Apocalypse is a Greek word referring to the end of the world. Apocalypticism is the religious belief that there will be an apocalypse, a term which originally referred to a revelation of God's will, but now usually refers to belief that the world will come to an end very soon, even within one's own lifetime.[1]
Apocalyptic fiction does not portray catastrophes, or disasters, or near-disasters that do not result in apocalypse. A threat of an apocalypse does not make a piece of fiction apocalyptic. For example, Armageddon and Deep Impact are considered disaster films and not apocalyptic fiction because, although Earth or humankind are terribly threatened, in the end they manage to avoid destruction. Apocalyptic fiction is not the same as fiction that provides visions of a dystopian future. George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, for example, is dystopian fiction, not apocalyptic fiction.
Sixty years after an uncontrollable epidemic named the Red Death has depopulated the planet, James Howard Smith tries to impart the value of knowledge and wisdom to his grandsons
The series comprising The Moon Maid, with the action set on the Moon; The Moon Men, set in 2120 after the Kalkars have invaded Earth; and The Red Hawk, which jumps to 2430 and in which the Great Feud reaches its climax.
A disease kills all men over 14 years old, but 10 years later, one is found still alive and hilarity ensues. Based on the 1923 novelette of the same name by John D. Swain. Was remade in 1933 as the musical It's Great to Be Alive.
Predicting an extended world war fought with modern scientific weapons, societal upheaval, and the beginning of space travel. Filmed as Things to Come in 1936.
An episode of Oboler's popular 1930s and 1940s radio horror and mystery anthology serial Lights Out. A deranged university chemistry student creates what turns out to be a "super-dissolving substance", with the potential, among other uses, to become "a doomsday chemical superweapon".
When a near-invincible army of artificially created soldiers – the Flesh Guard – falls into the hands of an untrustworthy power, continental Europe forms an alliance and invades Great Britain. The resulting carnage, involving poisonous electric gas, "humanite" (atomic) bombs, and the unfeeling march of the Flesh Guard, reduces whole cities and towns in Europe to smoking rubble.
Early (post-World War II) radio docudrama series originally aired over the now-defunct NBC Radio network. This "rare and unusual" series of shows (featuring many top Hollywood film performers of that era) was written, produced, and directed by Arnold Marquis, as part of a special postwar campaign aimed at convincing the public to place the then-newly developed technologies of nuclear energy and weaponry under United Nations control.[10]
Adapted by Ernest Kinoy for NBC Radio's 1950–1951 sci-fi anthology series, Dimension X. A military android questions its continued existence, after the last of its human comrade-counterparts dies out from the effects of a mysterious doomsday super-weapon that was unleashed at the end of a generations-long global atomic war.
Initially thought to be a blinding meteor shower, but later suggested to be a man-made satellite based weapon accidentally discharged, allowing the bio-engineered Triffids (a type of plant) to dominate
A new primitive society emerges long after a nuclear war. The film portrays tribes called the "Norms", the "Upriver People", and the "Mutates" fighting in the remains of New York City.[citation needed]
Cautionary (for its time) civil defense-themed "tale of two cities": one (fictional) American city is ready for nuclear World War III, while the other is not
Short story (novelette) taking place 200 years after a global anarchist revolution, where society has stagnated due to the loss of scientific knowledge during the revolt. Elsewhere, the last government, a highly centralized and efficient society, is in hiding from the Anarchist League, a global militia preventing the recreation of any government.
Starring Hugh Marlowe, Rod Taylor – robust 20th Century men — narrowly escaping the ubiquitous "time warp" — kill giant spiders, help pale nerds and their beautiful women emerge from underground, and retake the post-World War III surface from troglodyte mutants
After the loss of a galactic empire, humanity is restricted to the single city of Diaspar, but lives a life of eternal comfort and safety. Alvin escapes and finds the truth – forcing his city to face the universe again.
A made-for-television play.[19] Tom Dyson is suddenly caught up in the chaos of a nuclear war. Several of the issues brought up in the programme were discussed in an hour-long debate following its conclusion.
A group of survivors from an atomic war become trapped in an underground station; during the play, broadcast live on Armchair Theatre, one of the actors (Gareth Jones) actually died while the show was on the air.
A Japanese film about a third world war that is started when the U.S. accidentally drops a nuclear bomb on South Korea (Japanese title: Dai-sanji sekai taisen: Yonju-ichi jikan no kyofu)[22][citation needed]
The Earth's oxygen levels drop suddenly, suffocating most life–survivors in an oxygen-producing jungle. It is speculated that this happened because of "a bigger and better bomb", but the reasons are not made clear.
Loosely based on the John Wyndham novel of the same name. The film version of the Triffids are poisonous space-borne plants, and arrive on Earth via meteorites.
Presents a dying Earth where vegetation dominates and animal life is all but extinct. Originally published in the United States in abridged form as The Long, Hot Afternoon of Earth.
All the water on Earth (including that within living people) is exposed to and becomes ice-nine, a fictional alternative structure of water that is solid at room temperature
Adapted to film in 2012 under the same name. A 40-something woman, while vacationing in a hunting lodge in the Austrian mountains, discovers that a transparent wall has been placed that closes her off from the outside world; all life outside the wall appears to have died, possibly in a nuclear event.
Loosely based on the 1952 story of the same name by Daphne du Maurier, it focuses on a series of sudden and unexplained violent bird attacks on the people of Bodega Bay, California, over the course of a few days.
Made into the 1973 film Soylent Green directed by Richard Fleischer – showing a world where humanity has become massively overpopulated, a vague ecological disaster is creating a growing dust bowl, and the entire economy is collapsing
The result of an American supercomputer made for war becoming sentient and going rogue, driving humanity to extinction and leaving only five humans alive to be tortured for eternity by the now-omnipotent supercomputer, christening itself AM (both after its original designation of Allied Mastercomputer and the quote "Cogito, ergo sum"). This was later turned into a point-and-click computer game, where AM was voiced by Harlan Ellison himself.
Earth, after building a dozen or so Ships and seeding a number of colony planets, is destroyed. The Ships are technologically advanced, but the colony planets have all to some extent regressed technologically. The Ships' populations are managed on strictly eugenic lines: as part of this, they deliberately strand their young on colony planets for a month in the Trial, both to weed out bad genes and as a rite of passage. Nebula Award winner, Hugo Award nominee.
A black magician brings about the end of the world by releasing all of the demons from Hell. Followed by a sequel called The Day After Judgment (1970).
An expedition from earth to find a futuristic planet, a ring surrounding a star, results in the members finding that a meteor puncture in the ring's floor and power failure caused the cities to break apart and civilization to collapse
An immune survivor of a biological/nuclear war battles plague-altered quasi-vampires bent on erasing all vestiges of science and technology. The second film version of Richard Matheson's 1954 novel I Am Legend
Directorial debut for Douglas Trumbull. An ecologically minded astronaut struggles to save the last bio-dome preserving what is left of Earth's plant life. Adventures with uncooperative droids and the rings of Saturn ensue.
