San Francisco, 10:37 PM
Thu Dec 3
28 posts in the last 24 hours
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Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
-Robert Frost, 1920
I don't think the conceptual point of the missing apocalypse developed in the 90s. Note also Teasdale's "There Will Come Soft Rains" from the same year, where the only description is "war," not why this one was wholly destructive. What I think is more at hand is the "science" in science fiction. Especially for a purist, the lack of an explanation strikes as good as "a wizard did it." That's not going to cut it for a lot of people.
Likewise, there's the question of how much the event matters. Zombies aren't bombs. If you just want to hit a reset button on human society, it's not really worth dwelling in the details thereto. On the other hand, something like SF is going to frequently maximize on those details. So it's less of a dip and more of a peak before.
Which is dangerous to write, because I think it risks coming off as overly critical of not explaining. I actually prefer not explaining, for another reason, which may (to reverse positions) explain the 90s dip.
One of the more salient criticisms of the Watchmen movie (and by extension the comic) was that it managed to be both hopelessly naive and overly bleak. The Cold War taught an important lesson, namely that stuff just keeps going on. It's never as dramatic as all that. We didn't destroy ourselves, despite how close we may have actually been, which gives a sheen of the unrealistic to any situation where we do.
This is not quite that it's cliche. It's almost the opposite. It's a realization that the whole necessary system is just that more obnoxiously complex. #apocalypse
The reason why there is no notable post-apocalyptic fiction these days is because no one really cares any more about the apocalypse. We've decided it's going to happen, one way or the other, and we might as well amuse ourselves with other things while we wait. #apocalypse
Do you have a corresponding volume chart? Or chart of apocalypse-to-nopocalypse genre fiction?
Because I wonder if the breakdown in the pattern could be attributable to a rise in the volume of post-apocalypse fiction muddying up the waters. #apocalypse
@braak: good point - I can't speak for ms fox and that gorgeous chart she made, but in my original excel-generated one, I did correct for the change in volume, and everything still gets all muddled around the 90s.
But yes, up till the 1950s there aren't nearly as many pa books being churned out - volume peaks in the 50s and in the 80s, if I remember correctly.
FWIW, Frank Kermode's The Sense of an Ending traces the apocalypse - or end of history - as a basic western need through the beginning of its literature. I'm not doing justice to his thesis. But basically, he says we fear becoming insignificant in the infinite, and need an end point. #apocalypse
@BadUncle: kermode is the best. I discovered S. of an Ending about a month into researching my thesis and thought, damn, he said everything I was thinking, only way better than I ever could. *sigh*
I compromised by quoting him all over the place.
As soon as you said "20 years ago" I thought "Oh, nuclear holocaust stories must've gone out of fashion." And so they did. What's really interesting is that right after 1991 there are a few years where eco-apocalypse seems to be big. I reckon the anti-nuke people all became environmentalists.
Another interesting thing on that map - there's NO apocalyptic fiction during most of WWI, and the WWII period's dominated by "unexplained apocalypse" stories. #apocalypse
"Destroying the world in books about apocalypse is one way we can entirely take ownership of it. We can only see the world the way we have been raised to, the way our parents saw it, so we need to raze the old world and build a new one in its place in order to have a world that is really and entirely our own. The story of the End, after all, is not nearly as compelling as the story of the Beginning that comes after it."
Maybe in a world still run by the baby boomers the how is not just less relevant but irrelevant to the occurrence of the end of the world. #apocalypse
"Suddenly, we'd get a post-apocalyptic world whose demise was never explained. It was just a big question mark."
Terry Brooks' World of Shannara is a great example of that. He revealed that the series was set in a post-apocalyptic world, and further expanded on how this happened in his Word and the Void series.
Any excuse for me to preach the word of Terry. #apocalypse
I don't *remember* the Cold War...AT ALL. All of those "fears of a generation that any minute there's going to be a flash and its gone"....those don't frighten me, don't define me, and simply are not part of my generation's psyche.
yes, we're now very scared of "random terrorist attack striking your area", or perhaps "crazy extremists launch a biological attack that spreads to the whole world"....but the day of Mutually Assured Destruction has passed #apocalypse
@Son of Tezby: And none of them were left under control of post-Soviet countries with no money who couldn't maintain them properly and might get some cash by selling them to other groups. Oh wait... #apocalypse
@Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.: And the Russians totally never set up a doomsday device, which is also totally not in action and totally not upgraded regularly... #apocalypse
Science fiction writers are also science fiction readers. That chart could have a some influence of previous apocalyptic stories, either because some topic reached a saturation point, or a particular story was close to the ultimate word in a particular topic, or a particular story (or group of them) was so annoying that you could want to put all the possible distance with them. And of course, books writting about something means also discussions around that topic and making some ideas clearly unrealistic or unpopular.
