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Post-apocalyptic science fiction

Apocalyptic science fiction is a sub-genre of science fiction that is concerned with the end of the world or civilization, through nuclear war, plague, or some other general disaster.

Post-apocalyptic science fiction is set in a world or civilization after such a disaster. The time frame may be immediately after the catastrophe, focusing on the travails or psychology of survivors, or considerably later, often including the theme that the existence of pre-catastrophe civilization has been forgotten or mythologized. The fall of civilization may also be the fall of a space based civilization. This plot device allows writers to write Soft science fiction while accounting for the lack of technological advancement and thus remain relevant to the present day no matter how far in the future the events are set.

The use of post-apocalyptic contexts in movies and the typical accompanying imagery—such as endless deserts or damaged cityscapes, clothing made of leather and animal skins, and marauding gangs of bandits—is now so common as to be trite and the subject of frequent parody. Their use to convey the director's opinion that nuclear war or environmental devastation are inevitable if trends continue of if humans do not "mend their ways" can seem particularly patronizing, paternalistic and pretentiously "caring".

There is a considerable degree of blurring between this form of science fiction and that which deals with false utopias or dystopic societies.

Examples (listed by nature of the catastrophe)

World War III

• Alas Babylon - Pat Frank's novel
• The Amtrak Wars epic novel series by Patrick Tilley
• Ape and Essence, a screenplay-novel by Aldous Huxley
• Apokalipsa wedlug Pana Jana - Robert J. Szmidt's novel
• Autobahn nach Poznan - Andrzej Ziemianski's short story
• A Boy and His Dog - Harlan Ellison's short story and 1975 film
• A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr's novel
• The novel Children of The Dust by Louise Lawerence
• Damnation Alley - Roger Zelazny's novel, and the film made of it
• The Day After, a 1983 film about the effects of nuclear war on a Kansas town
• Delicatessen - Marc Caro's black comedy
• Deus Irae - Philip K. Dick (in collaboration with Roger Zelazny).
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick
• Down to a Sunless Sea - David Graham's novel of the last plane out of a fall-of-Saigon-like New York City
• Dr Bloodmoney - Philip K. Dick
• Fallout series - The computer role-playing game
• Gamma World- The Role-playing game from TSR, Inc., the makers of Dungeons & Dragons.
• Level 7 - Mordecai Roshwald's novel
• Logan's Run by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson, and the film based on it.
• The Mad Max trilogy
• The Morrow Project - The Role-playing game from Timeline Ltd.
• Neuroshima - The Polish Role-playing game from Portal Publishing
• On The Beach - Nevil Shute's novel, and the films based on it.
• Pebble in the Sky by Isaac Asimov. (A later book, Robots and Empire, gave a different explanation.)
• The Penultimate Truth - Philip K. Dick
• The Planet Of The Apes film series
• The Postman - David Brin's novel
• Riddley Walker - Russell Hoban's novel
• Sexmisja - The Polish movie
• the Shanarra Series by Terry Brooks, a fantasy book set after WWIII destroys all technology and warps the human race into other species.
• The film Testament
• Twilight: 2000 - The Role-playing game from Game Designer's Workshop
• The Vampire Hunter D novels and anime films, set ten thousand years after a nuclear war occurs in 1999.
• Wasteland - The computer role-playing game
• The World Jones Made - Philip K. Dick

Pandemic

• The novel The Last Man by Mary Shelley
• The novella The Scarlet Plague (1912) by Jack London.
• The novel Earth Abides (1949) by George R. Stewart.
• The novel I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, filmed as The Last Man On Earth and The Omega Man.
• The films La Jetée, Twelve Monkeys and 28 Days Later
• The novel and miniseries The Stand by Stephen King
• The novel A Gift Upon the Shore by M.K. Wren
• The BBC television series Survivors, written by Terry Nation
• The novel The Children of Men, written by P.D. James
• The Showtime cable television series Jeremiah, based off the comic of the same name.
• The novel
• The novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
• 2004 film version of Dawn of the Dead
• The manga Armageddon
• The film Deep Impact
• The Forge of God by Greg Bear
• Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
• The film Meteor
• The animated series Thundarr the Barbarian
• The film When Worlds Collide
• The anime Cowboy Bebop features a wasteland Earth after a technological disaster cracks the moon

Alien invasion

• H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds (in several media)
• John Christopher's The Tripods
• Robert A. Heinlein's The Puppet Masters
• The TV-series V
• The film Independence Day
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers
• The anime Genesis Climber Mospeada
• The computer game Manhunter

Ecological catastrophe

• The novel Greybeard by Brian Aldiss, in which the human race becomes sterile.
• The novel The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner, in which the United States is overwhelmed by environmental irresponsibility and authoritarianism.
• The novel In the Drift by Michael Swanwick (also an Alternate history story; the premise is that the 1979 Three Mile Island reactor incident resulted in a large release of radioactivity.)
• The novel Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
• The collection of stories Flight of the Horse by Larry Niven
• The film Silent Running
• The film Quintet
• The Kevin Costner film Waterworld
• The Thomas Vinterberg film It's All About Love
• The Roland Emmerich film The Day After Tomorrow
• The novel Dust by Charles Pellegrino, in which all the insect species on Earth die out, and the ecology crashes as a result.
• The film No Blade Of Grass, based off the book The Death Of Grass by John Christopher, in which a virus that destroys plants causes massive famine and societal breakdown.
• The novel Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut, in which all the water on Earth freezes.
• The Harry Harrison novel Make Room! Make Room! and the 1973 film Soylent Green.

The computers take over

• The 1909 short story The Machine Stops by E. M. Forster (more machinery than computers)
• The novel and movie, Colossus: the Forbin Project (not exactly an apocalypse, however)
• The novel This Perfect Day by Ira Levin
• The future depicted in the Terminator film series
• The film Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution by Jean-Luc Godard
• The film The Matrix
• Harlan Ellison's short story I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
• Neuroshima, the Polish role-playing game from Portal Publishing.

The decline and fall of the human race

• Planet of the Apes
• The latter part of H. G. Wells' The Time Machine
• The 1970s movie Zardoz
• The films Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead by George Romero

After the Fall of Space Based Civilization

• Isaac Asimov's Foundation series
• Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda (TV series)

Various

• Much of the work of J. G. Ballard, in which the current era is sometimes described as the pre-Third, referring to World War III.
• Much of John Wyndham's work, e.g. The Day of the Triffids, The Chrysalids, later reprinted in the US as Re-Birth
• After London by Richard Jefferies; the nature of the catastrophe is never stated, except that apparently most of the human race quickly dies out, leaving England to revert to nature.
• The Purple Cloud by M.P. Shiel (A volcanic eruption floods the earth with cyanide gas, leaving only two survivors)
• The manga and movie Dragon Head, by Mochizuki Minetaro

To be categorized

• First Spaceship on Venus
• The novel In The Country of Last Thing by Paul Auster
• Aftermath by Gregory Benford
• Nosutoradamusu no daiyogen a.k.a. The Last Days of Planet Earth, a 1974 Japanese film.
• Soylent Green

See also:

• Timeline of fictional future events