In 1975, a crew of space travelers tries to colonize Venus after Earth is destroyed by a "doomsday device". Originally filmed in 1967, but (due to money problems) not finished and/or released until five years later. Directed by Herbert J. Leder, Lee Sholem, and producer Harry Hope.
Directed by Peter Fonda. A research team discover a way to travel into the future, and in doing so discover that a worldwide ecological catastrophe is imminent. They send a group of earnest teenagers forward in time to repopulate the Earth after the disaster – but it does not end well.
A manga series that tells the tale of a Japan devastated by a massive earthquake and mass volcanic eruption and isolated from the rest of the world, with the remnants of humanity divided between the strong and the weak. A sequel to Nagai's Devilman manga series.
An unknown phenomenon makes Earth's machines turn against humanity. It was later made into the movie Maximum Overdrive, which added an alien invasion subplot.
Mankind's growing interstellar empire discovers an old and sophisticated alien society restricted for millions of years to a single planet. Their hopes for a peaceful coexistence are shattered when they discover how the aliens control their population.
Made for TV movie. A mutated virus created by a solar flare destroys virtually all of the human population. One family has survived, and endeavors to travel across America to their family home.
– Domain (1984) and The City (1993), the last two books of the series, show how, after a nuclear war, humanity is overthrown by mutated giant black rats.
A young man (Don Johnson) and his dog (Tiger, the dog actor) struggle for survival and encounter strife in a harsh, post-apocalyptic wasteland where food, water, and women are scarce. Based on the writings of Harlan Ellison.[citation needed][41]
A Doctor Who serial that also features alien invasion. Guerrillas from the future explain that they are attempting to kill someone because he caused an explosion at a peace conference, starting a series of wars that left humanity vulnerable to conquest by the Daleks.[42]
Society is chased into domes by an ecological disaster, and holds a ceremonial death ritual for all citizens who reach the age of 30 to control the population. A man who formerly helped control the population flees the domed city to avoid his own ceremony.
After a nuclear war starts, a prepared family escapes into their post-holocaust citadel, and over generations turns to cloning to continue the human race.[44]
A lone soldier fights to bring down the organization which unleashed a deadly radiation against his planet, killing all his people and rendering the planet uninhabitable
Arcade video game designed by Theurer and developed by Atari, Inc. Later ported to many different home computing and gaming platforms for many years afterward. Considered one of the most notable classic video games of all time.
The second installment in the Mad Max series, known as The Road Warrior in the U.S. This movie follows the titular character as he interacts with a community based around a small oil refinery and a group of marauding bandits. Starring Mel Gibson.
Set in New Zealand, survivors of nuclear war (known as the Oil Wars) attempt to rebuild society while fending off the ambitions of a militaristic despot who has based himself in a mobile armored vehicle.
Cyberpunk manga series published by Dark Horse Comics – about a group of young bikers in a post-apocalyptic Tokyo who clash with the government and psychics with incredible power. Adapted into a 1988 animated movie
Originally broadcast on the NBC television network. The film's original director, Boris Sagal, died in a freak mishap during filming, and was replaced by his successor, David Greene. The teleplay was written by Robert L. Joseph.
Influential shonen manga series featuring a warrior trained in a powerful martial arts style rights wrongs and battles evil warlords in a post-apocalyptic world. Inspired the landmark anime series, a live-action film, and many games.
Plus a sequel calledThe Unforsaken Hiero (1985); a "metis" priest/killman quests across post-apocalyptic northeastern North America, 7,000 years in the future
In the Cell saga of Dragon Ball Z, a time traveler arrives from a post-apocalyptic future where two powerful killer androids have destroyed much of the world, and attempts to stop the same thing from happening in the main timeline.
A scientist uses a time machine to travel to the future and film the results of a nuclear war in a bid to prevent it from happening. However, his actions could have serious repercussions for the mutated descendants of the human race.
After an atomic war, Phillip Hammer and Marlowe Chandler have spent 15 years on their own in a bunker, then they find the keys to the last MX missile.[citation needed]
Also an alternate historystory – the 1979 Three Mile Island reactor incident resulted in a very large release of radioactivity, devastating the northeastern U.S.
Game from Game Designer's Workshop – set in a world where a Sino-Russian war degenerates into a limited nuclear conflict that eventually drags in Europe and America
Series of films dealing with a future devastated by a war between humans and machines, the attempt of the machines to kill the hero of the human resistance in the past, and the attempt of the hero and others to prevent this future from ever coming to pass
A handful of soldiers and scientists holed up in an underground bunker try to survive and understand the zombies outside the gates. Final chapter of Romero's trilogy.
The third installment in the Mad Max series. This film follows the titular character as he interacts with the post-apocalyptic community of Bartertown. Starring Mel Gibson.
After an ambiguous eradication of the human species, several people on a cruise to the Galápagos Islands get stranded there. Much to the dismay of the only male left, the women of the island continue the human species for thousands of years, where they evolve into seal-like creatures.
Aliens remotely control machines (trucks, cars and even vending machines) to kill the human population before invading. Based on the Stephen King short story "Trucks".
A distillate of a Texas aquifer, originally harvested and distributed worldwide to reduce human propensity for violence, curses humanity with premature Alzheimer's disease and senility
The games are set in colonies of the Ancients, an advanced space-faring race, several thousand years after all contact with the Ancients was lost due to them being engaged in interstellar war with an alien race called the Kreegan. This event, called the Silence, caused the colonies to regress into a medieval state and consider Ancients and their technology as mythical in nature.
The Soviet Union blames the U.S. for a nuclear explosion, and in the ensuing chaos, the protagonist must defend his family. Based on the Jerry Ahernpulp novel series.[citation needed]
The Eldar, a technologically advanced race who dominated the galaxy until the 29th millennium and was superior to the nascent human race, fell into moral decadence, causing the disfigurement of reality to numerous star systems colonized by the people of Earth fueled by the negative emotions of countless sentiment species brought into instability and unending conflict merely for survival, while at the same time the majority of humanity's population had degraded to a pre-industrial society because of the loss of technology due to a massive confrontation with artificially intelligent machines over thousands of years, until an Empire forcefully united most humans under a fascisttotalitariantheocratic regime that conducted an unending war for the genocide of every other advanced lifeform, including some affected by supernatural factors.
The world is devastated by huge tsunamis. Most of the technology left in the world is on par with the mid- to late 1800s, but there are some newer weapons around.
A series of novels set in a world where humanity is replaced as the planet's dominant species by a race of mystic hermaphrodites. War and plague ravage the human population, but no single cause is specified.
After a war against the machines in which the humans lost, a small group of resistance fighters must keep humanity alive against the evil forces of Lord Dread.
Post-apocalyptic RPG, main story features a rogue AI that not only caused a nuclear war between the United States and Soviet Union, but also is attempting to eradicate any humans that survived
Miniature wargame by Games Workshop – a role-playing game franchise composed of the game and associated novels and short-story anthologies set within the Dark Future universe
In a post-apocalyptic world, the population is divided and decimated. In the depths of the sea exists "the Museum", which can only be reached during occasional periods of low tide when the sea becomes a barren desert.
