Social Apocalypse – You, Me & The Postapocalypse:

Tom Petty & The Postman

October 3, 2017

The world is falling apart. Between all the crap happening in the U.S., there has also been mass flooding in Bangladesh, Shinzo Abe wreaking havoc on the pacifist constitution of Japan, Catalunya vs. Spain, and on and on and yadayadayada. Puerto Rico is in DIRE need of aid after Hurricane Maria (and Irma before her) wreaked total havoc on the already shaky infrastructure: standing water, which will lead to PLAGUE before long, if nothing is done. Limited drinking water. No electricity. Parasites charging $3K round trip just to get OUT of PR. But then the next BIG BAD THING happens (Hello Vegas! Need a little attention?) and our fickle collective attention span immediately turns elsewhere. (also, not saying Vegas & gun control don’t deserve attention, of course they do – but not at the expense of other, equally if not MORE dire stuff STILL GOING ON ELSEWHERE).

I haven’t written here in about 3 weeks…I mean, it’s kind of like yelling into the void anyway, I’m not sure anyone is reading. But it started out as cathartic, and has become less so, and in the last month, just not even sure what to write. It’s becoming less about pop culture and more about what is starting to feel like a slow apocalypse occurring all around us, between government coups, oceans rising up, “leaders” comparing genitalia via nuclear weapons.

Got sucked into The Postman on Friday night. It was on HBO around 11pm…yes, the 1997, Kevin Costner, 3-hour monstrosity. It was late. I wasn’t tired. Significant Other had gone to sleep. Cat was in lap. “Research for my blog”, I told myself. And I watched the whole, stinking thing. And I ended up being quite glad I did. For starters, Tom Petty‘s in it. He shows up about 2/3 of the way in, and has a really cool part as himself (though his name is never said – he is listed in the credits as the “Bridge City Mayor”, but it is made clear with subtle dialogue bits that it is Tom Petty after the apocalypse). I hadn’t thought about him in years, wasn’t a fan, but wasn’t NOT a fan…his music made up the background of my young adulthood in the 80’s and 90’s. Couldn’t stop thinking about him showing up in the movie, that was a real treat…and then he goes and DIES yesterday. The universe works in mysterious ways. Like he needed extra consciousness directed towards him in those last few days.

But I was glad I watched it not only for Tom Petty. And I will say here: it’s not an especially good film, it’s long and clunky and kind of plodding. Kevin Costner is like the male equivalent of Julia Roberts. He’s not a bad actor, he just tends to do the same thing over and over. So, you are always watching Kevin Costner in different circumstances,

reacting as Kevin Costner would react…I guess maybe not a particularly imaginative actor. It is post apocalypse 2013, and they don’t ever explicitly mention what caused the apocalypse, though you can sort of figure it out in bits here and there: there was a dictator and possibly some sort of small scale nuclear war, people moved out of the big cities and out to rural, smaller hamlets.

In the film’s present, there is a dictator – Bethlehem – who is building a giant army in the west, citing the former dictator as inspiration. He is a BAD GUY. Costner’s character is a dude who goes from town to town on his horse, performing bad Shakespeare (WITH HIS HORSE!) for food and supplies. He ends up getting “recruited” couch *captured* cough by Bethlehem to work in a mine and become a good little soldier for Bethlehem’s shitty cause. The last he sees of his horse is from afar, with the army dudes trying to “tame” the creature.

Anyway, after some bad thing happen, Costner escapes and stumbles into an abandoned jeep. There’s a skeleton inside wearing a mailman uniform, also a bag of mail. He spends the night reading the bag of mail. After this, he dons the uniform, shoulders the mail bag and stumbles onto the next town, and, hoping for some food/shelter, makes up a lie that there’s a president in Minnesota (Richard Starkey! Rock n’ roll is ALL OVER this movie, you guys) who is rebuilding the United States again, starting with postal service, and that he, the first postman, has letters! The townspeople are skeptical, and refuse to let him in. He starts going through the mail until he finds a letter that is addressed to an actual, living Pineville resident. That gets him in the gates, gets him shelter and food for the night. He even gets laid by a woman (Abby, played by Olivia Williams) who wants a baby and whose husband is infertile (with his consent! Also, shoutout to a younger Charles Esten, of current Nashville and Carl’s Jr Commercial fame, who plays the husband)!

