races to defeat the remaining humans.
In Alice Sheldon's Nebula-winning novelette " The Screwfly Solution" (1977), aliens are wiping out humanity with an airborne agent that changes men's sexual impulses to violent ones.
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author and screenwriter, best known for ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. Originally a 1978 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series), BBC radio comedy, ''The H ...
's ''Hitchhiker's Guide
''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (sometimes referred to as ''HG2G'', ''HHGTTG'', ''H2G2'', or ''tHGttG'') is a comic science fiction, comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally The Hitchhiker's Guide to th ...
'' series (1979–2009) is a humorous take on alien invasion stories. Multiple Earths are repeatedly "demolished" by the bureaucratic Vogons
The Vogons are a fictional alien race from the planet Vogsphere in ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''—initially a BBC Radio series by Douglas Adams—who are responsible for the destruction of the Earth, in order to facilitate an interga ...
to make way for a hyperspace bypass, to the chagrin of the protagonist Arthur Dent
Arthur Philip Dent is a fictional character and the hapless protagonist of the comic science fiction series ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' by Douglas Adams.
In the radio, LP and television versions of the story, Arthur is played by ...
.
In Gene Wolfe
Gene Rodman Wolfe (May 7, 1931 – April 14, 2019) was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He was noted for his dense, allusive prose as well as the strong influence of his Catholic faith. He was a prolific short story writer and nove ...
's '' The Urth of the New Sun'' (1987), aliens (or highly evolved humans) introduce a white hole
In general relativity, a white hole is a hypothetical region of spacetime and singularity that cannot be entered from the outside, although energy-matter, light and information can escape from it. In this sense, it is the reverse of a black ho ...
into the sun to counteract the dimming effect of a black hole, and the resulting global warming
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
causes a sea-level rise that kills most of the population (though this may be redemptive, like Noah's Flood
The Genesis flood narrative (chapters 6–9 of the Book of Genesis) is the Hebrew version of the universal flood myth. It tells of God's decision to return the universe to its pre- creation state of watery chaos and remake it through the micro ...
, rather than a disaster).
In Greg Bear
Gregory Dale Bear (August 20, 1951 – November 19, 2022) was an American writer and illustrator best known for science fiction. His work covered themes of galactic conflict ('' Forge of God'' books), parallel universes ('' The Way'' series), c ...
's '' The Forge of God'' (1987), Earth is destroyed in an alien attack. Just prior to this, a different group of aliens is able to save samples of the biosphere and a small number of people, resettling them on Mars. Some of these form the crew of a ship to hunt down the homeworld of the killers, as described in the sequel, '' Anvil of Stars'' (1992).
Al Sarrantonio's ''Moonbane'' (1989) concerns the origin of werewolves (which he attributes to 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. ''Moonbane''s tone is reminiscent of H. G. Wells' ''War of the Worlds
''The War of the Worlds'' is a science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells, first serialised in 1897 by '' Pearson's Magazine'' in the UK and by ''Cosmopolitan'' magazine in the US. The novel's first appearance in hardcover was i ...
'' (1897).
Charles R. Pellegrino
Charles R. Pellegrino (born 1953) is an American writer, the author of several books related to science and archaeology, including ''Return to Sodom and Gomorrah'', ''Ghosts of the Titanic'', ''Unearthing Atlantis'', and ''Ghosts of Vesuvius.'' ...
and George Zebrowski's novel '' The Killing Star'' (1995) describes a devastating attack on a late-21st-century Earth by an alien civilization. Using missiles traveling at relativistic speed, they are determined to destroy the human race in a preemptive strike, as they are considered, after watching several episodes of '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' which shows human domination in space, a future threat.
In the video game ''Chrono Trigger
is a 1995 role-playing video game developed and published by Square. It was originally released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System as the first game in the ''Chrono'' series. The game's development team included three designers th ...
'' (1995), the giant alien creature Lavos collides with the earth in prehistoric times, subsequently hibernating beneath the earth. As millions of years pass, the monster feeds on the energy of the earth, eventually surfacing in 1999 to wreak complete destruction of the human race, atmosphere, and general life on the planet in the form of a rain of destruction fired from its outer shell, known as the "Day of Lavos".
In the video game '' Half-Life'' (1998), hostile alien creatures arrive on Earth through a portal after a scientific experiment goes wrong. In its sequel, ''Half-Life 2
''Half-Life 2'' is a 2004 first-person shooter game developed by Valve Corporation, Valve. It was published by Valve through its distribution service Steam (service), Steam. Like the original ''Half-Life (video game), Half-Life'' (1998), ''Half- ...
'' (2004), it is revealed to the player the creatures encountered in the first game are merely the slaves of a much more powerful alien race, the Combine, who have taken over the Earth to drain its resources after subduing the entirety of Earth's governments and military forces in only seven hours.
In the 2000 Don Bluth
Donald Virgil Bluth (; born September 13, 1937) is an American film director, animator, production designer, and animation instructor, best known for his animated films, including '' The Secret of NIMH'' (1982), '' An American Tail'' (1986), ''Th ...
animated film '' Titan A.E.'', Earth has been destroyed by the Drej, due to a human experimental discovery called Project Titan, which made them fear “what humanity will become”.
The 2011 TV series '' Falling Skies'', by Robert Rodat
Robert Rodat (born c. 1960) is an American film and television writer and television producer. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for writing Steven Spielberg's war epic ''Saving Private Ryan''.
Career
Rodat wrot ...
and Steven Spielberg, follows a human resistance force fighting to survive after extraterrestrial aliens attempt to take over Earth by disabling most of the world's technology and destroying its armed forces in a surprise attack. It is implied that the attacking aliens are in reality former victims of an attack on their own planet and are now the slaves of an unseen controller race.
The television series '' Defiance'' (2013–2015) is set in an Earth devastated by the "Pale Wars", a war with seven alien races referred to as the "Votan", followed by the "Arkfalls", which terraforms Earth to an almost unrecognizable state. Unlike most apocalyptic works, in this one Earth is not inhospitable, and humanity is not on the verge of extinction.
'' The World's End'' is a 2013 British-American comic science fiction
Science fiction comedy (sci-fi comedy) or comic science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction or science fantasy that exploits the science-fiction (SF) genre's conventions for comedy, comedic effect. Comic science fiction often mocks or satirize ...
film directed by Edgar Wright
Edgar Howard Wright (born 18 April 1974) is an English filmmaker. He is known for his fast-paced and kinetic, satirical genre films, which feature extensive utilisation of expressive popular music, Steadicam tracking shots, dolly zooms and a ...
, written by Wright and Simon Pegg
Simon John Pegg (né Beckingham; born 14 February 1970) is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. He came to prominence in the UK as the co-creator of the Channel 4 sitcom ''Spaced'' (1999–2001), directed by Edgar Wright. H ...
, and starring Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine
Patrick George Considine (born 5 September 1973) is an English actor, director, and screenwriter. He frequently collaborates with filmmaker/director Shane Meadows. He has received two British Academy Film Awards, three Evening Standard Brit ...
, Martin Freeman
Martin John Christopher Freeman (born 8 September 1971) is an English actor. Among other accolades, he has won an Emmy Award, a BAFTA Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, and has been nominated for a Golden Globe Award.
Freeman's most not ...
, Eddie Marsan
Edward Maurice Charles Marsan (born 9 June 1968) is an English actor. He won the London Film Critics Circle Award and the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor for the film '' Happy-Go-Lucky'' (2008).
He has feature ...
and Rosamund Pike
Rosamund Mary Ellen Pike (born 1979) is a British actress. She began her acting career by appearing in stage productions such as ''Romeo and Juliet'' and ''Gas Light''. After her screen debut in the television film ''A Rather English Marriage'' ...
