Comments on: I Love the End of the World

By: John Joseph Adams

John Joseph Adams — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 22:00:46 +0000

Madeleine, you might find comfort, then, in my new anthology, Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse. More info here: http://www.johnjosephadams.com/wastelands

You can read the introduction on the anthology’s website (http://www.johnjosephadams.com/wastelands/?page_id=8), which ties in directly to the subject of discussion here. (There’s also three full stories you can read for free.)

By: Kate Elliott

Kate Elliott — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 02:16:21 +0000

Really grim post-apocalypse stuff I tend to avoid, but end of the world with new rules and new landscapes can be more, um, fun - is fun the right word?

By: Brendan Podger

Brendan Podger — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 00:14:22 +0000

One of the things I like the best about post-apocalypse writing is the freedom the author has to recreate the world. Sometimes there is the struggle to just survive, sometimes to liberate people from the old faulty powers and authorities that came before. It can be intensely personal or an epic saga, hard SF or fantasy.

Sometime I think it needs its own sub-genre. Is it SF without any science, can it be fantasy if the characters talk about “before” when they sent men to the stars and lived in communities 20 million strong?

By: Here to Create » 85 Resources for Fiction Writing

Here to Create » 85 Resources for Fiction Writing — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 13:03:20 +0000

[...] I Love the End of the World [...]

By: Janni

Janni — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 19:27:41 +0000

The thing about end-of-the-world fiction is, there’s something strangely hopeful there. It’s like we’re saying, okay, the worst things have already happened; now, here’s what survives after.

(In real life, of course, I’d rather avoid the end times myself, too.)

By: Constance Ash

Constance Ash — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 15:53:35 +0000

You are a stronger woman than I, Mz Madeleine! {smooch}

Love, C.

By: Madeleine Robins

Madeleine Robins — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 22:16:19 +0000

I only meant the fictional apocalypse, Constance. Frankly, I find apocalypse fiction a comforting escape from contemplation of the real-life apocalypses confrontining us: in fiction mankind endures, and scrabbles up from the ashes. I eye the Pacific shoreline and think about glacial melt-off, and want to read again…

By: Constance Ash

Constance Ash — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 19:53:28 +0000

Nix end of the world.

It’s all too possible these days.

And if by chance anything is left over it will be vermin.

Love? Not so much.

What’s really hard to figure out some plausible scenario where the world doesn’t end and in which things get put more right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s what I’m wrestling with in da book. Sometimes it really seems impossible. Apocalypse, here we come.

Love, C.

By: Charles

Charles — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 18:39:53 +0000

While I haven’t reach much in the genre of post-apocalyptic science fiction I do have a couple of favorites.

DHALGREN by Samuel R. Delany is perhaps my favorite, and still to this day probably the strangest book I’ve read. It is only sort of post-apocalyptic and definitely makes up its own rules in terms construct, movement through time and the interconnectedness of author and characters.

I picked up this book in the book store, having already read TRITON, and opened up the cover to discover the book opened up in mid-sentence:

to wound the autumnal city.
So howled out for the wind to give him a name.
The in-dark answered with wind.

Right away I was hooked.

Also, I read a pretty cool short story — I believe by Arthur C. Clarke — in which an alien civilization believes they have discovered a film that shows them what human society was like. After a description of wild events contained within the “documentary” only then do you discover at the end what the aliens are actually watching.

By: Jess

Jess — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 17:16:32 +0000

I was all set to make an insightful appreciative comment on this post until I saw the word “protagoni” and burst out laughing. That’s awesome. I think a bunch of protagoni would be a pride, not a band, eh? Like lions.