While he is in the midst of being a self-serving shyster, a teenager in Pineville (Ford Lincoln Mercury, folks, played by Larenz Tate) is so inspired by the fake postman that he decides he wants to be a postman too, and gets Costner to swear him in! Then Bethlehem arrives and wreaks havoc on the town, killing Abby’s husband and taking her as a concubine. Postman gets away again, then ends up in another town where he finds Abby again, and frees her with her help, getting shot in the process. They find a cabin in the woods where they shack up while he heals. She tells him she’s pregnant, but that her husband is the real father – fake postman is only the “body” father.

They decide to go back to Pineville, and on the way, they bump into a young woman on a horse, who says she’s mail carrier number (I’ve forgotten what number) something, and they discover that Ford Lincoln Mercury has been building a cadre of postal carriers while they’ve been hiding out. The fake postman ends up getting inspired by all these real, earnest young postal carriers and starts doing it in earnest, but still won’t divulge his lie, though he starts to take over their routes because Bethlehem has now found out about this postal group and has started seeking them out and killing them (Bethlehem is REALLY not into reestablishing America), so the fake (but now real) postman doesn’t want any more blood on his hands because of this lie. Meanwhile, the legend of The Postman has started gathering steam in all the small hamlets as well as amongst Bethlehem’s ginormous army. There ends up being a standoff at the end, where The Postman uses Bethlehem’s own rules against him, defeats him one on one, mano a mano, takes control of his army, and changes all the rules. And he and Abby apparently live happily ever after, because the epilogue is of their daughter dedicating a statue to him in 2043.

Anyway, I think the film bombed when it came out in ’97, and though it’s still a bit of a clunker, I saw more relevance to it than maybe there was back then. The idea of the United States falling apart seemed absurd in 1997 – I mean, this is the world’s oldest “democracy” after all! But in 2017? The idea of a country brought to nuclear conflict and by a dictator and falling apart into tiny hamlets doesn’t seem so farfetched. The idea of “rebuilding America” actually sounds a little bittersweet and naive, much like Ford Lincoln Mercury, who probably didn’t remember much about electricity or the mail system. So, though it’s not a perfectly well-made film by any means, it kept my interest (for THREE HOURS), and felt kind of relevant in today’s climate. I kinda wish he’d reunited with his supercool horse, though. I kept on waiting for that, especially when he and Bethlehem dueled at the end, but I was sadly disappointed.

The film has been stirring around my brain the last couple days, along with the latest episode of Fear The Walking Dead (which I won’t recap, because I think it’s available to watch, so go watch it! It has picked up CONSIDERABLE steam since the beginning, and I’d hesitantly say it’s better than the original right now), and both have been manifesting in some really dark, weird dreams lately. THE WORLD IS CHANGING. Is it a lost cause to hope the apocalypse stays in pop culture? Probably.

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End of World Subcategories: Campocalypse Now! (The Wacky Apocalypse)

August 8, 2017

Armageddon isn’t supposed to be funny…or is it? The fact that there are enough films, tv and literature to create an actual funny end-of-days category says otherwise. I mean – the end of the world is a pretty big, scary topic, and we, as humans, actively seek catharsis, so it makes pretty good sense this would be a bonafide class of its own.

My earliest example of this was Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which basically begins with the end of the world…and starts out swinging: the Dolphins leave Earth, thanking us for the fish, because they are supreme beings who know the planet is about to be blown up because it’s in the way. And wacky hijinx ensue. Also in the 80’s, we were treated to Night of the Comet, teenagers survive the tail of the comet only to have to deal with all the humans who were turned into zombies because they were outside when the comet hit. There is, of course, a mandatory scene where the teenagers go to the deserted mall and play dress up.