. The film follows a group of friends who discover an alien invasion during a pub crawl
A pub crawl (sometimes called a bar tour, bar crawl or bar-hopping) is the act of visiting multiple pubs or bars in a single session.
Background
Many European cities have public pub crawls that serve as social gatherings for local expatriates a ...
in their hometown.
In the 2018 horror film ''A Quiet Place
''A Quiet Place'' is a 2018 American post-apocalyptic horror film directed by John Krasinski and written by Bryan Woods, Scott Beck and Krasinski, from a story conceived by Woods and Beck. The plot revolves around a father (Krasinski) and a mo ...
'' and the 2021 sequel ''A Quiet Place Part II
''A Quiet Place Part II'' is a 2020 American post-apocalyptic horror film written and directed by John Krasinski. It is the sequel to the 2018 film '' A Quiet Place'', following the family from the first film as they continue to navigate and su ...
'', society has collapsed in the wake of lethal attacks by extraterrestrial creatures who, having no eyesight, hunt humans and other creatures with their highly sensitive hearing; the scattered survivors live most of their lives in near-silence as a result.
Astronomical
In Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer's novel '' When Worlds Collide'' (1933), Earth is destroyed by the rogue planet Bronson Alpha. A selected few escape on a spaceship. In the sequel, '' After Worlds Collide'' (1934), the survivors start a new life on the planet's companion Bronson Beta, which has taken over the orbit formerly occupied by Earth.
In J. T. McIntosh's novel '' One in Three Hundred'' (1954), 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
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...
. 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.
Brian Aldiss
Brian Wilson Aldiss (; 18 August 1925 – 19 August 2017) was an English writer, artist, and anthology editor, best known for science fiction novels and short stories. His byline reads either Brian W. Aldiss or simply Brian Aldiss, except for o ...
' novel '' Hothouse'' (1961) occurs in a distant future where the sun is much hotter and stronger, and the human population has been reduced to a fifth of what it had been.
J. G. Ballard
James Graham Ballard (15 November 193019 April 2009) was an English novelist, short story writer, satirist, and essayist known for provocative works of fiction which explored the relations between human psychology, technology, sex, and mass med ...
's novel '' The Drowned World'' (1962) occurs after a rise in solar radiation that causes worldwide flooding and accelerated mutation of plants and animals.
Jerry Pournelle
Jerry Eugene Pournelle (; August 7, 1933 – September 8, 2017) was an American scientist in the area of operations research and human factors research, a science fiction writer, essayist, journalist, and one of the first bloggers. In the 1960s ...
and Larry Niven
Laurence van Cott Niven (; born April 30, 1938) is an American science fiction writer. His best-known works are '' Ringworld'' (1970), which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards, and, with Jerry Pournelle, '' The Mote in God's E ...
's novel, ''Lucifer's Hammer
''Lucifer's Hammer'' is a science fiction post-apocalypse-survival novel by American writers Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle that was first published in 1977. It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1978. Two issues of a planned si ...
'' (1977), is about a cataclysmic comet hitting Earth and various groups of people struggling to survive the aftermath in southern California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
.
Hollywood—which previously had explored the idea of the Earth and its population being potentially endangered by a collision with another heavenly body with the '' When Worlds Collide'' (1951), a film treatment of the aforementioned 1933 novel – revisited the theme in the late 1990s with a trio of similarly themed projects. '' Asteroid'' (1997) is a NBC-TV miniseries about the U.S. government trying to prevent an asteroid from colliding with the Earth. The following year saw dueling big-budget summer blockbuster movies '' Deep Impact'' (1998) and ''Armageddon
According to the Book of Revelation in the New Testament of the Christian Bible, Armageddon (, from grc, Ἁρμαγεδών ''Harmagedōn'', Late Latin: , from Hebrew: ''Har Məgīddō'') is the prophesied location of a gathering of armies ...
'' (1998), both of which involved efforts to save the Earth from, respectively, a rogue comet and an asteroid, by landing crews upon them to detonate nuclear weapons there in hopes of destroying them.
Characters in the six-part ITV television drama serial '' The Last Train'' (1999) awaken from a cryogenic sleep after an asteroid the size of Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...
strikes Africa, causing a worldwide apocalypse.
K. A. Applegate's 2001–2003 book series, '' Remnants'', details the end of the world by asteroid collision. The first book, ''The Mayflower Project'' (2001), describes Earth in a sort of hysteria as 80 people are chosen by NASA to board a spacecraft that will go to an unknown destination away from the destroyed Earth. The later books deal with the few survivors waking up from a 500-year hibernation and succumbing to both strange mutations and the will of a strange alien computer/spaceship that they land on. Eventually they return to Earth to find a couple colonies of survivors struggling on a harsh planet completely different from the Earth the Remnants knew.
'' Melancholia'' (2011), the middle entry of filmmaker Lars von Trier
Lars von Trier ('' né'' Trier; 30 April 1956) is a Danish filmmaker, actor, and lyricist. Having garnered a reputation as a highly ambitious, polarizing filmmaker, he has been the subject of several controversies: Cannes, in addition to nomina ...
's "depression trilogy", ends with humanity completely wiped out by a collision with a rogue planet
A rogue planet (also termed a free-floating planet (FFP), interstellar, nomad, orphan, starless, unbound or wandering planet) is an interstellar object of planetary-mass, therefore smaller than fusors (stars and brown dwarfs) and without a h ...
. The depressed protagonist reverses roles with her relatives as the crisis unfolds, as she turns out to be the only family member capable of calmly accepting the imminent impact event.
In id Software
id Software LLC () is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: game programmer, programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer T ...
's video game '' Rage'' (2011), Earth is heavily damaged, and humanity nearly wiped out, by the direct collision of the real asteroid 99942 Apophis
99942 Apophis is a near-Earth asteroid and potentially hazardous asteroid with a diameter of that caused a brief period of concern in December 2004 when initial observations indicated a probability up to 2.7% that it would hit Earth on April&nb ...
with the Earth in the year 2029.
Marly Youmans
Marly Youmans (born Susan Marlene Youmans; November 22, 1953 in Aiken, South Carolina) is an American poet, novelist and short story writer. Her work reflects certain recurring themes such as nature, magic, faith and redemption, and often referen ...
' epic poem ''Thaliad'' (2012) tells the story of a group of children after an unspecified apocalypse from the sky, perhaps connected with solar flares or meteor impact, resulting in people and animals having been burned and the skies having filled with ash. The children survive only because they were together on a school visit to a cave.
In the obscure 2013 Australian film '' These Final Hours'', a massive asteroid hits the Atlantic Ocean dooming all life. The film follows James, who decides to head to the 'party-to-end-all-parties' and there spend the last 12 hours before the global firestorm reaches Western Australia.
In the 2020 film ''Greenland
Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland i ...
'', a massive comet, Clarke, is set on a collision course with Earth, with only a few people permitted into a massive complex of bunkers in Greenland. The film follows the Garrity family's attempts to reach these safe havens after they were unable to board the transport aircraft to the bunkers. Clarke collides with Earth, leaving the planet devastated, however, there are survivors throughout the world, implying that Humanity can still survive. A sequel is now in development called '' Greenland: Migration.''