An attempt by Aes Sedai researchers to tap into a newly discovered source of magic more advanced than the One Power leads to an experiment to bore a hole in the Pattern. It goes awry when it is discovered that the Bore leads to the Dark One's prison, allowing the Dark One to influence the world. This causes the male half of the One Power to be tainted, driving all male Aes Sedai mad and causing the Breaking of the World. The society regresses from futuristic to Renaissance-era, with only a few artifacts of the Age of Legends remaining.
Australian children's drama in which a girl from the 31st century (after the Northern Hemisphere has been destroyed in the Great Disaster, later revealed to be a nuclear holocaust) becomes stranded in the 20th century. In the sequel, The Girl from Tomorrow Part II: Tomorrow's End (1993), she and her friends fight to prevent history from being changed in such a way that the Southern Hemisphere is destroyed as well.
A nuclear exchange triggers the return of Ley Lines and Interdimensional Rifts or portals. These Ley Lines and Portals subsequently cause several natural and supernatural disasters.
A mysterious plague has swept over the entire world, causing everyone to suffer from amnesia, leading to the collapse of civilization. Based on a novel by Hideyuki Kikuchi.
ITV show, about three people who lived after everyone else in England was turned to dust by a chemical that was accidentally released by a television presenter
Taking place in the year 2037, the loss of the ozone layer has left most of the planet a desolate wasteland scattered with highly radioactive Death Zones.
The Captain Planet two-part episode "Two Futures", in which the character Wheeler gets a glimpse of what could happen if damage to the environment was allowed to continue unchecked
A Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting by TSR, Inc. – focusing on a world that has been turned into an inhospitable desert by overuse of magic that destroyed the surrounding vegetation
The galaxy passes through a 'cloud' in space, which causes all previously expired creatures on Earth to return to life as bloodthirsty skeletons shrouded in ghostly mirages of their former selves
Backstory (featuring a satirical fake TV news story regarding the final depletion of the Amazon rain forest) and game play take place in (a fictional version of) the year 2019, in which a powerful alien attack force threatens to obliterate the Earth. Developed by Scott Host, for Cygnus Games (now Mountain King Studios).[67]
A computer game series created by id Software – about a demonic invasion of human colonies on the moons of Mars. The sequel to the original game, Doom II: Hell on Earth, sees the demons invading Earth itself.
Trilogy comprising Souls in the Great Machine, The Miocene Arrow, and Eyes of the Calculator. The first book was originally published as two books, starting in 1994. An ancient whale species recreated through a genetic experiment turns out to have been telepathic, and the whales issue a telepathic call which cause most of humanity and other large land mammals to walk into the oceans and drown.
A Super NES game where a comet passes next to Earth, which is a malicious being whose light turns humans into monsters. The story takes place in an altered reality, where the approaching comet already changed the timeline and reality.
Titled Final Fantasy III in its initial American launch, this RPG features a plot twist in where villain Kefka moves magical statues out of their intended alignment, which in turn causes the balanced fictional world to fall into ruin, and Kefka to become its new god while protected by the powers of the same statues.
A fighting-style game where a meteor hits Earth and wipes out modern technology, reducing them to several Stone Age-type tribespeople. The continents are rearranged, and seven dinosaur-like deities fight for control over the new Urth.
Life in Silicon Valley 30 years after the mysterious and spontaneous disappearance of 90% of the world's population. The Winchester Mystery House ("The House") serves as a focal point for parallel universes and inexplicable energies that are changing the world and its post-Vanishing children.
Global Warming has caused all landmasses on Earth to be covered by the sea. The remnants of humanity survive on "atolls," mechanical floating cities that are constantly attacked by pirates with steam-driven ships. Some humans have evolved to become amphibious to live among the old wreckage beneath the waves. Many people live in hope of finding the mythical "Dryland," the place safe from the seas (which turns out to be the Himalayan Mountains).
Mara and Dann and its sequel, Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog, are set in a future ice age. Other Lessing novels, like Memoirs of a Survivor and Shikasta, also deal with apocalyptic themes.
Humanity's unearthing of a being known as Adam brings about the Second Impact, a catastrophic shockwave which destroys Antarctica and subsequently leads to the extinction of thousands of organisms, the destruction of much of the civilized world, and the deaths of billions. Millions more die from the social and economic troubles which follow this impact and the ensuing wars.
The third installment of the Mortal Kombat series. Supernatural warlord Shao Kahn has taken over the realm of Earth, taking the souls of much of the populace. Extermination squads roam the land in search of the few surviving Kombatants that oppose him.
A radioactive, self-replicating alien crystal known as Tiberium crashes on Earth in 1995 and gradually renders most of the Earth's surface uninhabitable over the next several decades.
The sequel to Escape From New York, the film is set in an America that has become a theocratic dictatorship. Central to the plot is Los Angeles Island, the remains of what was once the city of Los Angeles after "the Big One," where those who break the government's new laws are deported to.
The House of the Dead series of Sega video games. Scientist Dr. Curien finds a way to reanimate the dead, though not without disastrous results. Later in the series' timeline, Caleb Goldman uses the undead in his mission to destroy the human race and protect the Earth from further destruction by humans.
A mining accident unleashes a virus from within the colonized Jovian moon Io. Races are held to determine the winner of the last seat in the last shuttle leaving.
Set in an unspecified post-apocalyptic region on an Earth shrouded by an impact winter and plagued by a dangerous mutagenic substance called "Archessence" – the game centers on a technologically regressed medieval-like society.
PC game. The Chosen, a group consisting of a corporate- and government-determined human elect, depart a heavily polluted Earth via a fleet of starships, returning as a force to re-occupy Earth, fighting against the titular 7th Legion, a coalition of the most advanced post-apocalypse humans on Earth.
Features a deleted scene (restored to the film in the Alien Quadrilogy box set) in which Ripley and the other survivors land the Auriga in a devastated Paris. The cause of the destruction is never made clear.
Vehicular combat game from The 3DO Company. Nearly all women around the world are killed in a nuclear war and the few female survivors are prized by men.
Follows the lives of several individuals as they cope with their final six hours on Earth before its apparent incineration by the Sun (the cause of the apocalypse is never directly stated)
1,700 years after a deadly plague has wiped out the great civilizations of man, the survivors' descendants have built up a new, comparably primitive society.
Disaster. The 1998–1999 anime series in which a man-made disaster has caused Earth's Moon to fragment, resulting in a constant rain of meteor strikes on the planet and forcing humanity to move out into the Solar System.
The Japanese manga and anime, where humans apparently suffered mass amnesia 40 years prior and are afraid to leave their city, Paradigm – it is a sort of mecha/apocalypse subclass of its own; the protagonist has to battle mechanical beings and other robots who are trying to destroy the remnants of the human race.