More recently, we’ve gotten the Simon Pegg gems Shaun of the Dead and The World’s End, (and oh my god, I would LOVELOVELOVE to see Simon tackle a mash-up dystopia of Hunger Games, Handmaid’s Tale and Divergent) parodying self-absorbed UK hipsters during a zombie apocalypse and alien invasion respectively (and hilariously) and a rash of really recent television series, such as The Last Man on Earth, No Tomorrow and You, Me and the Apocalypse.

I have to confess: though I think most of these are funny and clever, with the exception of You, Me and the Apocalypse (and maybe because, in addition to its being comedic, it was also EXTREMELY DARK), I haven’t tended to enjoy them as much as their more serious older sisters. What can I say? I’m attracted to dark. I’m attracted to bleak. Mostly because it makes our current life seem less so. But considering the way things are headed in contemporary society, that may just be a matter of time, (nuclear war with North Korea? Coming soon to a west coast near you! Anthrax outbreak via ISIS? Coming soon to New York City! Oh, and let’s not forget the ever-present specter of climate change, likely coming soon, period!) and another thing I enjoy about the more serious shows is they are partly instructional. And of course, there’s the gallows-humor aspect, and always another opportunity to examine ourselves as human beings, and see those things that make humanity great…and not so great. What do you think?
Books: The Gone Away World by Nick Harkaday, Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
Movies: Zombieland, This is the End, Dr. Strangelove, Wall-E, Idiocracy
TV: Aftermath, iZombie, Z Nation, The Tribe

End of World Subcategories: The Alien Invasion

July 24, 2017

Aaaaand we’re back (FINALLY) headed for alien territory! Since I was 8 years old, I’ve looked to the stars, hoping the extraterrestrials would come and take me away. But those early spacefolk I was exposed to were pretty benign – we’re talking Close Encounters of the 3^rd Kind, E.T. and Cocoon – and of course our friends from Mork & Mindy and 3rd Rock from the Sun. I always loved the idea of the friendly alien who was here to teach us stuff. But this is not what I’m discussing today.

Today, it’s all about the evil aliens that just want to KILL US ALL! Get rid of the human race. Either use up all our resources and move on, or take our planet for themselves as part of our empire and enslave us/get rid of us/harvest us for food. Independence Day, for example, didn’t even want to have anything to do with us – they didn’t bother trying to enslave humanity or harvest us – they just wanted us GONE and exterminated. In Colony, we still haven’t met the actual aliens yet (after 2 seasons), but we know they’re out there and they’re actively using us against each other, thus creating a dystopia amongst humans…because, as in Animal Farm, “some animals are more equal than others”.

The particularly chilling thing about this is that I always assumed humanity would band together to find AGAINST the aliens, but in Colony, the as yet unseen aliens are using us against each other, leveraging creature comforts, hierarchy, etc. And some humans are eating it up and falling right in line. Well, Americans anyway, which shouldn’t be surprising, since all we seem to pace value on anymore is the almighty dollar. So, Colony’s take, while unnerving and disappointing (in the human race – not the series, at least so far), seems pretty realistic. Though of course, there’s also a resistance. V (from the 80’s) was similar.

Defiance did an altogether different thing which was quite interesting: different alien races from a faraway star system were hovering over the earth, seeking refuge. Humans saw the ships, decided the aliens were all evil and shot at the ships. The ships crashed to earth…but unfortunately, they all had different terraforming materials aboard corresponding to their specific planets, which, after falling to earth, completely transformed our planet into something we didn’t recognize. All the surviving aliens had nowhere else to go, so they had to stay, so the remaining survivors of ALL the races were now here in this transformed Earth that kind of belonged to no one and belonged to all, and humans were actually directly responsible for the transformation by shooting at the alien ships. And now on Earth, all the alien races plus humans had to figure out how to get along…no easy task!