Cozy catastrophe
The "cozy catastrophe" is not an intentional style of post-apocalyptic science fiction, but rather a criticism of certain apocalyptic works that were not considered as believably harsh enough for the critic's stated preferences. Stories subject to this criticism generally involve some sort of catastrophe wherein civilization comes to an end with mass deaths, but the main characters survive relatively unscathed and are freed from the constraints of vulgar civilization in their hideaway, perhaps finding a kind of quiet happiness in the changed world. The term was coined by Brian Aldiss
Brian Wilson Aldiss (; 18 August 1925 – 19 August 2017) was an English writer, artist, and anthology editor, best known for science fiction novels and short stories. His byline reads either Brian W. Aldiss or simply Brian Aldiss, except for o ...
in ''Billion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction'' (1973). Aldiss was directing his remarks mainly at English author John Wyndham
John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris (; 10 July 1903 – 11 March 1969) was an English science fiction writer best known for his works published under the pen name John Wyndham, although he also used other combinations of his names ...
, especially his novel ''The Day of the Triffids
''The Day of the Triffids'' is a 1951 post-apocalyptic novel by the English science fiction author John Wyndham. After most people in the world are blinded by an apparent meteor shower, an aggressive species of plant starts killing people. A ...
'' (1951), whose protagonists did not suffer enough associated hardship from the collapse of society for Aldiss's taste, as well as other British books in the era following the Second World War. The genre has been defended though as being a valid take on more low-key catastrophes of an ecological sort, and other books have been questioned if they qualify at all - Margaret Atwood defended ''The Day of the Trifflids'' as not as "cozy" as alleged, for example.
Environmental disaster
'' The Purple Cloud'' (1901) by M. P. Shiel is a novel in which most of humanity has been killed by a poisonous cloud issuing from volcanic eruptions.
In Alfred Walter Stewart's 1923 novel ''Nordenholt's Million'', an engineered strain of bacteria denitrifies almost all plants, causing a collapse of food supply. The plutocrat of the title establishes a haven in central Scotland for a chosen group of survivors, while deliberately wrecking all alternative refuges.
In Alfred Bester
Alfred Bester (December 18, 1913 – September 30, 1987) was an American science fiction author, TV and radio scriptwriter, magazine editor and scripter for comic strips and comic books. He is best remembered for his science fiction, incl ...
's story " Adam and No Eve" (1941), an inventor takes off in a rocket whose propulsion uses a dangerous catalyst. From outer space
Outer space, commonly shortened to space, is the expanse that exists beyond Earth and its atmosphere and between celestial bodies. Outer space is not completely empty—it is a near-perfect vacuum containing a low density of particles, pred ...
he sees that the entire world has been destroyed by fire in a runaway reaction caused by the catalyst. Fatally injured in a crash landing, he crawls to the sea so that the bacteria in his body can initiate new life on Earth.
In John Christopher's novel '' The Death of Grass'' (1956), a mutated virus kills cereal crops and other grasses throughout Eurasia, causing famine.
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American writer known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels. In a career spanning over 50 years, he published fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and ...
's novel ''Cat's Cradle
Cat's cradle is a game involving the creation of various string figures between the fingers, either individually or by passing a loop of string back and forth between two or more players. The true origin of the name is debated, though the fir ...
'' (1963) ends with all the bodies of water turning into " ice-nine", a fictional phase of ice
Ice is water frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 degrees Celsius or Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opaqu ...
that forms at room temperature.
In J. G. Ballard
James Graham Ballard (15 November 193019 April 2009) was an English novelist, short story writer, satirist, and essayist known for provocative works of fiction which explored the relations between human psychology, technology, sex, and mass med ...
's novel '' The Burning World'' (1964, expanded into ''The Drought'' in 1965), pollution in the oceans creates a surface layer that resists evaporation, bringing about a worldwide drought.
John Brunner's novel '' The Sheep Look Up'' (1972) describes an environmentally-degraded world rapidly collapsing into social chaos, revolution, and anarchy.
Richard Cowper's three-volume novel ''The White Bird of Kinship'' (1978–82) envisions a future in which anthropogenic global warming has led to a catastrophic rise in sea level. Most of it takes place two millennia later.
Ursula K. Le Guin's novel '' Always Coming Home'' (1985) takes place long after worldwide disasters—apparently largely environmental though nuclear war may also be involved—have drastically reduced the population. It paints an admiring picture of a primitive society that will not repeat the mistakes of civilization. It won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize and was a runner-up for a National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors.
The Nat ...
.
Palladium Books' '' Rifts'' roleplaying game (1990) features an apocalypse caused by various natural disasters including the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano which releases a large amount of magical energy that is amplified by deaths of millions occurring during a solstice, at midnight, during a planetary alignment, creating the titular rifts that bring forth various beings and monstrosities from throughout the Megaverse.
In Octavia Butler's 1993 novel '' Parable of the Sower'', climate change and corporatism are the human-caused reasons for societal collapse.
In the film ''The Day After Tomorrow
''The Day After Tomorrow'' is a 2004 American science fiction disaster film directed, co-produced, and co-written by Roland Emmerich. Based on the 1999 book '' The Coming Global Superstorm'' by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber, the film stars De ...
'' (2004), based on Whitley Strieber's speculative non-fiction novel '' The Coming Global Superstorm'' (1999), extreme weather events caused by climate change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...
invoke mass destruction across the planet, and eventually result in a new ice age
An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gre ...
.
The video game ''The Long Dark
''The Long Dark'' is a first-person survival video game developed and published by Hinterland Studios. The player assumes the role of crash-landed bush pilot Will Mackenzie who must survive the frigid Canadian wilderness after a geomagnetic st ...
'' (2017) depicts survival in the wilderness of northern Canada during winter after a geomagnetic disaster has disabled all modern technology.
Failure of modern technology
In E. M. Forster
Edward Morgan Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English author, best known for his novels, particularly ''A Room with a View'' (1908), ''Howards End'' (1910), and ''A Passage to India'' (1924). He also wrote numerous short stori ...
's novelette " The Machine Stops" (1909), 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 is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded.
Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to ac ...
by providing for humankind'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 (24 January 1911 – 24 November 1985) 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 ...
's novel '' Ravage'' (1943), written and published during the German occupation of France
The Military Administration in France (german: Militärverwaltung in Frankreich; french: Occupation de la France par l'Allemagne) was an interim occupation authority established by Nazi Germany during World War II to administer the occupied zo ...
, a future France is devastated by the sudden failure of electricity
Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as describ ...
, causing chaos, disease, and famine, with a small band of survivors desperately struggling for survival.
Fred Saberhagen
Fred Thomas Saberhagen (May 18, 1930 – June 29, 2007) was an American science fiction and fantasy author most famous for his ''Berserker'' series of science fiction short stories and novels.
Saberhagen also wrote a series of vampire novels in ...
goes one better than Barjavel with the ''Empire of the East'' series which starts, in the 1968 book ''The Broken Lands'', sometime after the "Change" (with sincere nods from Boyett and Stirling), in which a defense designed to temporarily make nukes inoperative, permanently changes some of the laws of science for magic.
Steve Boyett's novel ''Ariel'' (1983, sub-titled "A Book of the Change") also has all technology—including electricity, gunpowder, and some physics principles—ceasing to function, while magic becomes real. He also contributed to the 1986 Borderland series, which investigates a return of the Realm of Faery to the world.
'' The Quiet Earth'', a 1985 New Zealand movie notable for its visually stunning ending, follows a scientist's descent into madness after he wakes up to a world where every single member of the kingdom Animalia has seemingly disappeared. After recovering and finding other people, he realizes his experiments with energy transfers through the Earth's magnetic field are to blame, and that unless he shuts down the experiment, it will destroy the planet.
