We've all spent a little time obsessing about the end of the world (or maybe a lot of time). But are your apocalyptic thoughts based in reality, or fed by pop culture fantasies? Here are nine myths about how the apocalypse will happen.

Rick Yancey's The Fifth Wave is one of the summer's buzzed-about young-adult debut novels, and we're debuting an exclusive book trailer right here on io9. The "first wave" wiped out half a million people. And you can see here what the second wave does. What do you think the fifth wave is?

About 1.1 billion years from now, the sun will begin to change. As the hydrogen fuel in its core is used up, the burning will spread outward toward the surface. This will make the sun grow brighter. This increased radiation will have a devastating effect on our planet. Here's what that might look like.

Emma Watson, aka Hermione from the Harry Potter movies, shows up and steals supplies from James Franco and his friends, in the latest trailer for This is the End. But how did Rogen and his co-director/co-writer Evan Goldberg coax a crazy comedy performance out of Watson? And what sort of humor was going too far for…

This is the End is a comedy in which Seth Rogen, James Franco and a host of celebrities play themselves, facing the end of the world. Does that sound like a weird concept for a film to you? It certainly sounded weird to studio execs, who fought hard against letting a host of famous people lampoon themselves — and die…

Chuck Wendig wowed us with Mockingbird and Blackbirds, and now he's creating a brand new fantasy series, with the ultra twisted Gods and Monsters: Unclean Spirits. And we've got a brand new exclusive excerpt, right here.

The toughest part about being The Postman in post-apocalyptic northwest America? The darned Holnist Army. You know, those jerks led by General Bethelhem whose sole duty seems to be being assholes to everybody. Somehow my job has turned from "delivering mail" into "delivering mail and fighting an actual war" with these…

It's easy to get caught up in apocalyptic paranoia. After all, it's 2012, the economy is fucked, the oceans are rising, and all our coolest fictional heroes are post-apocalyptic one way or another. But let's just take a moment to remember all the calamities that didn't happen. Over the past few decades, people have…

Karen Thompson Walker's The Age of Miracles got huge buzz over the summer, with mainstream magazines like Entertainment Weekly giving it rave reviews. I lost count of how many times I saw it referred to as one of the year's most important books. My local indie bookstore has it in a coveted corner spot on the "new…

Lots of movies try to end with a bang — but only a few end with the entire human race being wiped out, or the world being torn asunder. Hollywood all too often wimps out on showing us total oblivion, but there are a few movies that go all the way.