What’s interesting about most of these different tales is that usually, there is one, or a faction of “friendly” aliens who actually don’t want to destroy humanity, and who are often great allies in the resistance, though the ally-ship is often fraught with cultural (speciesist?) misunder-standings & miscommunications. My favorite example of this is in Falling Skies, also with several warring species of aliens – there was one ally, Cochise, who was extremely sympathetic to humans and actively tried to persuade his own people to work with them, even confronting is higher-up father about it. He was my alien hero.

But there’s plenty more where that came from! Which books/media regarding alien apocalypse have I left out that should be here?

Books: Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke, Tripods Trilogy by John Christopher, The Settlers by Jason Gurley, Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein

Movies: Independence Day, War of the Worlds, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Oblivion,

TV Series: V, Falling Skies, Colony, Defiance

Original Post Apocalyptic Play: feed/back opens tonight!

July 11, 2017

Hijacking my own blog once again and interrupting the End of World Subcategories, since my very own postapocalyptic play opens tonight on the 12^th Avenue Arts stage on Capitol Hill in Seattle!

Two months ago, 6 theatre artists met for the first time at ACT theatre to start devising a new work for MAP theatre’s first-ever off-night (MAP’s Night Off) production. It was an experiment: come up with two 45-minute pieces based on the set rendering for MAP’s mainstage production Greensward, which would be playing concurrently on more traditional show nights.

Armed with nothing but that and our own thoughts and interests, we set to work. One thing we kept going back to was how we all felt we’d gone through some kind of twisted wormhole to an alternate universe after the election events of 2016. That, and this patch of grass ended up being the spine of what was to follow.

Rather than two pieces, we ended up envisioning the future as it took place in two parallel universes: one that is our current timeline, with our current U.S. president, and one where the election went in the other direction.

A thing we realized pretty quickly was that, going forward, neither of these worlds is idyllic. If you take November 8 of last year as the jumping off point where the two worlds split, there was still bad stuff happening, particularly where climate change is concerned. In predicting a future where the Democratic nominee won, yes, we decided things probably wouldn’t have gotten as bad as quickly as they do in the other future (like, probably the U.S. wouldn’t have pulled out of the Paris climate change agreement, for one). But realistically? On Nov. 8 we were already past the tipping point where global warming is concerned. We are. Now. Past the tipping point. But more on that later.

In the world where victory went to the Democrats, things were already bad, with regard to the environment, but instead of vilifying or denying scientific claims, we embraced them and actively tried to prevent…but things were (are) already too far past the point of no return to be anything but temporary Band-Aid fixes. The population continued to grow, putting even more strain on already limited resources. New scientific discoveries were being made to cope with these limited resources (my character, in fact, created a cheap and easy way to desalinate water – GO ME!) but it was all far too little too late. So, it’s not like everything was all hunky-dory.

The other world is the future of OUR timeline, where victory went to the Republicans. Things in this world went downhill much faster. Low-scale nuclear war with North Korea, paired with already-bad things getting worse: denial of climate change dumped more carbons/toxins into the air, permafrost melt spewed more noxious gasses (and also microbes that had lain dormant for thousands of years) into the air, warming the earth further, things went from bad to worse. The population was reduced drastically in this world, and as society collapsed and people were more isolated from each other and began living in smaller, tribal communities, dormant psychic abilities began to flourish, and at the time our play takes place, most surviving human beings are telepathic and have the power to control one element or another.

In both worlds, we wrote in an eruption of the supervolcano under Yellowstone that occurs in roughly 2060. So, in both timelines, things were not going too well…until this grass emerged (perhaps lying dormant under the permafrost for thousands of years?) that could metabolize ash and restore soil back to its original state, ready to seed and harvest in a few weeks. For a few decades, famine declines and crops flourish again in both worlds.