S. M. Stirling also takes a swipe at the inconstant-physical-constants field with the ''Emberverse'' series. '' Dies the Fire'' (2004), '' The Protector's War'' (2005), and '' A Meeting at Corvallis'' (2006), depict the world's descent into feudalism
Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structur ...
after a sudden mysterious "change" alters physical laws so that electricity
Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as describ ...
, gunpowder
Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). Th ...
, and most forms of high-energy-density technology
Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and Reproducibility, reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in me ...
no longer work. Civilization collapses, and two competing groups struggle to re-create medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
technologies and skills, as well as master magic. Like Boyett's novel, Stirling's features Society for Creative Anachronism
The Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) is an international living history group with the aim of studying and recreating mainly Medieval European cultures and their histories before the 17th century. A quip often used within the SCA describes ...
members as favorably disposed survivors, and a hang glider attack against a building.
'' Afterworld'' (first aired in 2007) is a computer-animated American science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
television series
A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed be ...
where a network of satellites firing persistent electronic pulses, combined with a strange nanotechnology, has not only destroyed most electronic technology on the planet, but also caused the deaths of 99% of humanity, and is now causing strange mutations to occur in lower forms of life.
NBC's ''Revolution
In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...
'' (2012–2014) also revolved around a "change" after which the principles of electricity and physics are inoperable. However, the focus of the story was how a group of protagonists tried to get the power back on while opposing the efforts of a tyrannical militia leader to understand it first (so that he can take absolute power).
The web series '' H+: The Digital Series'' (2012-2013) depicts in part, the aftermath of a world in which a computer virus that infected a popular brain-computer interface killed one-third of the population, leading to a breakdown in order and the lack or shortage of electricity and other modern conveniences.
'' All Systems Down'' (2018) is an American novel which describes a cyber war that cripples Western infrastructure, resulting in the collapse of society.
Robert Harris's novel ''The Second Sleep'' (2019) is set in a fundamentalist agrarian society several centuries after the collapse of global civilisation, which is inferred to be the result of a sudden breakdown of the internet, possibly as the result of cyberwarfare.
Technological singularity
The topic of technological singularity, also known as “singularity,” was first coined in 1993. Since then, the idea of the term has been used to produce countless major motion pictures and earn Hollywood producers millions of dollars at the box office. The "singularity" refers to a future moment in human history when science and science fiction, religion and philosophy, and hope and fear converge. The mathematician and science fiction writer Vernor Vinge
Vernor Steffen Vinge (; born October 2, 1944) is an American science fiction author and retired professor. He taught mathematics and computer science at San Diego State University. He is the first wide-scale popularizer of the technological singu ...
coined the term to denote a juncture when artificial intelligence (AI) equals, and then in an intelligence explosion, far exceeds man intelligence.” In laymen’s terms, technological singularity is the theoretical future moment when artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence and becomes aware, autonomous, and potentially threatening to humans.
* ''The Matrix
''The Matrix'' is a 1999 science fiction action film written and directed by the Wachowskis. It is the first installment in ''The Matrix'' film series, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, and Joe Pantolia ...
'' (1999), The plot involves Neo ( Keanu Reeves), a mild-mannered software author by day, a feared hacker by night. He's recruited by a cell of cyber-rebels, led by the profound Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne
Laurence John Fishburne III (born July 30, 1961) is an American actor. He is a three time Emmy Award and Tony Award winning actor known for his roles on stage and screen. He has been hailed for his forceful, militant, and authoritative charact ...
) and the leather-clad warrior Trinity ( Carrie-Anne Moss). They've made a fundamental discovery about the world: It doesn't exist. It's actually a form of Virtual Reality, designed to lull us into lives of blind obedience to the "system." We obediently go to our crummy jobs every day, little realizing, as Morpheus tells Neo, that "Matrix is the wool that has been pulled over your eyes--that you are a slave." The rebels want to crack the framework that holds the Matrix in place and free mankind. Morpheus believes Neo is the Messianic "One" who can lead this rebellion, which requires mind power as much as physical strength. Arrayed against them are the Agents, who look like Blues Brothers. The movie's battles take place in Virtual Reality; the heroes' minds are plugged into the combat. (You can still get killed, though: "The body cannot live without the mind")…The Agents function primarily as opponents in a high-stakes computer game. The movie offers no clear explanation of why the Matrix-making program went to all that trouble. Of course, for a program, running is its own reward—but an intelligent program might bring terrifying logic to its decisions.
* '' The Terminator'' (1985), James Cameron directs this science-fiction thriller about a futuristic killing machine called the Terminator ( Arnold Schwarzenegger), which is sent back to the year 1984 to assassinate a young woman named Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton
Linda Carroll Hamilton (born September 26, 1956) is an American actress. She played Sarah Connor in the '' Terminator'' film series and Catherine Chandler in the television series ''Beauty and the Beast'' (1987–1990), for which she was nomina ...
). The cyborg comes from the year 2029, following a nuclear war that has devastated the better part of civilization. Computer defense mechanisms have turned on their creators, starting another war, in an effort to eliminate the human race altogether. Man's valiant rebel leader is John Connor, Sarah's son. John is destined to help the human race win this war, and the Terminator is the only thing standing in the way. Sent back to the present, the cyborg must kill Sarah before John is born. It systematically eliminates every Sarah Connor in the city of Los Angeles. But Sarah escapes with the man sent to protect her, Kyle Reese ( Michael Biehn) before the Terminator can get to her. What follows is a massive chase that will eventually end in victory for mankind. Co-writer William Wisher Jr. has a cameo as a police officer.
* '' Transcendence'' (2014), about a dying computer genius ( Johnny Depp) who uploads himself in computerized form and achieves a problematic digital afterlife, is real science fiction. It explores its ideas with sincerity, curiosity, and terrifying beauty (its director is Wally Pfister
Walter C. Pfister (born July 8, 1961) is an American director and former cinematographer, who is best known for his work with filmmaker Christopher Nolan. Some of his collaborations with Nolan include '' Memento'' (2000), ''The Dark Knight Tri ...
, longtime cinematographer for Christopher Nolan
Christopher Edward Nolan (born 30 July 1970) is a British-American filmmaker. Known for his lucrative Hollywood blockbusters with complex storytelling, Nolan is considered a leading filmmaker of the 21st century. His films have grossed $5&nb ...
)… Caster is wounded in the 9/11 style, multi-pronged attack, taking a radiation-laced bullet and dying a few weeks later…What we've got here isn't just a "Frankenstein"-like parable of scientific hubris run amok, but also the story of a grieving spouse who's reluctant to let go of her mate and tries to prolong his life artificially. The film's script, credited to Jack Paglen, takes its sweet time confirming whether the being uploaded into the neural network Will Caster or merely a digital copy, and if a copy, what sort.
* ''Her'' (2013), The futuristic premise sets the stage for an unusual love story: one in which Theo, still highly damaged and sensitive over the breakup of his marriage ("I miss you," a friend tells him in a voice mail message; "Not the sad, mopey you. The old, fun you"), falls in love with the artificially intelligent operating system of his computer. The movie shows this product advertised and, presumably, bought in remarkable quantity, but focuses on Theo's interaction with his OS, which he gives a female voice. The female voice (portrayed by Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Ingrid Johansson (; born November 22, 1984) is an American actress. The world's highest-paid actress in 2018 and 2019, she has featured multiple times on the ''Forbes'' Celebrity 100 list. ''Time'' magazine named her one of the 100 ...
) gives herself the name "Samantha" and soon Samantha is reorganizing Theo's files, making him laugh, and developing something like a human consciousness.