Television
1999
Monsters
Future Shock
Godzilla: The Series episode, the H.E.A.T. crew passes through a mysterious time-storm and travels to a post-apocalyptic 2022 where the earth has been overrun by monsters called D.R.A.G.M.A.s.
PCDeveloper Relic Entertainment – A small human civilization on the desert planet of Kharak on the edge of the galaxy is brought to the brink of extinction for violating a forgotten 5,000-year-old treaty forbidding them from developing hyperspace technology. The survivors, however, are fortunate to have the use of the recently completed Mothership – a large colony vessel meant to take them back to their ancient and forgotten homeworld near the center of the galaxy, Hiigara – The game was succeeded by sequels Homeworld: Cataclysm and Homeworld 2.
New Zealand TV series that takes place in a near-future in which all the adults have been killed by a man-made virus and the children have to survive on their own
Series of films dealing with a future where machines have trapped humanity in an illusory world, and the struggle of the surviving humans of the post-apocalyptic real world to free the rest of humanity from the illusion
A continuation of the former manga series containing the same elements as the previous series, but goes into greater detail as to how the dystopia came about
After terrorists detonate a nuclear weapon in the Earth's orbit, all computer data is destroyed, bringing about an economic collapse, but with minimal loss of life.
Limited series by Ennis depicting the adventures of a man traveling on Earth's surface a few years after a solar event called The Burn. Followed by a sequel, Just a Pilgrim: Garden of Eden.
An alien alliance called the Covenant begin attacking human colonies in 2525. By 2552, almost all of the human colonies are destroyed and the Covenant are attacking Earth.
First book 2001. Set in the distant future after a nuclear war. Cities are turned into machines on wheels which hunt other cities and 'eat' them. The first book follows the story of two children who have fallen off a city, and are trying to find it again so they can get back on, while the dictator of their city plans on using a weapon to destroy all of the land dwellers – people who have not upgraded their cities to be on wheels.
A role-playing game, in which an advanced civilization is threatened and destroyed by supernatural forces that religion is knowingly, and in some ways unknowingly, centered on.
A real-time strategy. Earth created robotic lifeforms allegedly to mine Titan's resources, though in reality they were to be used as a secret army. When the plan surfaced, the World Council lost power but the robots returned and occupied the planet in the name of their creators.
And its sequel, the 2004 video game Pikmin 2, is set on an unnamed planet simply called as the planet of the Pikmin, inhabited by animals and plants. Although it is unnamed in-game, several cutscenes show it as Earth, or at least a very Earth-like planet. Further hints are man-made objects in both games like the Abstract Masterpiece, a bottle cap, and the Remembered Old Buddy, a R.O.B., as well as the stage based on the Pikmin planet in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Distant Planet, which its data refers to as Earth.
After barely surviving another worldwide conflict, humanity rejects all emotion and outlaws all forms of expression which might encourage emotional response.
Uses computer animation to simulate the sort of creatures that may evolve from present-day animals. In the world depicted in the series, the human race has left Earth to colonize the stars. The future descendants of humanity have sent probes back to Earth to record what has become of it.
Directed by Larry Clark - set in the post-apocalyptic future where after the majority of humans die from a mysterious viral plague, the remaining humans have conformed to primitive tribalism
PC video game featuring a group of ex-soldiers who spent 10 years underground after the Spontaneous Genome Degeneration Syndrome (SGDS), an artificially created virus raged across the globe in 2004, nearly wiping off humanity. Although the virus was released to make money with the antidote, it was not distributed for some reason.
Showtime cable television series, based on the comic book of the same name. In the year 2021, 15 years after a virus kills everyone over the age of puberty, the child survivors have grown up, living on the scraps of the old world.
Comic book series that features a lone man and his pet monkey as the last living male mammals in a world populated only by women; series written by Brian K. Vaughan and published by Vertigo Comics
Novel trilogy comprising Snowfall, Kingdom River, and Moonrise. North America has retreated into hunter-gatherer societies and military kingdoms some 500 years after an apocalyptic ice age
This manga/anime series takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, where constant conflicts between nobles leaves whole parts of the earth uninhabited, cities in ruins, and technology rare. Only the nobles possess futuristic ships, and the richest have domed cities where the debilitated Earth can still support life. Wolves are proclaimed extinct, but found a way to enchant humans. Five wolves are on a quest to find 'Paradise', along with a Flower-Maiden, who was created from a Lunar Flower by a Noble. A second apocalypse ends the series, with a presumable renewing of the planet. Four of the five characters are seen in the renewed world.
Michael Haneke's film (The Time of the Wolf) follows a family through the (French?) countryside after an undefined catastrophic collapse of civilization.
Plus its sequel City of the Dead. Rather than the zombies being an infection, as in most zombie fiction; these zombies are reanimated by demonic entities, the Sisquisim, from the Old Testament.
Set in the year 2068, the Earth's surface is in a cataclysmic upheaval, much of it transformed into wasteland by unstoppable storms (the byproduct of the destruction of the ozone layer). It was directed by Oscar Luis Costo.
Ion Storm (developer) Eidos Interactive (publisher). After total global economic collapse (an event known simply as "The Collapse", all religion is collected into one, which is in conflict with the new world order. Throughout the game, the player can choose to be on either side, affecting the game's outcome.
Includes video games, short stories, and animated features; revolves largely around the fate of a planet which is ravaged by the impact a giant meteor/asteroid, summoned by magic; published between 2004 and 2009
Game from Valve; the game is set in 20 years after an multidimensional organization successfully takes over Earth in 7 hours, transforming humans into a slave labor force.
The asteroid Bay-Leder 7 was found to be powerful enough to wipe out the whole civilization. Although a top-secret experimental satellite weapon was able to cut it in two, the smaller piece impacted in West Russia, turning Europe into an ice-covered "death zone".
Series of novels and short stories. A disaster of indeterminate cause (most speculation within the novels concerns an all-powerful outside force, often facetiously referred to as "alien space bats") causes electricity, combustion engines, and modern explosives to cease functioning.
The 2004 miniseries 10.5 and its 2006 follow-up 10.5: Apocalypse; in which a series of earthquakes tears America apart, separating the West Coast from the rest of the U.S.
PC - A German 3D role-playing game situated in a post-apocalyptic future where humanity is facing its possible end. The focus of the game is the deep story and the unique characters, with living environment offering many well-thoughtout sidequests. Gameplay similar to the Fallout series, although with a more traditional RPG approach in which the player can assemble a whole party in order to improve chances in battles and include specialists with complementary skills.
A role-playing game in which the unification of all people in a fantasy world under a single, supernatural language results in the destruction of a world by what is presumed to be an asteroid that becomes that world's new Moon, one that eclipses the Sun for a week out of each month.
Takes the premise that with no natural predators to thin the population of the world, evolution simply rewards whoever can pass on their genes the fastest, who are depicted as sexually promiscuous, drunken brutes. The average IQ is 80 by 2100, 60 by 2200, and 40 by 2505.