Which brings us to somewhere around the year 2135, where the play takes place in both worlds. The grass has been dying for a decade or so and our characters, prominent scientists in one world and powerful magicians in the other, have been tasked with making sure the grass doesn’t die. The play begins when our heroes are at the last patches of grass: a temple in one world, a research station in the other.

It was interesting to write something that had roots in actual science, but we did! Even more interesting to write about a possible future of our own world…we’d discuss all these horrible scenarios with excitement and gusto, and it was really sobering once we realized we were actually talking about the potential future of our own world. I was formatting the script one day, and a little girl came on some talk show and sang Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” and I burst into tears mid-edit.

Yesterday, I read this in its entirety before our dress rehearsal, which was quite depressing…and then to read some of the comments below, lots of mansplaining about how people are just being extremists and it’s not really that bad. I think to myself, “Well, if it’s not really that bad, if we just ACT as though it’s that bad, and have some kind of plan in place and start really working on fixing it in earnest, it can’t possibly hurt. But if we do nothing and it actually IS that bad, I guess the joke’s on us.” It seems as though, well, the joke IS on us. I don’t have much hope of us fixing things, and am glad I’m not leaving any kids behind to have to suffer through it…I’m sure I’ll see enough in my own lifetime as it is.

The actual set for both pieces ended up being quite different from the rendering (above), but also ended up working even better for feed\back, (9 smaller patches of grass instead of one big one!) and it’s actually QUITE stunning (as are WE in our labcoats rehearsing Act I, the “science” part of the script):

feed\back, Act I — feed\back set & rehearsal: (LtoR: Tae Phoenix as Kyt, Carolynne Wilcox as Lo, Aimee Decker as Sybil and Josh Valencia as Flint)

So, you have the backstory. I can’t divulge much of the actual plot until after it’s opened, but if you’re in town, feel free to come check it out – it runs, mostly on off-nights, through the month of July, and there will be talk-backs fol-lowing selected perfor-mances, to solicit thoughts & feedback about feed\back!

Click here for dates and tickets, and please feel free to ask me any questions, I am always happy to answer.

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Too Close For Comfort: Current Times & The Postapocalypse

June 28, 2017

I’m gonna take a little respite between End of World Subcatogories (back to that next time!) to ponder something I’ve been stewing on for a bit, particularly since a friend of mine tagged me on this particular tweet:

Whilst it specifically mentions dystopian fiction (the Societal Breakdown!), I would say I’ve had many more Disturbing Thoughts regarding postapocalyptic and disaster fiction as well since the advent of the wormhole this country seemed to collective fall into on November 8th of last year.

Depending on the day, it feels like we will either explode in some kind of nuclear conflict with North Korea, with all the unhinged tweetings of this creature who is supposed to have the best interests of every American in mind (fat chance) (I still can’t put his name after the word “president”), or plunge headlong into something resembling The Handmaid’s Tale at the hands of our current vice president. And then there is the very real and imminent threat posed by climate change/global warming. You don’t have to be a scientist to believe this…we are rapidly approaching the tipping point of no return.

I used to find this sort of fiction cathartic – not sure I can fully describe why, but it has something to do with “Oh, it’s just fiction – as bad as things might be, we’re not THERE yet”…because I don’t think I’ve ever felt this close to THERE as I have over the past few months. And thus, my interest in this type of story has shifted a little…rather than being as completely cathartic as it was before, I look to these movies, television shows and books as a means of instruction, really. What are these people doing in these simulated situations that I could learn from, in the very real possibility of the Sh*t Hitting The Fan for real.

From Walking Dead, I’ve learned not only how to kill a zombie (it’s gotta be the brain!) but which weapon tends to be better in this type of apocalypse. Guns work, of course, but they’re SO loud!Better to use something like a katana, a crossbow or a barbed wire-covered baseball bat: they’re quieter, and get confiscated less. And that the following skills are better than currency: hunting, farming, healing.

From The Stand, I learned to trust my gut – especially when it comes to my dreams. From The Last Ship, I learned that in an outbreak, one should keep one’s distance from others as much as possible.