* '' Autómata'' (2014), opens with onscreen text explaining the future 30 years from now. Solar storms have turned the Earth into a radioactive desert, killing 98% of the population in the process. As a result, the ROC company created “primitive robots to help build the walls and mechanical clouds that protect the humans.” There are millions of robots, all of which are controlled by two protocols: they cannot harm any form of life and they can neither repair themselves nor alter another robot in any fashion. “These rules are unalterable,” the screen says in boldface. Of course, this is not a true statement.
Fossil fuel supply scarcities
The film ''Mad Max
''Mad Max'' is an Australian post-apocalyptic action film series and media franchise created by George Miller and Byron Kennedy. It began in 1979 with '' Mad Max'', and was followed by three sequels: ''Mad Max 2'' (1981, released in the Unite ...
'' (1979), directed by George Miller, presents a world in which oil resources have been nearly exhausted. This has resulted in constant energy shortages and a breakdown of law and order. The police do battle with criminal motorcycle gangs, with the result being the complete breakdown of modern society and nuclear war as depicted in '' Mad Max 2'' (1981). The opening narration of ''Mad Max 2'' implies that the fuel shortage was caused not just by peak oil, but also by oil reserves being destroyed during a large scale conflict in the Middle East. The remnants of society survive either through scavenging, or in one notable case, as depicted in the third sequel ''Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
''Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome'' is a 1985 Australian post-apocalyptic dystopian action film directed by George Miller and George Ogilvie and written by Miller and Terry Hayes. It stars Mel Gibson and Tina Turner in a story of a lone roving warr ...
'' (1985), by using methane derived from pig feces.
James Howard Kunstler
James Howard Kunstler (born October 19, 1948) is an American author, social critic, public speaker, and blogger. He is best known for his books ''The Geography of Nowhere'' (1994), a history of American suburbia and urban development, ''The Long ...
's novel ''World Made By Hand
''World Made by Hand'' is a dystopian and social science fiction novel by American author 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 ...
'' (2008) 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
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
novelist Douglas Coupland
Douglas Coupland (born 30 December 1961) is a Canadian novelist, designer, and visual artist. His first novel, the 1991 international bestseller '' Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture'', popularized the terms ''Generation X'' and ''McJ ...
's book '' Player One'' (2010) deals with four individuals taking refuge in a Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...
airport bar while a series of cataclysmic events occurs outside.
Alex Scarrow's novel ''Last Light'' and its sequel ''Afterlight'' narrate the fall of British civilization after a war in the Middle East eradicates the majority of the Earth's oil supply.
The backstory of the video game series '' Fallout'' revolves around the so-called "Resource Wars", beginning circa 2050, when oil supplies become depleted, leading to a disastrous series of wars that include Europe going to war with the Middle East before disintegrating into warring nation-states after all available oil is used up, the United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...
collapsing, the U.S annexing Mexico and Canada, and finally total nuclear war between the U.S and China in 2077 after over 25 years of war.
Pandemic
Comics
'' Crossed'' by Garth Ennis
Garth Ennis (born January 16, 1970) is a Northern Irish–American comics writer, best known for the Vertigo series ''Preacher'' with artist Steve Dillon, his nine-year run on Marvel Comics' Punisher franchise, and '' The Boys'' with artist Dar ...
is set in a post-apocalyptic world in which a bodily fluid-borne virus has destroyed civilization. Carriers of the virus develop a cross-shaped rash on their faces and act without inhibitions, raping, killing and torturing the few remaining uninfected humans.
'' Y: The Last Man'' by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra
Pia Jasmin Guerra is an American-born Canadian comic book artist and editorial cartoonist, best known for her work as co-creator and lead penciller on the Vertigo title '' Y: The Last Man''. She has worked in the comics industry since the 1990s, a ...
deals with the lives 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.
'' The Walking Dead'' is a comic book series from IC and was written by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard
Charles Adlard is a British comic book artist known for his work on books such as '' The Walking Dead'' and '' Savage''.
Career
Adlard began his work in the UK on ''White Death'' with Robbie Morrison and '' 2000 AD'' series including ''Judge Dr ...
. It was started in 2003 and concluded in 2019. The story follows a group of survivors in a post-apocalyptic landscape. The apocalypse in this series was brought about by zombies, and it is strongly suspected that the zombies are victims of a virus. '' The Walking Dead'' television series is based on the comic books. They have also spawned a motion comic
A motion comic (or animated comic) is a form of animation combining elements of print comic books and animation. Individual panels are expanded into a full shot while sound effects, voice acting, and animation are added to the original artwork. Tex ...
.
Kamandi is an American comic book character, created by artist Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby (born Jacob Kurtzberg; August 28, 1917 – February 6, 1994) was an American comic book artist, writer and editor, widely regarded as one of the medium's major innovators and one of its most prolific and influential creators. He gre ...
and published by DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery.
DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with thei ...
. In the eponymous series, Kamandi is a teenage boy on a post-apocalyptic Earth that the textual narrative describes as "Earth A.D. (After Disaster)". The Earth has been ravaged by a mysterious calamity called the Great Disaster. The precise nature of the Great Disaster is never revealed in the original series, although it "had something to do with radiation" (in the series' letter column, Jack Kirby and his then-assistant Steve Sherman repeatedly asserted that the Great Disaster was not a nuclear war, a fact confirmed in issue #35). The Disaster wiped out human civilization and a substantial portion of the human population. A few isolated pockets of humanity survived in underground bunkers, while others quickly reverted to pre-technological savagery.
'' Xenozoic Tales'' (also known as ''Cadillacs & Dinosaurs'') is an alternative comic book by Mark Schultz set in a post-apocalyptic future starring mechanic Jack Tenrec and scientist Hannah Dundee. Earth has been ravaged by pollution and natural disasters and humanity survived by building vast underground cities. Some 600 years later, mankind emerged to find that the world had been reclaimed by previously extinct lifeforms (most spectacularly, dinosaurs). In the new 'Xenozoic' era, technology is extremely limited and those with mechanical skills command a great deal of respect and influence.
Killraven
Killraven (Jonathan Raven) is a character (arts), fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character has been depicted as a freedom fighter in several Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, post-apoca ...
(Jonathan Raven) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by co-plotters Roy Thomas and Neal Adams
Neal Adams (June 15, 1941 – April 28, 2022) was an American comic book artist. He was the co-founder of the graphic design studio Continuity Associates, and was a creators-rights advocate who helped secure a pension and recognition for Sup ...
, scriptwriter Gerry Conway, the Martians from H. G. Wells' ''The War of the Worlds'' return in 2001 for another attempt at conquering the planet (later retconned
Retroactive continuity, or retcon for short, is a literary device in which established diegetic facts in the plot of a fictional work (those established through the narrative itself) are adjusted, ignored, supplemented, or contradicted by a subse ...
as extrasolar aliens using Mars as a staging area). After humanity's enslavement, men not used as breeders or collaborators are trained and forced to battle gladiator-style for the Martians' amusement; women are used as breeders to supply infants, which are eaten by the Martians as a delicacy. Jonathan Raven, dubbed Killraven as his gladiatorial nom de guerre, escapes with the help of the gladiatorial "keeper", but without his brother, Deathraven. Killraven joins the Freemen, a group of freedom fighters against Martian oppression.
Deathlok
Deathlok (also referred to as Deathlok the Demolisher) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He first appeared in '' Astonishing Tales'' #25 (Aug. 1974), created by Rich Buckler. At least three sub ...
is a Marvel comic book character created by Rich Buckler
Rich may refer to:
Common uses
* Rich, an entity possessing wealth
* Rich, an intense flavor, color, sound, texture, or feeling
** Rich (wine), a descriptor in wine tasting
Places United States
* Rich, Mississippi, an unincorporated comm ...
and Doug Moench
Douglas Moench (; born February 23, 1948) is an American comic book writer notable for his ''Batman'' work and as the creator of Moon Knight, Deathlok, Black Mask, '' Electric Warrior'' and '' Six from Sirius''. He is also known for his critica ...
