Today’s letter for the A to Z challenge is “K” and I’m going to write a little bit about Killing off 99% of the world’s population in Post Apocalyptic fiction.
One of my favorite sub-genres of horror/sci-fi is post apocalyptic fiction. This genre is pretty self-explanatory. A writer or filmmaker comes up with a scenario in which the world’s population is devastated. It can be anything from disease, to war to zombies or even a combination of all of the above.
I think a big part of this kind of fiction is coming up with an excuse to get rid of all the people to see how your main characters survive and live in a world with imminent dangers and collapsing infrastructure. In my novel “Wormwood” I use nuclear war as the scenario and although I go through the before and during of the war, the majority of the book takes place just after the nukes destroy the world as we know it.
The appeal of this fiction to me anyway is to envision a world that is our own without laws, order or the everyday luxuries that we all take for granted. I love books that include the hows and whys of the Apocalypse, a lot of fiction that’s popular now starts 5, 10 or even a hundred years after Armageddon. I think that’s cool, but I also always wonder about the people who lived through the fall of modern civilization.
Another appeal of this genre is that it allows us to escape our everyday trials and tribulations and imagine a world where it’s all gone.
Horror Question of the Day: If you knew the end of civilization was coming, how would you prepare?
One of my favorite sub-genres of horror/sci-fi is post apocalyptic fiction. This genre is pretty self-explanatory. A writer or filmmaker comes up with a scenario in which the world’s population is devastated. It can be anything from disease, to war to zombies or even a combination of all of the above.
I think a big part of this kind of fiction is coming up with an excuse to get rid of all the people to see how your main characters survive and live in a world with imminent dangers and collapsing infrastructure. In my novel “Wormwood” I use nuclear war as the scenario and although I go through the before and during of the war, the majority of the book takes place just after the nukes destroy the world as we know it.
The appeal of this fiction to me anyway is to envision a world that is our own without laws, order or the everyday luxuries that we all take for granted. I love books that include the hows and whys of the Apocalypse, a lot of fiction that’s popular now starts 5, 10 or even a hundred years after Armageddon. I think that’s cool, but I also always wonder about the people who lived through the fall of modern civilization.
Another appeal of this genre is that it allows us to escape our everyday trials and tribulations and imagine a world where it’s all gone.
Horror Question of the Day: If you knew the end of civilization was coming, how would you prepare?
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