Uglies, Pretties, Specials and the companion novel, Extras, take place in a future civilization that arose after our current civilization collapsed because of an engineered bacterium that attacked not people, but oil, changing its chemical composition so that it exploded on contact with oxygen (first explained on p.345 of Uglies).
An episode of Masters of Horror directed by Tobe Hooper – it has a triple apocalyptic theme as it features a man-made virus causing a zombie outbreak after World War III.
Set in the metro tunnels of post-apocalyptic Moscow. A man named Artyom journeys to the central city of the metro, Polis, to find answers about a possible threat called the Dark Ones.
PCA game in which, after a tutorial area set in a "pre-Searing" time, a race of beasts called the Charr summon meteors down upon the humans, destroying nearly all of the cities and all of the life (plants, animals, etc.)
A group of travelers traveled in time and made changes in the past, which led to colossal alterations in the future where they came from, and in less than in a week everything in the world started changing chaotically, putting in the life of every living thing in danger.
This anime features several teens living in Hakodate, Hokkaido who come in contact with their future selves using time travel as a last resort to end the destruction of their world by abducting their dear friend Haruka Kaminogi from the past as a sacrifice to make the ultimate weapon against the destroyer known as Noein.[74]
Anime series and its video games are set 10,000 years after humans had to leave Earth due to a Coralian appearing in Africa. In the current timeline, the remnants of humanity are now settled on a planet they refer to as the "Promised Land".
The eight-year-old boy Jesús has been living in a crumbling underground facility since he was born with eight survivors of an apocalyptic war.[citation needed]
While seemingly caused by aliens, it is in fact human mistakes, breakdown and war that forges Auto Assault's apocalyptic world. Similar to the Command & Conquer series where an alien event is the catalyst needed to start decline.
British made movie in which a virus creates a plague of zombies, viewed entirely from the POV of a character's video camera. This film was made and completed before George A. Romero's film Diary of the Dead which was shot in a similar POV perspective.
The video game, which takes place on the fictional planet of Sera; humans are shown fighting a war against alien monsters that have emerged from underground.
Anime series by the Japanese production company Manglobe – an undefined global ecological disaster has decimated the surface of Earth, and the small remaining human population lives in isolated, city-state dome complexes
A Lovecraftian tale of one of the last survivors on Earth. In the novel the world floods, causing several monsters to appear, mainly gigantic, man-eating earthworms.
James Bai (writer/director) – set in what looks like Brooklyn "after the decline", the streets are empty and there seems to be constant random killings
Game Boy - in which a small group of humans escape to a post-apocalyptic utopia after the "old world" is destroyed. While the game never explains what happened to the "old world", they say that the humans were the ones that caused its destruction.
Sequel to 28 Days Later. During the efforts to re-populate Britain, the discovery of a possible cure to the "Rage" virus may also begin the apocalypse all over again.
In an abandoned New York City set in 2012, military virologist Robert Neville tries to find a cure to a man-made virus that killed almost everyone on Earth, while at the same time trying to survive against the vampiric zombies that it left behind. The third film adaptation of Richard Matheson's 1954 novel I Am Legend.
Based on the novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney. A mysterious virus brought by space-borne microbes possesses humans and renders them devoid of emotion.
PC-MMOGA disastrous solar event in 2019 and 2020 leaves the world devastated, with only small pockets of human survivors scratching out a living in a bleak, irradiated world. Largely fueled by the stockpiles of hardware left behind by a dead civilization combined with the desperation of a new world order, the gladiatorial deathsports begin around 2035. The vast expanses of wilderness between the towns are menaced by gangs of road pirates armed with heavily armed cars and trucks and traveled by equally well armed trade groups, making a living by carrying food, fuel, and other specialist equipment between the towns.
A group of survivors, called Foragers, take cover in an old abandoned hospital where the group attempt to re-build society. All we know of the apocalypse is that man "Ran out of gas", but not in the sense of oil, just that our time was up.
Animated TV series in which cloned "Beastmen" fight an apocalyptic battle with humanity
Game
2007
Technology
Toxic
Nitrome Limited – flash game by about a character in a yellow hazmat suit attempting to free the world from a race of robots with a variety of bombs. A sequel, Toxic 2, was released in 2008.
PC, Xbox - set at the end of a thousand-year-long war called the Infinite War between three separate factions; the UEF (United Earth Federation), the Aeon and the Cybrans.
At the end of Part 3, the main characters are forced to deliberately awaken the supposed "dark god" Yune in order to avoid her being awoken accidentally by a war which has spread across Tellius. The goddess Ashera, upon learning that the beorc and laguz have long since broken a covenant forbidding military conflict between the races, petrifies nearly all inhabitants of Tellius despite Yune's protests. This calamity leads into Part 4, where Yune, while considering how to revive the petrified people, tasks the survivors with preventing Ashera from finishing the job.
The game's main antagonist Malefor the Dark Master claims that it is the destiny of all purple dragons to bring about the world's destruction. He is almost successful when the Destroyer, a massive golem he resurrected to cross the Belt of Fire and issue the world's end, completes its circle until he is defeated by the game's protagonist Spyro and Cynder and sealed away by the ancient dragons' spirits into the world's core and Spyro unleashes a powerful Fury wave to rebuild the world.
Zero Reverse was a disastrous event in which the evolutionary use of quantum mechanics in the Enerdy system led to its reactor exploding and causing a massive tectonic shift that separated a chunk of Domino City from the rest of the landmass, splitting it in two and creating an island later known as Satellite, which was the area hit hardest by the energy release, while the Earthbound Immortals were released from the Underworld.
Twenty years after wars, plague, and natural disasters, a young woman follows the voice of a lone radio broadcaster and delivers the first child born in 15 years.[citation needed]
With virtually all of humanity wiped out by a meteor strike, the game follows the exploits of an army of survivors, fighting bandit raiders and hostile armies across the planet's desolate remains.
Multiplayer video game released by Valve. Featuring people transformed into crazed zombie-like mutants by an infection. The game diverges from the traditional zombie trope with the inclusion of "special infected" or zombies with specialized traits.
An alien race, called Souls, take over Earth and its inhabitants. The novel follows one Soul's predicament when the mind of its human host refuses to cooperate with her takeover.
Earth is abandoned in 2105 after becoming too polluted to sustain life. WALL•E robots have been left behind to clean up Earth, but all but one remains active as of 2805.
A Doctor Who episode. The poisonous Sontaran gases (creating the titular "poison sky") above Sylvia and Wilfred's street ignite as the flames from the Doctor's atmospheric converter spread globally.
Explores life in an agrarian village in upstate New York after America collapses under the combined trauma of plague, peak oil, global warming, and nuclear terrorism
A TV documentary film and its spin-off Life After People: The Series document life on Earth after all humans have instantly disappeared. The shows do not mention a cause of their disappearance.
