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404 Inklings #5
The End: Surviving the World Through Imagined Disasters
Throughout history, apocalypse fiction has explored social injustice through fantasy, sci-fi and religious imagery, but what can we learn from it? Why do we escape very real disaster via dystopia? Why do we fantasise about the end of the world?
The word “apocalypse” has roots in ancient Greek, with apo (“off”) and kalýptein (“cover”) combining to form apokálypsis, meaning to uncover or reveal. In considering apocalypse fiction across culture and its role in how we manage, manifest and imagine social, economic and political crises, Goh navigates what this genre reveals about our contemporary anxieties, and why we turn to disaster time and again.
From blockbusters like War of the Worlds to The Handmaid’s Tale and far beyond, we venture through global pandemics to the climate crisis, seeking real answers in the midst of our fictional destruction.
Let’s journey to the end.
The word “apocalypse” has roots in ancient Greek, with apo (“off”) and kalýptein (“cover”) combining to form apokálypsis, meaning to uncover or reveal. In considering apocalypse fiction across culture and its role in how we manage, manifest and imagine social, economic and political crises, Goh navigates what this genre reveals about our contemporary anxieties, and why we turn to disaster time and again.
From blockbusters like War of the Worlds to The Handmaid’s Tale and far beyond, we venture through global pandemics to the climate crisis, seeking real answers in the midst of our fictional destruction.
Let’s journey to the end.
- GenresNonfictionEssaysDystopia
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Published October 7, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
November 13, 2023
I can never resist a book about the Western fascination with apocalyptic and dystopian media, as I’ve had that particular obsession myself since childhood. However, all of them have to contend with comparison to a non-existent book I’ve contemplated writing on the topic myself. (I drafted an outline for it eight years ago while procrastinating from my PhD.) This one is brief and quite personal, as it discusses Goh’s exploration of apocalyptic and dystopian media as a means of understanding and processing the COVID-19 pandemic. I liked her thoughtful writing and selection of examples (all familiar except the films Melancholia and A Quiet Place, which I’ve heard of but not seen).
This is the first book on apocalyptic and dystopian media that I’ve read which includes the Great Plague era. The inclusion of those ‘Nature is healing, we are the virus’ memes in the climate change chapter was astute. I also appreciated Goh’s insight that disaster movies create narrative distance and impose reassuring structure upon environmental catastrophes:
Goh has great taste in movies – The Day After Tomorrow is probably my favourite stupid film and I’ve watched it many times. She goes on to cite Ghosh’s The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable on fiction’s struggle to grapple with climate change. My usual thought about this when reviewing novels about climate change is the difficulty in ending them well. As the quote above notes, disaster movies are about survival and this often the case for novels too. Yet a realistic climate change novel has to face the destructive, death-dealing power of environmental breakdown. Few novels manage to avoid an incongruously or ambiguously happy ending; the exceptions I’ve found are The High House (whose author discussed this very topic at a book festival event I attended) and The Living Sea of Waking Dreams (which is set in the present day and depicts in parallel the processes of a person, a species, and the global ecosystem dying).
The chapters in The End: Surviving the World Through Imagined Disasters are organised by topic, which results some elision between apocalyptic and dystopian media. For example, ‘The Social Disaster’ chapter includes The Handmaid’s Tale (dystopian), A Quiet Place (apocalyptic), and The Children of Men (arguably both, the balance differing between novel and movie). This is of interest to me as I think the two genres, despite their frequent overlap, speak to different anxieties. Apocalyptic movies, TV series, and books play with fears of society collapsing, the structures underpinning daily life being lost, and potential for recursion to some imagined prehistoric state of barbarity. Conversely, they can play on a libertarian, hyper-individualistic yearning for release from such structures. Dystopias, meanwhile, tend to depict excessive social limitations and oppressive structures that seem inescapable, often extrapolating from the politics of when they were written. The fear here is too much society rather than too little. Their appeal can lie in comparison with the present: look at how much worse things could be! In this way, attempts at offering warnings can sometimes have a paradoxically reassuring effect on the reader. Then again, I’ve read plenty of novels with ostensibly apocalyptic or dystopian narratives that didn’t really do either of these things and just wanted to focus on a marriage/thriller plot/billionaire’s behaviour, etc.