. Colonel Luther Manning is an American soldier who was fatally injured and reanimated in a post-apocalyptic future (originally given the date of 1990) as the experimental cyborg Deathlok the Demolisher. He verbally communicates with his symbiotic computer, to which he refers as the abbreviated "'Puter". He battles the evil corporate and military regimes that have taken over the United States, while simultaneously struggling not to lose his humanity.
Hercules
Hercules (, ) is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures.
The Romans adapted the ...
, as portrayed in the DC comic book series titled ''Hercules Unbound'', featured the adventures of Hercules in a post-apocalyptic future. It made use of characters and concepts, such as the Atomic Knights and the intelligent animals from Jack Kirby's ''Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth'' series as an attempt to tie in some of the future series.
''Judge Dredd
Judge Joseph Dredd is a fictional character created by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra. He first appeared in the second issue of '' 2000 AD'' (1977), which is a British weekly anthology comic. He is the magazine's longest-running ...
'' is set in a future Earth damaged by World War III, a nuclear war instigated by corrupt U.S. President "Bad" Bob Booth in 2070. The majority of the world was left an irradiated wasteland filled with hostile mutant lifeforms, with the surviving population being centralized in the so-called Mega-Cities, massive urban sprawls covering entire states created to deal with overpopulation during the 21st century. Further massive conflicts during the comics' present, such as the "Apocalypse War" against East-Meg (the government of the former Soviet territories) and the "Day Of Chaos" has caused even more destruction.
'' Axa'' is set on a post-apocalyptic Earth in the year 2080. Axa is a woman who, having grown sick of the regimented and stifling society inside a domed city, flees into the untamed wilderness. The strip mixed elements of science fiction and sword-swinging barbarian tales (the lead character herself bears more than a casual similarity to Red Sonja).
''Meltdown Man'' (SAS Sergeant Nick Stone) finds himself flung into the far-future by a nuclear blast, where the last remaining humans are led by a merciless tyrant called Leeshar and rule over the eugenically - modified animal castes known as 'Yujees'. Accompanied by catwoman Liana, bullman T-Bone and loyal wolfman Gruff, Stone is intent on ending Leeshar's dark reign by leading the slave-like Yujees in rebellion.
'' Mighty Samson'' was set in the area around New York City, now known as "N'Yark", in an Earth devastated by a nuclear war. The series featured Samson, a barbarian adventurer, and was created by writer Otto Binder and artist Frank Thorne.
''Druuna
Druuna is an erotic science fiction and fantasy comic book character created by Italian cartoonist Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri. Most of Druuna's adventures revolve around a post-apocalyptic future, and the plot is often a vehicle for varied scenes of ...
'' is an erotic science fiction and fantasy comic book character created by Italian cartoonist Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri. Most of Druuna's adventures revolve around a post-apocalyptic future, and the plot is often a vehicle for varied scenes of hardcore pornography and softcore sexual imagery.
Films and television
Director George A. Romero's '' Night of the Living Dead'' (1968), and its five sequels, including '' Dawn of the Dead'' (1978) and ''Day of the Dead
The Day of the Dead ( es, Día de Muertos or ''Día de los Muertos'') is a holiday traditionally celebrated on November 1 and 2, though other days, such as October 31 or November 6, may be included depending on the locality. It is widely obser ...
'' (1985), popularized the concept of a zombie apocalypse
Zombie apocalypse is a genre of fiction in which society collapses due to overwhelming swarms of zombies. Typically only a few individuals or small bands of survivors are left living. In some versions, the reason the dead rise and attack huma ...
, focusing on the breakdown of American society in a world where the dead are re-animating as mindless, undead cannibals due to some unknown disease, implied to be extraterrestrial in origin, and anyone bitten but not eaten will soon become a zombie as well.
The BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
television series ''
Survivors'' (1975–1977) and its
2008 remake series focus on a group of British survivors in the aftermath of a genetically engineered virus that has killed over 90% of the world's population. The first series of both versions examine the immediate after-effects of a
pandemic outbreak of the flu, while the subsequent series concentrate on the survivors' attempts to build communities and make contacts with other groups.
The Japanese film ''
Virus
A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea.
Since Dmitri Ivanovsk ...
'' (1980) illustrates the global effects of the deadly ''MM88'', a fictional virus that potentiates the effects of any other disease. It also features a
doomsday device
A doomsday device is a hypothetical construction — usually a weapon or weapons system — which could destroy all life on a planet, particularly Earth, or destroy the planet itself, bringing " doomsday", a term used for the end of planet Earth ...
when it's discovered that the nuclear arsenal could be triggered by an earthquake in a
chain reaction
A chain reaction is a sequence of reactions where a reactive product or by-product causes additional reactions to take place. In a chain reaction, positive feedback leads to a self-amplifying chain of events.
Chain reactions are one way that sys ...
.
''
12 Monkeys
''12 Monkeys'' is a 1995 American science fiction film directed by Terry Gilliam, inspired by Chris Marker's 1962 short film '' La Jetée'', starring Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, and Brad Pitt, with Christopher Plummer and David Morse in ...
'' (1995) is a science fiction film which depicts the remains of human civilization after an uncontrollable pandemic wipes out 99% of the human population. It is a semi-remake of ''
La Jetée'' (1962), and both films focus on the theme of fate by introducing the ability to
travel through time and make contact with pre-apocalyptic society. ''
12 Monkeys
''12 Monkeys'' is a 1995 American science fiction film directed by Terry Gilliam, inspired by Chris Marker's 1962 short film '' La Jetée'', starring Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, and Brad Pitt, with Christopher Plummer and David Morse in ...
'' is also a
SyFy television series that premiered in 2015.
''
The Tribe'' (1999) is a television series that deals with a mysterious virus that kills the adult population, leaving the children of the world to fend for themselves. The kids are divided into different tribes and war against each other for their survival. The show focuses on the tribe called the Mall Rats, who take shelter in the city's mall to protect themselves from the dangers outside. However the virus mutates and begins to infect all the children, forcing the Mall Rats to search for the rumoured virus antidote hidden in government buildings that was left behind by the adults.
The film ''
28 Days Later
''28 Days Later'' is a 2002 British post-apocalyptic horror film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland. It stars Cillian Murphy as a bicycle courier who awakens from a coma to discover the accidental release of a highly contagiou ...
'' (2002) and its sequel ''
28 Weeks Later
''28 Weeks Later'' is a 2007 post-apocalyptic horror film directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, who co-wrote it with Rowan Joffé, Enrique López Lavigne and Jesus Olmo. The sequel to the 2002 film ''28 Days Later'', it stars Robert Carlyle, ...
'' (2007) revolves around a virus in Britain that turns anyone infected into a mindlessly violent psychotic, though still alive and not undead, in a variation of the classic zombie theme. This also makes the infected more dangerous, as they can run very quickly and as their bodies are not decaying. The plot centers on groups of both uninfected survivors and a handful of virus carriers who are immune to the effects of the disease.
In the comedy film ''
Zombieland
''Zombieland'' is a 2009 American post-apocalyptic zombie comedy film directed by Ruben Fleischer in his theatrical debut and written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. The film follows a geeky college student ( Jesse Eisenberg) making his wa ...