Astro Boy (a robotic version of his creator's lost son) lives in highly advanced Metro City; the last of its kind floating above the clouds in the skies of post-apocalyptic Earth.[76]
A virus changes most of the populace into vampires sometime around 2019. At the point where vampirism is considered "normal", the remaining humans attempt to escape being farmed for their blood, while also attempting to find a cure.[citation needed]
Directed by Benjamin Rocher. The film is set in one of the French tower blocks, wherein a small group of people trying to make their way out of it thrust through hordes of zombies.
Time travel fiction. The 2009 ABC special Earth 2100 explores a possible future if humans do not take actions to help the ecosystem, which could prove to be disastrous. Lucy, the speaker, explains about this world and wonders how she was one of the lucky humans to have survived.
The Power Rangers protect the last remnants of humanity, who are now settled in the domed city of Corinth, after the accidental release of a government created computer virus known as "Venjix". Malicious and self-aware, it leaves most of the planet in nuclear fallout, constructs an army of attack-bots and begins cybernetic experiments on human prisoners.
Set generations after the zombie apocalypse, a girl struggles against the religious order in her village hoping for life beyond the fences protecting them from the Unconsecrated (zombies) in the surrounding forest
Islamic extremists launch a series of dirty bomb attacks against the West, which results in a backlash against Muslims. A radical Christian government takes over the U.S. and sends the Army, Marines, and a National Guard full of evangelicals to invade and retake a long-nuked Israel.
A post-apocalyptic massively multiplayer online role-playing game from Icarus Studios and Fallen Earth LLC set in the 22nd century after the Shiva Virus has spread all over the world.
After a massive earthquake in Tokyo 25km under the sea at a magnitude of 8.0, siblings Mirai and Yūki, who were visiting a robot exhibition in Odaiba at the beginning of their summer vacation, struggle to reach their parents in their house in Setagaya, assisted by a female motorcycle courier named Mari, who is striving to reach her own daughter and mother in Sangenjaya. Together, the three brave the ruined city and try their best to make it home safely.
Trilogy of novels (World's End, Darkest Hour, and Always Forever) by Mark Chadbourn following several characters in England through the slow collapse of modern technological civilization as the previously suppressed world of natural magic and mystical, godly beings rises to take over the course of human events
Humanoid creatures or Titans are gigantic human flesh-eating monsters that lived outside of the humanity's curtain Wall Maria and the civilization was on the verge of extinction, but some are forced to fight back by joining the military, called Survey Corps. But there are some humans that transform into Titans to fight and kill other humans and Titans.
An Audio exclusive Doctor WhoNew Series Adventures story. The Doctor arrives in the far future where Britain is a wasteland and encounters a small group of scientists trying to find a way to grow crops.
Loose adaptation of John Wyndham's novel. A solar event blinds most of the people in the world allowing a new life form to assert itself, and the few remaining sighted people try to survive.
The adventures of Jake the dog and Finn, the only known remaining human in the post-apocalyptic land of Ooo hundreds of years after the "Great Mushroom War".
Although never directly stated, enormous craters can be seen throughout the film and characters mention an event called "the Flash". The writer, Gary Whitta, stated he wanted the audience to figure out the nuclear event slowly.[77]
Game series by THQ set in a post-apocalyptic Earth where mankind faces near-extinction and angels fight a losing battle against the demon hordes for control over the world
On an island off the coast of North America, local residents simultaneously fight a zombie epidemic while hoping for a cure to return their undead relatives back to their human state. Directed by George A. Romero
Ten years after a devastating global pandemic, the lives of two survivors collide in a sequence of events that threaten both their sanity and their lives
Rex is an evo working with the military organization Providence to put an end to the outbreak of violent monstrous human mutations known as evos which are created when people are exposed to unsafe nanites, a nanobot technology developed to fight diseases within humans. Wars between evos and humans ensued when nanites started to get out of control.[80]
Aliens or creatures called Skitters, Mechs and Overlords attack Earth; the series is showing the struggles six months after the initial attack on Earth
Lake Michigan mysteriously empties of water and an end-of-time cult occupies the lake bed, waiting for a re-flooding of the zone by the power of a giant worm
A viral outbreak in a quiet midwestern town led to spread of zombie infection, surviving townsfolk try to escape while military is attempting to quarantine the outbreak.
A group of scientists discover a cure for cancer, however it is quickly discovered that it also kills living cells and the player has six days to find a cure before the virus kills every living cell on Earth.
A Japanese schoolgirl, Sakura, finds her average life in a small town turned inside out when all the males suddenly become zombies and begin to attack and kill females.
With few skills and only her kyūdō bow and an English textbook to accompany her, she sets out on a journey through a dark world of murder and survival.
A particularly virulent strain of bird flu kills a large majority of humanity, leaving birds to become the dominant class of animals. The protagonist is one of the few humans naturally resistant to the flu.
A plague, primarily on the eastern coast of the United States, is spreading rapidly, causing diseases over the majority of those infected and granting special abilities to some individuals, designated as Conduits, while one of them, Cole MacGrath, in the Evil alternative ending of the game, manages to absorb the powers of his rival John White, who had been renamed "The Beast" due to the rampage he caused by the use of his powers over several weeks, and united most mutants under his leadership while waging a successful battle against the authorities, while Joseph Bertrand, a corrupt tycoon who had been secretly transforming into a bestial form known as the "Behemoth", managed before dying to sell the technology mutating normal individuals, usually into either poisonous reptilian monsters or muscular savages with control over ice, to several terrorists, including Osama bin Laden.
The promotional trailer shows many trademark DC Comics heroes and villains fighting each other to the death with Lex Luthor emerging as the ultimate victor, but immediately after the culmination of the traditional battle between those legendary characters, Brainiac, according to statements, manages to conquer Earth unhindered by its defeated protectors (as most of them have already ended up killing each other) and enslave humanity's population, until Luthor alongside Batman manage to survive and time travel back towards the past to warn their respective factions to cease their everlasting war and cooperate against the approaching enemy, with the custom player-controlled heroes contributing for the preparation of both previously hostile sides to confront the anticipated invasion as soon as it arrives.
A film about the psychological unraveling of a group of survivors, who have holed up in the basement of their apartment building during a nuclear attack.
Set in a post-apocalyptic world in the country of Panem where the countries of North America once existed. Based on the book of the same name by Suzanne Collins.
Hypothetical docudrama concerning humanity's efforts to seek out a new home on a distant Earth-like planet, in the face of Earth's eventual destruction by an approaching neutron star. Produced by Atlas Media, for original broadcast on the National Geographic Channel.
Edward Richtofen, a NaziGerman scientist attempting to succeed in conquering the world during World War II despite the failure of Adolf Hitler, creates an army of zombies as well as various advanced infantry weapons and biological enhancements using an alien substance, called Element 115, and invades a space station on the Moon while cooperating with American Patrick Dempsey, Soviet Nikolai Belinski and Japanese Takeo Masaki in his effort to survive from the zombie horde until he manages to control it, and succeeds in transforming the Earth into a wasteland (after attacking it with missiles) that is overrun by the endless tide of zombies in which almost everyone died.