Returning to Goh’s reflections, I found her comments on mental health during the pandemic thoughtful. My taste went in the opposite direction during lockdown, reading historical, fantasy, and supernatural fiction rather than dystopias and apocalypses. I’ve returned to them, of course, as they continue to fascinate. I think there’s something about the fear of death (by natural disaster, pandemic illness, or just old age) in this obsession, as well as managing anxiety about social inequalities and environmental destruction. Fictional disasters definitely give us a way to think about these things, although I’m never sure how useful it is. Do I feel better after watching or reading something apocalyptic? Not really, but I feel something. Books that attempt to articulate and explain these feelings are definitely valuable and this one packs a lot into less than a hundred pages. Other good books in a similar vein are The Anthropocene Unconscious: Climate Catastrophe in Contemporary Culture, The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis, and Combined and Uneven Apocalypse: Luciferian Marxism. I also recommend the 1998 movie Last Night, a memorable Canadian drama about how people spend their last night alive before a meteor hits the Earth and kills everyone. It forms an interesting counterpoint to Armageddon and Deep Impact by assuming that the apocalypse cannot be prevented.
This is the first book on apocalyptic and dystopian media that I’ve read which includes the Great Plague era. The inclusion of those ‘Nature is healing, we are the virus’ memes in the climate change chapter was astute. I also appreciated Goh’s insight that disaster movies create narrative distance and impose reassuring structure upon environmental catastrophes:
The Day After Tomorrow and San Andreas are part of a recent storytelling genre dubbed climate fiction, or cli-fi. These climate disaster movies are predictable – in premise, narrative, and ending – following an arc that is natural to Hollywood but very unnatural to real life. On screen, natural disasters are arranged into neat three-act structures, typically with happy endings for their protagonist heroes. In reality, the climate crisis is a sprawling, ugly tale. It begins and ends relentlessly. […] We can barely conceive of the enormity and gravity of the climate crisis and these movies, through their narrow character-driven lenses, circumvent the big pictures into something more easy to process: a loss, a reunion, a sliver of survival, a happy ending.
Goh has great taste in movies – The Day After Tomorrow is probably my favourite stupid film and I’ve watched it many times. She goes on to cite Ghosh’s The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable on fiction’s struggle to grapple with climate change. My usual thought about this when reviewing novels about climate change is the difficulty in ending them well. As the quote above notes, disaster movies are about survival and this often the case for novels too. Yet a realistic climate change novel has to face the destructive, death-dealing power of environmental breakdown. Few novels manage to avoid an incongruously or ambiguously happy ending; the exceptions I’ve found are The High House (whose author discussed this very topic at a book festival event I attended) and The Living Sea of Waking Dreams (which is set in the present day and depicts in parallel the processes of a person, a species, and the global ecosystem dying).
The chapters in The End: Surviving the World Through Imagined Disasters are organised by topic, which results some elision between apocalyptic and dystopian media. For example, ‘The Social Disaster’ chapter includes The Handmaid’s Tale (dystopian), A Quiet Place (apocalyptic), and The Children of Men (arguably both, the balance differing between novel and movie). This is of interest to me as I think the two genres, despite their frequent overlap, speak to different anxieties. Apocalyptic movies, TV series, and books play with fears of society collapsing, the structures underpinning daily life being lost, and potential for recursion to some imagined prehistoric state of barbarity. Conversely, they can play on a libertarian, hyper-individualistic yearning for release from such structures. Dystopias, meanwhile, tend to depict excessive social limitations and oppressive structures that seem inescapable, often extrapolating from the politics of when they were written. The fear here is too much society rather than too little. Their appeal can lie in comparison with the present: look at how much worse things could be! In this way, attempts at offering warnings can sometimes have a paradoxically reassuring effect on the reader. Then again, I’ve read plenty of novels with ostensibly apocalyptic or dystopian narratives that didn’t really do either of these things and just wanted to focus on a marriage/thriller plot/billionaire’s behaviour, etc.