'' (2009), a disease mutates most Americans (the rest of the world is not mentioned) and turns them into animal-like creatures hungry for human flesh. The story is about a group of people who stick together and to try survive against the zombies. Another comedy film, ''
Warm Bodies'' (2013), adds a romantic twist to its story, as a zombie falls in love with an uninfected woman and protects her from his fellow zombies.
The
AMC
AMC may refer to:
Film and television
* AMC Theatres, an American movie theater chain
* AMC Networks, an American entertainment company
** AMC (TV channel)
** AMC+, streaming service
** AMC Networks International, an entertainment company
*** ...
television series ''
The Walking Dead'', based on the
comic book series of the same name, premiered in 2010. It centers around a group of people in the state of
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
who struggle to survive and adapt in a post-apocalyptic world filled with zombies (here called "walkers") and opposing groups of survivors who are often more dangerous than the walkers themselves. The popularity of the series has led to a spin-off franchise comprising an
aftershow
An aftershow or after-show is a genre of television talk show whose topic is another television program. An aftershow is typically broadcast immediately after a new episode of its corresponding program to help retain the audience, and to provide ad ...
(''
Talking Dead
''Talking Dead'' is a live television aftershow in which host Chris Hardwick discusses episodes of the AMC television series '' The Walking Dead'', '' Fear the Walking Dead'' and '' The Walking Dead: World Beyond'' with guests, including celebr ...
''), a companion television series (''
Fear the Walking Dead'', a prequel with different characters from the source material), video games (e.g., ''
The Walking Dead: The Game (Season One)'', ''
The Walking Dead: Season Two'' and ''
The Walking Dead: Season Three'') webisodes (including
''The Talking Dead'' webisodes and the
''Fear the Walking Dead'' web series), and numerous
parodies and spoofs.
''
World War Z
''World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War'' is a 2006 zombie apocalyptic horror novel written by American author Max Brooks. The novel is broken into eight chapters: “Warnings”, “Blame”, “The Great Panic”, “Turning the Ti ...
'' (2013) is an apocalyptic action horror film based on the 2006
novel of the same name by
Max Brooks
Maximillian Michael Brooks (born May 22, 1972) is an American actor and author. He is the son of comedy filmmaker Mel Brooks and actress Anne Bancroft. Much of Brooks's writing focuses on zombie stories. He is a senior fellow at the Modern War ...
. The film focuses on a former United Nations investigator who must travel the world to find a way to stop a zombie pandemic.
''
The Last Ship'' (2014) is an American action-drama television series, based on the
1988 novel of the same name by
William Brinkley. After a global viral
pandemic wipes out over 80% of the world's population, the crew (consisting of 218 people) of a lone unaffected
U.S. Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...
Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer
A guided-missile destroyer (DDG) is a destroyer whose primary armament is guided missiles so they can provide anti-aircraft warfare screening for the fleet. The NATO standard designation for these vessels is DDG, while destroyers who have a prim ...
, the fictional ''
USS Nathan James (DDG-151)'', must try to find a cure, stop the virus, and save humanity.
''
Train to Busan'' (2016) is an apocalyptic zombie film, based around a South Korean train from
Seoul
Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 of ...
to
Busan, hence the name. The virus was created from a chemical accident, and, when it infects any animal, gives the animal heightened senses and makes humans very violent. While they do get disoriented from darkness, they are very deadly. The story follows Seo Seok-woo (
Gong Yoo
Gong Ji-cheol (; born July 10, 1979), better known by his stage name Gong Yoo (), is a South Korean actor. He is best known for his roles in the television dramas '' Coffee Prince'' (2007), '' Guardian: The Lonely and Great God'' (2016–2017), ...
) and his daughter, Su-an (
Kim Su-an), as they find their way through a ravaged South Korea.
''
The Rain (TV series)
''The Rain'' is a Danish post-apocalyptic streaming television series created by Jannik Tai Mosholt, Esben Toft Jacobsen and Christian Potalivo. It premiered on Netflix on 4 May 2018. The show stars Alba August, Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen, Mikk ...
'' (2018) is a Danish post-apocalyptic web-television series. After a rain-borne virus is released over the region of
Scandinavia
Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Swe ...
, causing a pandemic. Simone Andersen (played by
Alba August) and Rasmus Andersen, along with their mother and father, must make it to an underground bunker. Things soon go awry when the father must leave to find a cure and the children are forced out of the bunker due to lack of food in search for their father.
''
The Last Man on Earth'' (2015) is a post apocalyptic American comedy TV series over 4 seasons starring Will Forte. It plays the premise for laughs. The original character is essentially a loser and then various other survivors find him and change the dynamic with hilarious and moving consequences.
Novels and short stories
Mary Shelley
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (; ; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel '' Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also ...
's ''
The Last Man
''The Last Man'' is an apocalyptic, dystopian science fiction novel by Mary Shelley, first published in 1826. The narrative concerns Europe in the late 21st century, ravaged by a mysterious plague pandemic that rapidly sweeps across the enti ...
'', published in 1826, is set in the end of the 21st century. It chronicles a group of friends, based on
Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the ...
,
Percy Bysshe Shelley and others, moving through Europe as a plague kills most of the world's population. ''
The Scarlet Plague'' by
Jack London, published in 1912, is set in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
in the year 2073, 60 years after a plague has largely depopulated the planet.
Isaac Asimov's ''
Nightfall'' (1941) describes a world with 6 suns, in constant daylight, except for an eclipse-based night every 2000 years, leading to mass hysteria and destruction. Written in 1949 by
George R. Stewart, ''
Earth Abides
''Earth Abides'' is a 1949 American post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by George R. Stewart. The novel tells the story of the fall of civilization from deadly disease and the emergence of a new culture with simpler tools. Set in the 1940s in ...
'' is the story of a man who finds most of civilization has been destroyed by a disease. Slowly, a small community forms around him as he struggles to start a new civilization and to preserve knowledge and learning.
''
Empty World'' is a 1977 novel by
John Christopher
Sam Youd (16 April 1922 – 3 February 2012), was a British writer, best known for science fiction written under the name of John Christopher, including the novels ''The Death of Grass'', ''The Possessors'', and the young-adult novel series ...
about an adolescent boy who survives a plague which has killed most of the world's population. Originally published in 1978,
Stephen King's ''
The Stand
''The Stand'' is a post-apocalyptic dark fantasy novel written by American author Stephen King and first published in 1978 by Doubleday. The plot centers on a deadly pandemic of weaponized influenza and its aftermath, in which the few survivin ...
'' follows the odyssey of a small number of survivors of a world-ending
influenza pandemic, later revealed to be the man-made superflu "Captain Trips". It was eventually adapted for a 1994 miniseries of the same title starring Gary Sinise and Molly Ringwald. The novel was semi-inspired by King's earlier short story "
Night Surf
"Night Surf" is a post-apocalyptic short story by Stephen King, first published in the spring 1969 issue of '' Ubris'' magazine and later collected in a revised version in King's 1978 collection '' Night Shift''.
Plot summary
On an August night ...
". Also published in 1977,
Graham Masterton's novel titled ''Plague'', tells the story of a mutated (and incurable as well as fatal) version of
Yersinia pestis
''Yersinia pestis'' (''Y. pestis''; formerly '' Pasteurella pestis'') is a gram-negative, non-motile, coccobacillus bacterium without spores that is related to both ''Yersinia pseudotuberculosis'' and ''Yersinia enterocolitica''. It is a facult ...
sweeping across the United States.
Gore Vidal's 1978 novel ''
Kalki
Kalki ( sa, कल्कि), also called Kalkin or Karki, is the prophesied tenth and final incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu. He is described to appear in order to end the Kali Yuga, one of the four periods in the endless cycle of exist ...
'' also involves an apocalyptic event caused by a man-made pandemic.