Visual novel adventure game released for Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita. The game takes place 45 years in the future, after a calamitous virus outbreak, known as Radical-6, has exterminated almost all of human civilization.
A father tries to protect his infant daughter as he turns into a zombie during the zombie apocalypse. A short film on which the longer one of the same name was based.
A millennium from now, in Japan, exists a utopia. The protagonist, Saki Watanabe, lives in an idyllic village barred from the outside world. Her world is ruled by the people who possess the "gods' power" of psychokinesis.
Six years after an apocalyptic event has apparently killed everyone on earth, a young women is shocked to discover another survivor when a man turns up at her farmhouse.
Human civilization is replaced by synthetic replicas that never age. When the last biological humans who are drunk from drinking too much beer confront the supreme intelligence with the possibilities that humanity might not want to be "improved", this contradiction leads to a crash in the simulant network, destroying most of the world as a result and throwing the planet into a new Dark Age without technology.
The Rapture occurs during a party attended by celebrities including Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, and Emma Watson.
Prequel to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. A group of hyper-intelligent apes take refuge in the vast redwood forest known as Muir Woods while humanity battles the "Simian Flu" pandemic.
Video game by Ice Water Games. The destruction of lifespan-extending technology installed in major cities led to massive outbreaks of fatal illness, followed by wider social collapse.
Absurdist sci-fi comedy film. The growing tension between the last two remaining superpowers – China and Google – escalates in the early 21st century, and results in the global inferno of the "Google Wars".
Machines built to identify and eliminate mutants eventually target most humans as well. With much of the world destroyed, one mutant is sent back in time to try to prevent this future from ever happening.
A Syfy series focused on the days after a zombie apocalypse has killed most of the world's population. One man was experimented on before society's collapse and his body contains the only known antibodies to the zombie virus.
The only survivors of a nuclear war live in a space station, which is falling apart. 100 of their teenagers are sent back to Earth's surface to determine if it is livable, only to discover that they are not the only survivors.
Takes place in an alternative history where an attempt to counteract global warming through climate engineering in 2014 backfires catastrophically, causing an ice age and extinguishing nearly all life; only animals that can adapt to sub-zero temperatures and the inhabitants of a circumnavigational train called Snowpiercer remain.
After a meteor shower turns everyone with a blood type other than A− into zombies, a man searches for his sister who's the subject of experimentation by a sadistic scientist.
Directed by Matt Reeves, and based on characters created by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver (premise suggested by Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle). A growing nation of genetically evolved apes is threatened by a band of human survivors of a devastating virus unleashed a decade earlier.[citation needed]
The series follows two girls, Yuuri and Chito, as they navigate the ruins of civilization after an unknown apocalypse, and as they travel in their modified Kettenkrad, they seek food and supplies while surviving day-to-day.
Based on the 1988 novel of the same name by William Brinkle, the show follows the crew (consisting of 218 people) of a lone unaffected U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, the fictional USS Nathan James (DDG-151), as it tries to find a cure for a global viral pandemic that wiped out over 80% of the world's population, stop the virus, and save humanity.
The fourth installment in the Mad Max series. This film follows the titular character who ends up in the fight between Immortan Joe, who rules as a god out of his settlement the Citadel, with his War Boys against Furiosa, one of his lieutenants. This movie features a change in actors for Max with this movie starring Tom Hardy.
Post-apocalyptic sci-fi dark comedy TV series, created by Will Forte (who also starred in the show) which formerly aired over the FOX broadcast TV network
A time traveler from the post-apocalyptic future arrives in the year 2015 on a mission to save mankind from a deadly plague. Based on the 1995 Terry Gilliam film.
Scooby-Doo and his friends have to find a cure for a nanite virus that they accidentally created in an experiment gone wrong that led to a mutant apocalypse.
A graphic novel and podcast series set on a failed terraforming colony. The series focuses on the daily struggle to survive on a distant planet with extreme resource scarcity.
The series follows an epidemic that breaks out in Atlanta, leaving a section of the city cordoned off under quarantine and those stuck on the inside fighting for their lives.
Hollow Knight is an artistically dynamic adventure metroid-style game. It indirectly tells the story of a broken and diseased civilization through dialogue, lore tablets, artwork and other features. As the player learns more and progresses, the infection occurs, and ultimately the player discovers the source of the infection as well as the history behind the world.
The story is set in the 31st century, in a world where humans have regressed to primitive tribal societies as a result of some unspecified calamity. Their technologically advanced predecessors are vaguely remembered as the "Old Ones." Large robotic creatures known merely as "machines" now dominate the Earth.
Humans are forced to evacuate Earth when several Kaiju including Godzilla surface and wreak havoc across the Earth. 20,000 years later they return after failing to find another habitable planet in order to reclaim the Earth and destroy Godzilla, however they discover that the planet has changed drastically in humanity’s absence. Was followed by two sequels Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle and Godzilla: The Planet Eater.
The story is set in between the events of Resident Evil 6 and Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. BSAA agent Chris Redfield is tracking Glenn Arias, a Brazilian-American death merchant and a former CIA operative who is wanted by both the Interpol and the FBI.
Glenn Talbot, under the corrupting influence of gravitonium, inadvertently destroys Earth in a careless attempt to mine more of the substance, forcing humanity's survivors into the Lighthouse, a subterranean bunker under Lake Ontario. The first arc of the season involves S.H.I.E.L.D. discovering the aftermath of this imminent calamity—unaware of Talbot's involvement due to his name becoming lost to history and Daisy Johnson being scapegoated—while the second arc involves S.H.I.E.L.D.'s ultimately successful attempt to prevent this from happening.
The Earth’s atmosphere becomes toxic and forces the majority of humanity off-world to a space station colony near one of Jupiter’s moons. A young scientist who holds out hope of finding a solution meets a man who is on his way to the last evacuation shuttle.
The narrative stand-alone sequel of Far Cry 5 of the Far Cry video game series. The story is set 17 years after the events of Far Cry 5. After the nuclear exchange known as "the Collapse" devastated the world, survivors attempt to rebuild the community in Hope County. Their efforts are, however, threatened by the Highwaymen, a roving band of organized bandits led by twin sisters Mickey and Lou.
In the same universe as Z Nation, this show follows a small group of refugees trying to make it to safety six weeks after the start of the zombie apocalypse.
A group of teenagers band together when their hometown is overrun by giant monsters and zombies after portals to another dimension open in the sky. Based on the book series of the same name.
Part of the Love, Death & Robots anthology series, it follows three robots as they explore Earth after the fall of humanity.
Television
2019
Unspecified
Alternate Histories
Part of the Love, Death & Robots anthology series. An alternative history research simulation app, shows a user six different timelines involving the death of Adolf Hitler in 1908 instead of 1945, some of which result in post-apocalyptic scenarios.
In the near future an extinction level event has had catastrophic effects on the human race, leaving the small colonies of survivors scattered and disconnected.