Of course, that without taking away merit to real world events or developments. #apocalypse
@Gustavo Muslera: I've wondered if actual religious movements influenced the fiction of the time: there were several "End-of-the-world" cults in the early 1900's (I think they played out around 1918 and the mid 1930's). Was it taboo to write/read about things which might actually provoke your neighbor's deeply held religious beliefs? #apocalypse
Well, the Hindus have had post-apocalyptic world-stories for three or four thousand years. We're living in one according to their mythology, for one thing. #apocalypse
@Lightice: Interestingly, a lot the apocalyptic stories of the Hindus and even Native Americans gained widespread adoption after historic defeats. Amidst the hopelessness of conquest and darkness of subjugation (whether by the Moguls or British), prophecies take hold that the current hell will end and the world will experience a rebirth. But that's not sci-fi, but eschatology. #apocalypse
@ceti: The Hindu mythology feels seriously like science fiction at times. They got what can be interpreted as beam guns, nuclear bombs, flying saucers, etc.
But the Hindu concept of Kali Yuga (the period we're currently living, which is as far from the golden age as you can get) is most definately older than the British or Muslim occupations. #apocalypse
@Lightice: Yup, the kalpa cycle is very old, as is the gold/silver/bronze/iron age decay I think found in some other mythologies. I hypothesize that the modern evocation of Kaliyug of shrugged hopelessness in the face of a cruel world where the law of Karma is broken as it was under successive rulers. It would be a very interesting study if not already done.
The Hopi, Anishinabe, and Lakota eschatological prophecies are also interesting. Leslie Marmon Silko depicts one apocalyptic (nuclear) vision in a dream sequence in her amazing book Ceremony. #apocalypse
10/30/09
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
-Robert Frost, 1920
I don't think the conceptual point of the missing apocalypse developed in the 90s. Note also Teasdale's "There Will Come Soft Rains" from the same year, where the only description is "war," not why this one was wholly destructive. What I think is more at hand is the "science" in science fiction. Especially for a purist, the lack of an explanation strikes as good as "a wizard did it." That's not going to cut it for a lot of people.
Likewise, there's the question of how much the event matters. Zombies aren't bombs. If you just want to hit a reset button on human society, it's not really worth dwelling in the details thereto. On the other hand, something like SF is going to frequently maximize on those details. So it's less of a dip and more of a peak before.
Which is dangerous to write, because I think it risks coming off as overly critical of not explaining. I actually prefer not explaining, for another reason, which may (to reverse positions) explain the 90s dip.
One of the more salient criticisms of the Watchmen movie (and by extension the comic) was that it managed to be both hopelessly naive and overly bleak. The Cold War taught an important lesson, namely that stuff just keeps going on. It's never as dramatic as all that. We didn't destroy ourselves, despite how close we may have actually been, which gives a sheen of the unrealistic to any situation where we do.
This is not quite that it's cliche. It's almost the opposite. It's a realization that the whole necessary system is just that more obnoxiously complex. #apocalypse
10/29/09
10/29/09
Because I wonder if the breakdown in the pattern could be attributable to a rise in the volume of post-apocalypse fiction muddying up the waters. #apocalypse
10/30/09
But yes, up till the 1950s there aren't nearly as many pa books being churned out - volume peaks in the 50s and in the 80s, if I remember correctly.
10/29/09
But I actually liked seeing how everything got destroyed and reading all the processes that caused the chain of events and actually seeing happen! :[
Besides, once you finish the disasters, it usually gets resorted to some kind of "new beginnings" morality that everyone must follow... #apocalypse
10/29/09
10/30/09
10/30/09
10/29/09
10/29/09
I compromised by quoting him all over the place.
10/29/09
Another interesting thing on that map - there's NO apocalyptic fiction during most of WWI, and the WWII period's dominated by "unexplained apocalypse" stories. #apocalypse
10/29/09
10/29/09
Maybe in a world still run by the baby boomers the how is not just less relevant but irrelevant to the occurrence of the end of the world. #apocalypse
10/29/09
Terry Brooks' World of Shannara is a great example of that. He revealed that the series was set in a post-apocalyptic world, and further expanded on how this happened in his Word and the Void series.
Any excuse for me to preach the word of Terry. #apocalypse
10/29/09
10/29/09
10/29/09
yes, we're now very scared of "random terrorist attack striking your area", or perhaps "crazy extremists launch a biological attack that spreads to the whole world"....but the day of Mutually Assured Destruction has passed #apocalypse
10/29/09
10/29/09
10/29/09
10/29/09
10/30/09
10/29/09
Of course, that without taking away merit to real world events or developments. #apocalypse
10/29/09
10/29/09
10/29/09
10/29/09
But the Hindu concept of Kali Yuga (the period we're currently living, which is as far from the golden age as you can get) is most definately older than the British or Muslim occupations. #apocalypse
10/29/09
The Hopi, Anishinabe, and Lakota eschatological prophecies are also interesting. Leslie Marmon Silko depicts one apocalyptic (nuclear) vision in a dream sequence in her amazing book Ceremony. #apocalypse