From most dystopian fiction, I’ve learned that if something is amiss with the way things are being run, don’t ignore it, don’t go with the flow. Resist early, resist often, enlist like-minded people to your cause and fight tooth and nail to keep the freedoms and benefits you have.

From nearly ALL postapocalyptic fiction, I’ve learned one HUGE fundamental thing: other survivors can be your source of greatest strength and your biggest enemies, because the collapse of civilization brings about all sorts of opportunists who size you up according to what they can take from you. Darwinism at its most base, I suppose.

Oh. And if I start talking about what I’ve learned from speculative, climate-change scenarios, I’m going to start crying.

Would love to hear why this type of fiction appeals to you, and what, if anything, you’ve learned from your experiences of it!

End of World Subcategories: The Societal Breakdown (or, DYSTOPIA!)

June 23, 2017

There has been a bit of a debate about whether or not Dystopian fiction belongs with Postapocalyptic fiction, and I say YES! I bring to you the SOCIETAL apocalypse, because it is the apocalypse of a society. Probably not as much death as, say, a z ombie or nuclear apocalypse, but there areusually still mass casualties and things are definitely NOT As They Were Before. Oftentimes, dystopia is a result of some sort of larger and semi-apocalyptic event that precedes it (say a small-scale nuclear conflict, or famine, disaster, etc).

In a Societal Breakdown, we often see a culture, a people slowly implode – there is a small minority of folks who have certain and often extreme (Hitler, anyone? The current Religious right, anyone?) views about how things should be, and this small minority of folks either finds themselves in power or seizes power. It would seem nothing is amiss, at first, and life goes on as normal, but then things begin to change. Little freedoms begin to disappear. Curfews are established. Certain people begin to disappear.

Societal Breakdowns, in fiction, are pretty much all over the map. But the thing they have in common, is there are always rebels who disagree. Many rebels and detractors always die early on, and become a cautionary tale and/or inspiration for the protagonist, who is oftentimes disgruntled with the dystopia, but goes along with it until some catalyzing event that forces them to finally become part of the resistance in earnest. Star Wars: A New Hope is a classic example, actually: Luke Skywalkwer dreams of joining the rebellion against the evil Galactic Empire, but is stuck on his uncle’s moisture farm in Tattoine. His parents have died early on (of course, we come to later find out, his father is still alive and at the very helm of the Empire, but Luke believes he is dead until that discovery) as casualties of the dystopian society. The catalyzing event is that he and his uncle buy some used droids that just HAPPEN to have come directly from one of the leaders of the rebellion (Princess Leia), and contain secret plans on how to destroy the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the Death Star. Ultimately, Luke blows up the Death Star, which is a huge victory for the rebels, who ultimately bring down the Empire at the end of Return of the Jedi.

Unfortunately, in Star Wars, we don’t get to see so much of the dystopian society itself – the Empire’s reach is so vast that it only barely touches Luke’s daily life until he is caught up in the middle of it. Other fiction goes much further into the history of why the dystopia exists, what its characteristics are, and why it’s ultimately unacceptable for the majority of its citizens.

Books: Animal Farm, 1984 by George Orwell, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Anthem by Ayn Rand, Dayworld by Philip Jose Farmer, Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood

Movies: Divergent series, Star Wars (original trilogy), The Hunger Games series, Minority Report, Snowpiercer, V for Vendetta

TV Series: The Handmaid’s Tale, Almost Human, Fringe, Dark Angel

5 Favorite Post-Apocalyptic Books

May 23, 2017

I remember reading a short story in Starlog magazine when I was a teenager about a girl who thought she was the last survivor on earth after a nuclear war. She was super surprised and stunned when one of her friends called her.
“I thought I was the last person alive!”

“Nope – the whole group is alive.”

“How is that possible?”

“Don’t you know? Books absorb radiation.”