Returning to Goh’s reflections, I found her comments on mental health during the pandemic thoughtful. My taste went in the opposite direction during lockdown, reading historical, fantasy, and supernatural fiction rather than dystopias and apocalypses. I’ve returned to them, of course, as they continue to fascinate. I think there’s something about the fear of death (by natural disaster, pandemic illness, or just old age) in this obsession, as well as managing anxiety about social inequalities and environmental destruction. Fictional disasters definitely give us a way to think about these things, although I’m never sure how useful it is. Do I feel better after watching or reading something apocalyptic? Not really, but I feel something. Books that attempt to articulate and explain these feelings are definitely valuable and this one packs a lot into less than a hundred pages. Other good books in a similar vein are The Anthropocene Unconscious: Climate Catastrophe in Contemporary Culture, The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis, and Combined and Uneven Apocalypse: Luciferian Marxism. I also recommend the 1998 movie Last Night, a memorable Canadian drama about how people spend their last night alive before a meteor hits the Earth and kills everyone. It forms an interesting counterpoint to Armageddon and Deep Impact by assuming that the apocalypse cannot be prevented.
July 26, 2024
"True to its original meaning, the apocalypse reveals both the best and the worst of what we already have and who we already are. Disaster fiction can help us imagine new, alternative, brighter ways of living. "
This was such an interesting read! Very good analysis on disaster and apocalyptic stories and what they can tell us about the world we live in. As someone who finds utopian and dystopian studies fascinating, this little book brought up many relevant topics and introduced me to several books and films I haven't heard of before. I would recommend!
This was such an interesting read! Very good analysis on disaster and apocalyptic stories and what they can tell us about the world we live in. As someone who finds utopian and dystopian studies fascinating, this little book brought up many relevant topics and introduced me to several books and films I haven't heard of before. I would recommend!
January 17, 2023
The title says it all. I liked this little book, which explored how various movies and books have reflected our real-life disaster experiences - with pandemic, climate, etc.
This is the first Inklings book I've read and I really enjoyed the format; short, yes, but still long enough to get into the topic.
This is the first Inklings book I've read and I really enjoyed the format; short, yes, but still long enough to get into the topic.
November 28, 2021
I really enjoyed reading this, I wish all non-fiction, and I include academic university-level writing, was as accessibly written as this. It is sheer academic exclusivity and snobbery. Anyway.
Goh’s choice of apocalyptic films and novels was diverse and entertaining; a mix of things I’m familiar with and was pleased to read more about, and modern books and classic movies I’m yet to get around. I enjoyed Goh’s personal insights as well as the analysis into the popularity across time of this genre, and found the categorisation of different kind of catastrophic stories interesting, I’d never considered the sub genres before. My eyes have been ~opened~ to the politics behind ‘A Quiet Place’, and finally I have some appreciation of the effectiveness of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ in engaging a fairly a-political section of society on a social issue. I’m always pleased to have my mind changed.
One small drawback to this for me was the framing through a post-pandemic lens, I appreciate how relevant it is given the apocalyptic theme of the texts Goh is drawing on but I’m preemptively sick of Covid being the basis for art in the future. We should all do a Shakespeare with the bubonic plague and just pretend it didn’t happen in fiction. Please. Another thing is the frequent use of the word ‘decimated,’ which really means to reduce something by a tenth, not obliteration. I know common contemporary usage means a more total kind of destruction but there are other, better words.
Goh’s choice of apocalyptic films and novels was diverse and entertaining; a mix of things I’m familiar with and was pleased to read more about, and modern books and classic movies I’m yet to get around. I enjoyed Goh’s personal insights as well as the analysis into the popularity across time of this genre, and found the categorisation of different kind of catastrophic stories interesting, I’d never considered the sub genres before. My eyes have been ~opened~ to the politics behind ‘A Quiet Place’, and finally I have some appreciation of the effectiveness of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ in engaging a fairly a-political section of society on a social issue. I’m always pleased to have my mind changed.
