Babel Clash

Thanks so much, Morgan! I just wanted to give a shout out and introduce myself before we jump into the deep end of the apocalypse pool tomorrow. My first novel, Ariel, and its sequel Elegy Beach a quarter-century later, are a bit unusual in that they’re postapocalyptic fantasy novels. The Road Warrior of the Rings, or somesuch. Which was kind of unusual in 1983, when Ariel was originally published.

I grew up with a soft spot for postapocalyptic fiction & movies (and I suppose it’s worth mentioning here that the post aspect has always interested me more than the actual apocalypse part, so I dunno about playing favorites with the how of it all), and I’ve done a lot of thinking about what the appeal is for an audience. I’ve written a surprising amount of fiction that could be classified as postapocalyptic, and a surprising amount more if I’m allowed to include stories featuring characters making their way through desolated landscapes. It’s definitely one of my tropes.

I’m curious about the current resurgence of postapocalyptic fiction and films even as I’m clearly part of it. (Coincidentally enough my postapocalyptic zombie novella “Like Pavlov’s Dogs,” originally published in Skipp & Spector’s Book of the Dead, has just been reprinted in John Skipp’s magnificent Zombies anthology. So I have three postapocalyptic works in print at the moment. Hmm.) People always look for some deep sociological meaning behind such trends. Anyone want to theory up on this one?

Related posts:

• Dead to the World, and Vice Versa
  There is a subgenre of postapocalyptic scenarios that contains all of the elements I’ve previously discussed — societal breakdown, survivalism, moral quandary of looter/ predator vs. self sufficiency and altruism, questions of individual usefulness and the lengths to which you might go to in order to survive, entrenched technophiles vs....
• And our next guest is…
  I”m very pleased to welcome Steven R. Boyett, author of Ariel and the brand new Elegy Beach.   Steven will be joining us to debate our “Favorite ways for the world to end.” The Apocalypse is getting a lot of attention thanks to 2012 and the upcoming release of Cormac McCarthy’s...
• Final Thoughts on Final Things
  It’s been a lot of fun writing about apocalypses for the last two weeks. It was a chance to survey that (sometimes blasted) terrain and talk about why so many of those mostly fatalistic visions for humanity have enjoyed continued popularity, as well as an opportunity to offer up some...
• The End of Daze
  So I’ve dipped my toe in the postapocalyptic water over the last week to offer a brief survey of books and movies that I think are important in the After-the-Fall canon. Of necessity I’ve left out a bunch that I’d love to discuss because they’re just plain fun (Night of...
• Books to die for (part 2)
  Finishing my list of postapocalyptic books I think are standouts in the field. Tomorrow we’ll cover movies. Then we’ll get to the nitty gritty. The Time Machine, H.G. Wells. So often considered as a time-travel classic that it’s easy to forget that this timeless (yuck yuck) novel of social darwinism...