Does fiction tell us how the world will end?
The end of the world. It’s the topic of many a best-selling novel and blockbuster film, spanning multiple genres and dating back almost two hundred years.
It’s a question that’s been asked many times: how will the world as we know it come to an end? What will eventually wipe out humankind?
The beauty of apocalyptic fiction is that we can be supplied with answers, from the highly possible to the downright strange.
Here’s seven potential causes of the apocalypse, as explored in popular fiction:
Pestilence
One of the most believable causes of the apocalypse, this was most evident in Stephen King’s epic The Stand, which also contained various supernatural elements. In The Stand, a super flu, nicknamed ‘Captain Trips’, kills 99.4% of the world’s population. The survivors combine in an ultimate battle of good vs evil.
Pestilence is also explored by Emily St John Mandel in Station Eleven where ‘Georgia Flu’ wipes out most of humankind. The earliest modern work of post-apocalyptic fiction, Mary Shelley’s The Last Man, also depicts a plague that destroys mankind.
Nuclear War
With a US president referencing his access to a nuclear button on Twitter, this cause of the apocalypse has a jarring realism to it.
Notably explored in Robert McCammon’s Swan Song and Walter M. Miller’s A Canticle for Lebowitz, there is something uniquely haunting and tragic about a landscape of scorched earth, and an ultimately human cause of the destruction of our own planet.
Zombies or Vampires
The most common cause of the end of the world in the horror genre is a supernatural plague that transforms humans into murderous, evil beings. The ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ has been portrayed in countless movies and novels, most notably 1954’s I Am Legend by Richard Mathieson and 2003’s World War Z by Max Brooks, both of which became blockbuster movies with Hollywood stars Will Smith and Brad Pitt.
The ‘Vampire Apocalypse’ was covered in terrifying fashion by Justin Cronin’s The Passage trilogy, depicting the end of the world over several centuries, as survivors battle against ‘virals’ – former humans with a taste for blood.
Natural Disaster
Movies 2012, The Day After Tomorrow and The Knowing, spectacularly portray the apocalypse after natural disasters. As with many horror and science fiction genres, this reflects the modern fears of global warming and extreme weather, with several very real disasters causing deaths around the globe.
Novels such as New York: 2140, Borne and Flight Behaviour all explore a world changed unrecognisably by climate change.
Technology
Technology has increased at an incredible rate over the last few decades, transforming the lives of human beings. Science fiction often forewarns us about the development of artificial intelligence, with the possibility that the technology that now serves us could potentially become our master.
1984 film The Terminator plots this exquisitely, depicting a future where humans and machines are at war. TV series Black Mirror also explores the potentially negative effects of technology in various dystopian near-future scenarios.
Philip K. Dick’s sci-fi classic Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, which was to become Blade Runner, explores a future where rebellious ‘replicant’ androids are hunted by the government. My own post-apocalyptic novel, The Malaise, shows a world where mankind has been obliterated by an unknown force, linked to the monopolisation of technology.
Alien Invasion
If the cause of the apocalypse provides one of the most compelling ‘what if’ questions we could ask, then the possibility of alien life isn’t far behind. So, what better way to tell a gripping science fiction tale than to combine the two?
H.G Wells’ The War of the Worlds set the tone for alien invasion fiction in 1898, while Michael Crichton, Arthur C. Clarke and Peter F. Hamilton have all spun stories of overlords taking over the planet. Possibly one of the favourites in this category is John Wyndham’s 1951 classic The Day of the Triffids, which depicts the reconstruction of society after a comet shower blinds most of the human race, and giant man-eating plants provide a frightening antagonist.
However the world might end, we can only speculate. But as morbid and dark as the prospect is, we can enjoy enlightening ourselves with the many great works of fiction that tackle the issue of the apocalypse.
And perhaps the cause isn’t important. As Cormac McCarthy’s The Road teaches us, what happened to cause the apocalypse doesn’t necessarily have to be specified, it is the struggle of the survivors on a ruined planet and destroyed civilization in which the real tale lies. After all, post-apocalyptic fiction always treats the end of the world as the beginning of the story, where the true compelling narrative lies in the rebuilding of humanity amid the worst possible trauma. And it’s this insight into humankind that ensures post-apocalyptic fiction will continue to thrill us for many years to come.
David Turton’s post-apocalyptic novel ‘ The Malaise’ described as ‘a thrilling and gripping mix of science fiction and horror’ is available now , published by Cosmic Egg Books.