One small drawback to this for me was the framing through a post-pandemic lens, I appreciate how relevant it is given the apocalyptic theme of the texts Goh is drawing on but I’m preemptively sick of Covid being the basis for art in the future. We should all do a Shakespeare with the bubonic plague and just pretend it didn’t happen in fiction. Please. Another thing is the frequent use of the word ‘decimated,’ which really means to reduce something by a tenth, not obliteration. I know common contemporary usage means a more total kind of destruction but there are other, better words.
October 20, 2021
Very insightful cultural and psychological analysis of why we can't get enough of the fictional disaster narrative. Highly recommend!
July 2, 2022
Brilliant. I love disaster/end of the world/apocalyptic movies of all kinds (though my favourites lean towards natural disasters) so I was really curious about this. Katie Goh writes smartly and with insight and though I may not necessarily agree with all the points she makes, I can understand the reasoning and logic behind her arguments and I think they're valid takes. This was also just an all round interesting and *good* read - well written, rounded, breezy. You'd think a book about the end of the world would be a heavy read, but it isn't, at all. I also appreciate the personal touch and how Goh uses her own lived experience to infuse the text with something to relate to - after all, she does make the point that when it comes to disaster movies, they need something personally relatable to really stick. There were a few films mentioned I haven't yet gotten round to watching so I will, and there are a few I think I will rewatch with a fresh perspective.
October 19, 2021
never realised I needed a book about the day after tomorrow until katie wrote it.
October 14, 2024
A great little essay for my fellow doom and apocalypse fans
October 24, 2021
Part of 404 Ink's Inklings series, The End is a look at disasters in fiction, how they work, and why we return to them, whether in times of crisis or not. Katie Goh starts with her own fears of apocalypse in the introduction and then explores four kinds of disasters in fiction—pandemic, climate, extraterrestrial, and social—to see what these stories say about us and consider why they work (or don't work, in some cases).
This book is a fascinating chance to think about why 'the end of the world' is such a feature in fiction and why it matters what kinds of things the story is saying about the apocalypse. Though it's about disaster fiction, especially films and books, The End also feels like it is sharing tools for critiquing disaster fiction and what we get from it, and thinking about using these stories as ways of presenting brighter futures rather than falling back on the same old narratives. I particularly enjoyed the part that questions superhero films and where they can go when the stakes are always to save the world/universe/etc, in contrast to films that use these kinds of stakes and disasters to tell more interesting stories.
As warned at the start of the book and maybe obvious from the premise, The End is a book full of spoilers about various kinds of 'ends' in fiction, exploring what stories are told and why they might be popular. By necessity it covers the COVID-19 pandemic, but also emphasises that these stories (and seeming apocalypses) have been going on for much, much longer, and what our current disaster fiction 'go-to' stories are might say a lot about us. I enjoyed its accessible style and combination of ideas and analysis of media within a small space, making for a very readable book that will definitely come to mind when I consume disaster media in the future.
This book is a fascinating chance to think about why 'the end of the world' is such a feature in fiction and why it matters what kinds of things the story is saying about the apocalypse. Though it's about disaster fiction, especially films and books, The End also feels like it is sharing tools for critiquing disaster fiction and what we get from it, and thinking about using these stories as ways of presenting brighter futures rather than falling back on the same old narratives. I particularly enjoyed the part that questions superhero films and where they can go when the stakes are always to save the world/universe/etc, in contrast to films that use these kinds of stakes and disasters to tell more interesting stories.
As warned at the start of the book and maybe obvious from the premise, The End is a book full of spoilers about various kinds of 'ends' in fiction, exploring what stories are told and why they might be popular. By necessity it covers the COVID-19 pandemic, but also emphasises that these stories (and seeming apocalypses) have been going on for much, much longer, and what our current disaster fiction 'go-to' stories are might say a lot about us. I enjoyed its accessible style and combination of ideas and analysis of media within a small space, making for a very readable book that will definitely come to mind when I consume disaster media in the future.
February 27, 2025
4.5 stars, this was so close to being 5 stars, but i just didn't quite get everything out of it i was hoping and really wished we just spent slightly longer exploring each topic and in each of the sections.
It went into a large variety of end of the world scenarios and spoke about them all in a really interesting way, the way in which media (film, tv & books) were weaved into the examples was really amazing and was done in such a way that it didn't matter if i was familiar with the piece of media i still understood the point it was getting across. It was written with really interesting perspectives and felt really well rounded with its looks at topics.