A woman wakes up one morning to find that everyone on Earth has vanished and the only other person is a former blind date who she declared she would never date even if he was “the last man on Earth”.
Fallout from nuclear bombs used to destroy an asteroid causes all cold-blooded animals to mutate into giant monsters that kill the majority of the human race.
A comet breaks apart and its fragments strike Earth, destroying much of the surface, forcing the remaining survivors to evacuate to underground shelters.
After a poorly executed plan leaves numerous heroes dead, Earth is conquered by Darkseid, with most cities rendered a wasteland. Although the surviving heroes manage to defeat Darkseid in the end, however, the damage is already done; one-third of the Earth's core has been successfully mined by the Reapers, putting its orbit in danger of freezing or heating enough that the planet's surface will become uninhabitable. John Constantine convinces a reluctant Flash to create a second Flashpoint (after learning that he created the first while freeing him on Apokolips) to undo the destruction despite the fact that the world will not be the same as it was before. Flash runs back in time and creates a second Flashpoint. Damian and Raven share their first and last kiss, while the Justice League observes a wide bright light from beyond the horizon covering the whole world as the timeline resets, leaving their fates unknown.
In one possible ending in the "choose your own adventure" format show, reached when the viewer chooses to wait for the Uber driver Mamadou twice in a row, humanity is wiped out by an army of C.H.E.R.Y.L robots.
On the final day before a meteorite is going to collide with Earth, a woman traverses through the empty streets of Los Angeles with a Metaphysical version of her younger self on the way to an “End of the World” party.
A quantum virus causes a global zombie apocalypse with several of the Avengers among the survivors.
Ultron eradicates most of humanity using nuclear missiles and gains control of the infinity stones which he uses to destroy many inhabited planets, killing most of life in the universe.
Fifteen years after a solar flare has destroyed the Earth’s ozone layer, an Ailing engineer builds an android companion to help look after his dog, but when a massive storm approaches they are forced to make a cross-country road trip across post-apocalyptic America.
An adult animated comedy-drama miniseries. A woman seeks a way to cope through her mundane routine as humanity faces imminent extinction when a mysterious planet is going to collide with Earth.
Left Behind is a multimedia franchise of apocalyptic fiction written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, released by Tyndale House Publishers from 1995 to 2007.
Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retrofuturistic technology and aesthetics inspired by, but not limited to, 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. Steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the Victorian era or the American frontier, where steam power remains in mainstream use, or in a fantasy world that similarly employs steam power.
Joseph Michael Straczynski is an American filmmaker and comic book writer. He is the founder of Synthetic Worlds Ltd. and Studio JMS and is best known as the creator of the science fiction television series Babylon 5 (1993–1998) and its spinoff Crusade (1999), as well as the series Jeremiah (2002–2004) and Sense8 (2015–2018). He is the executor of the estate of Harlan Ellison.
Tamora Pierce is an American writer of fantasy fiction for teenagers, known best for stories featuring young heroines. She made a name for herself with her first book series, The Song of the Lioness (1983–1988), which followed the main character Alanna through the trials and triumphs of training as a knight.
Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of science fiction in which the Earth's civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; astronomical, an impact event; destructive, nuclear holocaust or resource depletion; medical, a pandemic, whether natural or human-caused; end time, such as the Last Judgment, Second Coming or Ragnarök; or any other scenario in which the outcome is apocalyptic, such as a zombie apocalypse, AI takeover, technological singularity, dysgenics or alien invasion.
The Day of the Triffids is a 1951 post-apocalyptic novel by the English science fiction author John Wyndham. After most people in the world are blinded by an apparent meteor shower, an aggressive species of plant starts killing people. Although Wyndham had already published other novels using other pen name combinations drawn from his real name, this was the first novel published as "John Wyndham".
Glen David Brin is an American science fiction author. He has won the Hugo, Locus, Campbell and Nebula Awards. His novel The Postman was adapted into a 1997 feature film starring Kevin Costner.
Babylon the Great, commonly known as the Whore of Babylon, refers to both a symbolic female figure and a place of evil as mentioned in the Book of Revelation of the New Testament. Her full title is stated in Revelation 17:5 as "Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth".
Survivalism is a social movement of individuals or groups who proactively prepare for emergencies, such as natural disasters, and other disasters causing disruption to social order caused by political or economic crises. Preparations may anticipate short-term scenarios or long-term, on scales ranging from personal adversity, to local disruption of services, to international or global catastrophe. There is no bright line dividing general emergency preparedness from prepping in the form of survivalism, but a qualitative distinction is often recognized whereby preppers/survivalists prepare especially extensively because they have higher estimations of the risk of catastrophes happening. Nonetheless, prepping can be as limited as preparing for a personal emergency, or it can be as extensive as a personal identity or collective identity with a devoted lifestyle.
Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut, United States. It was founded in 1831 as a men's college under the Methodist Episcopal Church and with the support of prominent residents of Middletown. It is currently a secular institution.
Apocalypticism is the religious belief that the end of the world is imminent, even within one's own lifetime. This belief is usually accompanied by the idea that civilization will soon come to a tumultuous end due to some sort of catastrophic global event.
Earth Abides is a 1949 American post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by George R. Stewart. The novel tells the story of the fall of civilization from deadly disease and the emergence of a new culture with simpler tools. Set in the 1940s in Berkeley, California, the story is told by Isherwood Williams, who emerges from isolation in the mountains to find almost everyone dead.
The Gaylactic Spectrum Awards are given to works of science fiction, fantasy and horror that explore LGBTQ topics in a positive way. Established in 1998, the awards were initially presented by the Gaylactic Network, with awards first awarded in 1999. In 2002 the awards were given their own organization, the Gaylactic Spectrum Awards Foundation.
Zombie apocalypse is a subgenre of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction in which society collapses due to overwhelming swarms of zombies. Typically only a few individuals or small bands of human survivors are left living. In some versions, the reason the dead rise and attack humans is unknown, in others, a parasite or infection is the cause, framing events much like a plague. Some stories have every corpse zombify, regardless of the cause of death, whereas others require exposure to the infection, most commonly in the form of a bite.
Don Sakers was an American science fiction writer and fan who lived in Maryland, and wrote several novels and edited a short story collection. In 2009 he succeeded Thomas Easton as book reviewer for Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine. Sakers is probably best known in the science fiction community as a frequent guest speaker at science fiction conventions.
Mary Robinette Kowal is an American author, translator, art director, and puppeteer. She has worked on puppetry for shows including Jim Henson Productions and the children's show LazyTown. As an author, she is a four-time Hugo Award winner, and served as the president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America from 2019-2021.
↑ Brian Stableford, "Ecology and Dystopia", in Gregory Claeys, (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Utopian Literature. Cambridge University Press, 2010 ISBN0521886651 (pp.259-280).
Post-Apocalyptic Audio Dramas – Archive.org compilation of post-apocalyptic radio shows and audio dramas in the public domain or released under a Creative Commons license
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