I loved the notion of it – that those of us who read and had shelves full of books as a comfort blanket might somehow be spared if we had hoarded enough books. My friends and I were voracious readers – junior high was a minefield of mean kids, and we were big nerds. The idea of all those who’d bullied me dying in some kind of enormous calamity was tempting to fantasize about.

1.) The Stand by Stephen King – I think this may have been the very first post apocalyptic book I read, when I was 15 or so – I’m glad it was a good one! I’ve read it several times since then, make a point to read it again every few years (think I’m due again). 99% of the world’s population is decimated by a superflu bug, and the survivors begin receiving messages through their dreams – one from an Adversary and another from a messianic figure – and these dreams, whichever they choose to follow, lead them to either Boulder (the good guys) or Las Vegas (the bad guys). The Adversary (Randall Flagg), of course, leads through fear, while the messianic figure (Mother Abigail Freemantle) leads through example. There is the title Stand-off towards the end.

2.) The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood – I was on my way to see the 1990 movie in the theatre and picked the book up on the way, which I read afterwards, helped me figure out why the world had gotten to where it had gotten in the movie. YES, this is postapocalyptic, though not in the traditional sense – it’s dystopian, and while many dystopian societies in fiction are the result of a prior, more physical apocalypse, I propose the idea that a dystopia IS actually the product of a social apocalypse of some kind. In this social apocalypse, Offred (Of Fred) has tried to escape Gilead (which rose from the ashes of the US after a terrorist attack and gov’t takeover by religious extremists – also, fertility rates had gone WAAAAAY down) with her daughter and husband, and gets caught and since she is still fertile, she is forced to be a handmaid in the house of the Commander and his wife, which is basically a monthly and ceremonial rape to provide them with a child. I am enjoying the Hulu series so far as well…curious to see how they will expand into a 2nd season.

3.) The Road by Cormac McCarthy – this was a fairly recent read, and I’m very glad I read it in the summer and during a period where I was pretty content, because had I been depressed, it likely would’ve thrown me over the edge. It is BLEAK. Takes place years after some kind of apocalypse – because nothing grows anymore and there were so few survivors, I am assuming either nuclear war or asteroid/comet strike – it’s not specified. A father realizes he is dying and needs to find someone to take care of his young son, so they journey towards the coast through and extremely bleak and ravaged landscape. The fact that McCarthy’s prose is SO eloquent elevates it literarily, and makes it THAT MUCH MORE DEVASTATING.

4.) Glimmering by Elizabeth Hand – I read this one at some point in the late 90’s, and reference it to artistic collaborators all the time. Was probably the first climate-based apocalyptic fiction I ever read. There is an avalanche in the antarctic ocean that releases methane into the atmosphere, which mixes with the bromotetrachloride particles left there by a solar storm. The depletion of the ozone layer hastens, and the particles begin glimmering. No one can see the stars anymore, there is no more normal night, only a constant glimmering in the sky. Several of the main characters have AIDS, and one of them starts being aware of…ghosts? Visions?…as he is dying. It has kind of a bleak or hopeful ending, depending on how you look at it. The interesting takeaway from this was that the AIDS virus was a path towards human evolution towards less corporal, light-energy forms…hence the aforementioned ghosts/visions.

5.) Bird Box by Josh Malerman – devoured this one on the beach in Crete last September! Apocalyptically-speaking, it was kind of in a category of its own. In bits and pieces, the characters figure out a hypothesis for why people are suddenly going mad and killing themselves and each other: some kind of interdimensional creatures have arrived on earth (this is nowhere as cheesy as it sounds), and they are SO out of the realm of human comprehension that just looking at them drives people insane and they immediately try to end it all in horrifying and violent ways for themselves and anyone around them. Those who survive manage to do so by staying inside with all the windows closed and blocked. The protagonist knows there is a surviving colony of people “down the river” and must journey with her two young children to find this colony, and all of them must be blindfolded for the entirety of the journey.

A Canticle for End Times