The way in which the book also went through and connected so many things to mental health was also really interesting and not something i'd personally connected or thought about before.
It was also really surprising when it spoke about peoples consumption of pandemic media during the heights of the lockdowns and that almost being a relaxing thing for so many people and that just really surprised me because my thoughts on it were the exact opposite and i really avoided pandemic media.
It went into a large variety of end of the world scenarios and spoke about them all in a really interesting way, the way in which media (film, tv & books) were weaved into the examples was really amazing and was done in such a way that it didn't matter if i was familiar with the piece of media i still understood the point it was getting across. It was written with really interesting perspectives and felt really well rounded with its looks at topics.
The way in which the book also went through and connected so many things to mental health was also really interesting and not something i'd personally connected or thought about before.
It was also really surprising when it spoke about peoples consumption of pandemic media during the heights of the lockdowns and that almost being a relaxing thing for so many people and that just really surprised me because my thoughts on it were the exact opposite and i really avoided pandemic media.
February 4, 2025
During 2020 my one optimistic thought was how amazing the art will be coming out of this period. The music by people sat in their lofts, the poems lamenting small things like a hug or a handshake and the films that will use this as fertile ground for their inspiration. However, I didn’t expect that the disasters beforehand would be so applicable to the experience as Goh describes.
An exploration of various disasters that bring us closer to the end through climate and social using films and stories as a comparison worked so brilliantly well. The selection that Goh curates is perfect in that the majority are well known/ memorable enough to not require a rewatch but also not so obvious that the comments made are ones I’ve seen before.
A read for someone mixing modern history and pop culture, someone looking for a reason why they switch off and rot out and people who can barely remember how they got through those long/short lockdown days.
An exploration of various disasters that bring us closer to the end through climate and social using films and stories as a comparison worked so brilliantly well. The selection that Goh curates is perfect in that the majority are well known/ memorable enough to not require a rewatch but also not so obvious that the comments made are ones I’ve seen before.
A read for someone mixing modern history and pop culture, someone looking for a reason why they switch off and rot out and people who can barely remember how they got through those long/short lockdown days.
February 8, 2022
This is such a gem of a book, I really enjoyed it. Its a slim tome and I devoured it quickly, only taking a couple days to read it once I sat down to it. I got it from a passing recommendation on Twitter, and maybe someone reads this and will pick it up too. It's hopeful, and relatable and accessible in a way non fiction often isn't. It's very raw and honest and completely unpretentious in a charming way. I'm so glad I read it whilst still mid pandemic as it's got a real resonance for right now, but I think it will remain a valuable read as life moves on to the next disaster, imagined or otherwise.
October 23, 2021
Katie Goh explores here our fascination with fictional apocalypses (is that the correct plural?), analysing the different types of disaster fiction under the light of COVID-19 and other similar situations, which illustrates a fascinating and interesting perspective on this fiction. I'm also fascinated by dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction, so reading this amazing and insightful little book was really a joy and very illuminating.
November 3, 2022
Katie Goh's The End provides an excellent analysis of apocalypse fiction and why viewers consume them during dire times, like during the Covid19 pandemic. I particularly enjoyed Goh's analysis of the movie A Quiet Place which opened allowed me to see the film in a new light.
Read the full review on my blog!
Read the full review on my blog!
January 18, 2023
I’m going to be one of those people, really my rating is 3.5/5. This is well written and argued using good and sometimes surprising examples. I just feel it would have been better if it was five times as long to give more depth. But an inklings book is supposed to be a kernel of an idea allowed to then grow in your mind. So perhaps I should appreciate The End for what it is rather than review the book I wanted it to be.
April 1, 2024
Covid, Climate Disaster, extraterrestrial dangers or social disasters. Bad news everywhere. It's hard to think positive with so much apocalyptic thoughts, media coverage and articles all around. The author gives brilliant insight we we are so focused on the end and what good it has to read or watch apocalyptic programs. Interesting ideas to get you through the day and see things differently. We aren't the first to live through hard times and we won't be the last. Highly recommended!