The 1982 novel ''
The White Plague
''The White Plague'' is a 1982 science fiction novel by American author, Frank Herbert that explores madness and revenge on a global scale.
Plot
On May 20, 1996, an IRA terrorist car bomb explodes, killing the wife and children of molecular ...
'' by
Frank Herbert has molecular biologist John Roe O'Neill exploring vengeance on a global scale when his wife is killed in an IRA car bombing. He creates a pandemic that kills only women. Written in 1984, the novel ''
Emergence'' by
David R. Palmer is set in a world where a man-made plague destroys the vast majority of the world's population. The novel was nominated for several awards and won the 1985
Compton Crook Award.
José Saramago
José de Sousa Saramago, GColSE ComSE GColCa (; 16 November 1922 – 18 June 2010), was a Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony ith which hec ...
's 1995 novel ''
Blindness
Visual impairment, also known as vision impairment, is a medical definition primarily measured based on an individual's better eye visual acuity; in the absence of treatment such as correctable eyewear, assistive devices, and medical treatment� ...
'' 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
Visual impairment, also known as vision impairment, is a medical definition primarily measured based on an individual's better eye visual acuity; in the absence of treatment such as correctable eyewear, assistive devices, and medical treatment� ...
'' in 2008. Published in 2003 by
Margaret Atwood, ''
Oryx and Crake'' 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 novel was also shortlisted for the
Man Booker Prize. A sequel, ''
The Year of the Flood'', was published in 2007, followed by ''
MaddAddam'' in 2013, the trilogy's conclusion.
Richard Matheson
Richard Burton Matheson (February 20, 1926 – June 23, 2013) was an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres.
He is best known as the author of '' I Am Legend'', a 1954 science fictio ...
's 1954 novel ''
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 zombie-like creatures. The novel has been adapted to film three times: ''
The Last Man on Earth'' (1964), ''
The Omega Man'' (1971), and ''
I Am Legend'' (2007).
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 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.
''
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War ''(2006) is an apocalyptic horror novel by
Max Brooks
Maximillian Michael Brooks (born May 22, 1972) is an American actor and author. He is the son of comedy filmmaker Mel Brooks and actress Anne Bancroft. Much of Brooks's writing focuses on zombie stories. He is a senior fellow at the Modern War ...
. The book is a collection of individual accounts of desperate struggle during and after a devastating global conflict against a zombie plague, narrated by an agent of the United Nations Postwar Commission. It also describes the social, political, religious, and environmental changes that result from the plague.
Emily St. John Mandel's ''
Station Eleven'' (2014) takes place in the
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lak ...
region after a fictional
swine flu
Swine influenza is an infection caused by any of several types of swine influenza viruses. Swine influenza virus (SIV) or swine-origin influenza virus (S-OIV) refers to any strain of the influenza family of viruses that is endemic in pigs. As ...
pandemic, known as the "Georgia Flu", has devastated the world, killing most of the population. The novel won the
Arthur C. Clarke Award in May 2015.
The award committee highlighted the novel's focus on the survival of human culture after an apocalypse, as opposed to the survival of humanity itself.
[
James Dashner's ''The Maze Runner'' trilogy (2009–11) takes place after sun flares have scorched the earth. As a result, the governments of the world released a virus to kill off some of the world's population to save resources. The virus turned out to be highly contagious, and it made you lose control of your mind until you were an animal inside your head. This led to it being nicknamed, "The Flare". The series was made into movies by ]20th Century Fox
20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Dis ...
, with '' The Maze Runner'' released in 2014, '' The Scorch Trials'' in 2015 and the third in the series, ''The Death Cure
''The Death Cure'' is a 2011 young adult dystopian science fiction novel written by American writer James Dashner and the third published in the ''Maze Runner'' series (the fifth and last in narrative order). It was published on 11 October ...
'' in 2018.
Video games
'' Abomination: The Nemesis Project'' (1999) takes place in 1999 after the United States has been almost wiped out by a deadly plague. The disease started on the East Coast, and communication with the West Coast ceased within 72 hours. The last few groups of survivors stopped broadcasting after six days, and the overwhelming majority of the country's population has been wiped out. The player leads a team of eight genetically altered supersoldier
The supersoldier (or super soldier) is a fictional concept soldier, often capable of operating beyond normal human limits or abilities either through genetic modification or cybernetic augmentation.
Overview
Supersoldiers are common in military ...
s to defeat an infestation of a global genetic plague which slowly turns into a superorganism.
The ''Left 4 Dead
''Left 4 Dead'' is a 2008 first-person shooter game developed by Valve South and published by Valve. It was originally released for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 in November 2008 and for Mac OS X in October 2010, and is the first title in the ...
'' series (first released in 2008) is set in the days after a pandemic outbreak of a viral strain transforms the majority of the population into zombie-like feral creatures. The games follow the adventures of four survivors attempting to reach safe houses and military rescue while fending off the attacking hordes.
'' Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward'' (2012) takes place years after an artificial virus, called Radical-6, was released, exterminating almost all of humanity. The sequel '' Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma'' (2016) details the events that lead to the virus being released.
'' Plague Inc.'' (2012) focuses not on the survival of humanity after or during an apocalypse, but rather on controlling the disease or creature responsible for the destruction of humanity.
'' The Last of Us'' (2013) revolves around the premise of a mutated Cordyceps fungus spreading to humans, resulting in the deterioration of society within the United States. DLC '' The Last of Us: Left Behind'' (2014) takes place months before Ellie meets Joel. The sequel ''The Last of Us Part II
''The Last of Us Part II'' is a 2020 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4. Set five years after ''The Last of Us'' (2013), the game focuses on two playable chara ...
'' (2020) continues the story of Joel and Ellie 5 years after the first game.
'' They Are Billions'' (2018) is also an example of a post-apocalyptic future, in which players must establish, manage and defend colonies amidst a zombie apocalypse
Zombie apocalypse is a genre of fiction in which society collapses due to overwhelming swarms of zombies. Typically only a few individuals or small bands of survivors are left living. In some versions, the reason the dead rise and attack huma ...
.
'' Tom Clancy's The Division'' (2016) takes place in a pandemic-ravaged New York City that's become overrun by escaped prisoners, gang-members and a faction of 'Cleaners' that are determined to end the epidemic by incinerating anything that might possibly be infected.
'' The Walking Dead (video game series)'' (2012-2019) deals with the mysterious disease prevalent in all currently living people to become a walker or zombie either by being bitten by one or dying with the brain intact. Hostile survivors roam the remaining living world too and the protagonist, Clementine has to deal with them and friends accordingly.
War
Film and television
H.G. Wells adapted his novel '' The Shape of Things to Come'' (1933) into the movie '' Things to Come'' (1936). In the movie, England is reduced to rubble by a prolonged conventional, chemical, and biological war. Survivors are depicted living under the rule of a local warlord who raids his neighbors in an attempt to get his fleet of rotting fighter planes in the air again. At the same time, surviving engineers create a technological utopia.
The film '' Panic in Year Zero!'' (1962) tells the story of a Southern California
Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban a ...
family's fight to survive the violence and chaos that ensue in the aftermath of a nuclear war.
'' La Jetée'' (1962) deals with a time traveler sent back in time to help the people of the post-apocalyptic future rebuild civilization after nuclear war destroys most of the world. It was partially remade in 1996 in the film ''12 Monkeys
''12 Monkeys'' is a 1995 American science fiction film directed by Terry Gilliam, inspired by Chris Marker's 1962 short film '' La Jetée'', starring Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, and Brad Pitt, with Christopher Plummer and David Morse in ...
''.
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Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
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