November 13, 2024
A beautiful book about our perceptions of what the end of the world looks like. Looking not just zombified examples but in fact what the end looks like in terms of oppression, what the world looks like to different people.
This novel mainly focuses on film, would have loved some videogame examples as this was mentioned many times, but understand why they didn't pursue that route.
Fantastic reasech and execution
This novel mainly focuses on film, would have loved some videogame examples as this was mentioned many times, but understand why they didn't pursue that route.
Fantastic reasech and execution
January 3, 2026
As someone who loves the apocalypse genre for namely video games (the last of us and horizon games. If you haven’t played them, play them), but also movies and hopefully now more books, I was drawn to this to discover where those roots lie. I love and strongly resonate with the recurring message that we must embrace disaster/chaos as an opportunity for enacting the change we want to see in the world.
September 3, 2023
Wow! I loved this book. I picked it up recently as I wanted to reflect on why I love all things post-apocalyptic, and this book went above and beyond. I really appreciated the focus on marginalised groups and it was an unexpected plus to have so much good analysis on the pandemic and its relationship to media.
December 21, 2022
I wasn’t sure how I was going to rate this, but this is a neat little insight into our obsession with the end of the world. I was hoping Goh would explore more within the dystopian genre, however there was still much to be gained here.
January 25, 2023
Great book. Academic but non-pretentious, with flashes of Goh's sharp wit throughout.
Knocked-off one star as I wish there was further analysis of some of the themes uncovered by Goh. The book was great but with an extra fifty pages or so could have been perfect.
Knocked-off one star as I wish there was further analysis of some of the themes uncovered by Goh. The book was great but with an extra fifty pages or so could have been perfect.
September 20, 2024
Interesting essay but needed a more through edit - mixing up Jack and Sam (the father/son for The Day After Tomorrow) halfway through writing about the film, and Joe instead of Joel (The Last of Us) is sloppy
December 12, 2024
Great small reflections of the ideas of imagined disasters in the context of COVID-19, race, and capitalism. It is, however, only framed in a modern contextualisation of such disasters i.e. it doesn’t discuss religious frames or previous imagined disasters in pre-modern ages.
March 31, 2025
Goh reviews an incomplete selection of contemporary books and films (most of which I had already seen or watched), producing readings so tritely SJW that ChatGPT could have come up with them. I emerged with neither insight nor a reading/watchlist.
April 3, 2025
‘This common trope within the genre perpetuates a dangerous myth that sexual violence only comes from desperate circumstances and the fall of ‘civilised’ values – as if the performativity of living under laws protects women from violence in our real pre-apocalyptic societies.’
😦😦😦
😦😦😦
December 1, 2021
An excellent and engrossing read for an apocalypse adjacent enthusiast like me. Loved the author's tone and writing style and was particularly fond of their film and literature analyses.
January 15, 2022
An interesting collection of essays on different apocalypse scenarios, and what is says about us as individuals as well as the societies we live in.
June 2, 2022
Like a survivor in the wasteland, all bones, very little meat.
August 13, 2022
i adored this book. read on a train home after saying goodbye to my girlfriend for the next 5 months, maybe not the Most obvious read for a pick-me-up. but for as long as i can remember - like Goh - disaster movies have been my go-to comfort. the number of times i have watched 2012 is something of a concern.
this book is thought provoking, concise, informative and more. it is what academic reading SHOULD be - accessible to people, while still making an important point. this book is very very on brand for me, so its not a surprise i love it. but i will be thinking of it OFTEN and will likely reread many times…. As well as buy the rest of the inklings series, hoping the other authors live up to Goh’s standard
this book is thought provoking, concise, informative and more. it is what academic reading SHOULD be - accessible to people, while still making an important point. this book is very very on brand for me, so its not a surprise i love it. but i will be thinking of it OFTEN and will likely reread many times…. As well as buy the rest of the inklings series, hoping the other authors live up to Goh’s standard
December 29, 2022
I LOVED THIS. I’ve been a massive fan of dystopian fiction and apocalypses in books since I read The Hunger Games as a teenager, and this book is excellent.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews