Apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of science fiction that is concerned with the end of civilization due to a potentially existential catastrophe such as nuclear warfare, pandemic diseases, extraterrestrial attack, impact event, cybernetic revolt, technological singularity, dysgenics, supernatural phenomena, divine judgment, climate change, resource depletion, or some other general disaster. Post-apocalyptic 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).
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 the belief that the end of the world is imminent, even within one's own lifetime. Apocalypticism is one aspect of eschatology in certain religions, the part of theology concerned with the final events of human history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity (societal collapse, human extinction, and so on). It often involves themes like God's judgment, salvation of the faithful, and the eventual establishment of a renewed world.
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.
Works of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction
FormatYearCauseTitleAuthor Notes|Prophetic writings | AD |Supernatural |Apocalypse of John |Unknown |Regarded as the most influential apocalyptic text in the history of Christianity.|Prophetic writings | |Supernatural |Apocalypse of Abraham |Unknown ||Prophetic writings |2nd–4th century |Supernatural |Apocalypse of Thomas |Unknown ||Prophetic writings |629–636 |Supernatural |Apocalypse of Zerubbabel |Unknown ||Novel |13th century |Impact event |Theologus Autodidactus |Ibn al-Nafis ||Novel |1805 |Human decline |Le Dernier Homme |Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville |Regarded as the first story of modern speculative fiction to depict the end of the world.|Poem |1816 |Sun |"Darkness" |Lord Byron |Describes the end of life on planet Earth after the Sun's extinction.|Novel |1826 |Disease |The Last Man |Mary Shelley ||Novel |1872 |Technology |"The Book of Machines" | |The novel Erewhon section "The Book of Machines"|Novel |1885 |War |After LondonAfter London by Richard Jefferies – Project Gutenberg . Gutenberg.org (2004-11-03). Retrieved on 2009-02-13. |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.|Novel |1895 |Sun |The Time Machine |H. G. Wells |Towards the end of the book the Time Traveler witnesses the Sun's expansion, causing the death of all life on Earth.|Novel |1898 |Aliens |The War of the Worlds |H. G. Wells ||Novel |1901 |Eco |The Purple Cloud |M. P. Shiel |A volcanic eruption floods the world with cyanide gas.|Story |1906 |Sun |"Finis" |Frank Lillie Pollock |Where a second Sun's light incinerates Earth|Novel |1908 |Supernatural |Lord of the World |Robert Hugh Benson ||Story |1909 |Technology |The Machine Stops |E. M. Forster |A short story emphasizing machinery instead of computers|Novel |1912 |Disease |The Scarlet Plague |Jack London |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|Novel |1912 |Sun |The Night Land |William Hope Hodgson |The Sun burns out and the last of humanity is sheltered in an arcology from the hostile environment and the creatures adapted for it|Novel |1913 |Disease |Goslings: A World of WomenForgotten Science Fiction: Goslings by J. D. Beresford . Auxiliary Memory 5-11-2014. Retrieved on 5-14-2014. |J. D. Beresford |A global plague has decimated England's male population and the once-predictable Gosling family is now free to fulfill its long-frustrated desires|Novel |1914 |Unspecified |Darkness and Dawn |George Allan England |Two characters wake from suspended animation and find that some great disaster has torn an enormous chasm in Earth and created a second Moon|Novel |1916 |War |The Lost Continent |Edgar Rice Burroughs ||Play |1921 |Technology |R.U.R. |Karel Čapek |Notable for coining the term "robot"|Novel |1926 |Aliens |The Moon Men |Edgar Rice Burroughs |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.|Novel |1922 |War |Theodore Savage (vt. Lest Ye Die) |E. F. Bleiler, Richard Bleiler, Cicely Hamilton. |Science-Fiction: The Early Years. Kent State University Press, 1990. (p. 331). .|Film |1924 |Disease |The Last Man on Earth | |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.|Novel |1926 |Technology |The Metal Giants |Edmond Hamilton ||Novel | data-sort-value="1928" | 1928, 1929 |Eco |Deluge and Dawn |S. Fowler Wright |A huge flood devastates the world; only the English Midlands survive|Novel |1929 |Technology |Automata |S. Fowler Wright ||Novel |1930 |Various |Last and First Men |Olaf Stapledon |18 successive human near extinctions are described. |Novel |1931 |Technology |The War of the Giants |Fletcher Pratt ||Novel |1932 |War |Tomorrow's Yesterday |John GloagChris Morgan, The Shape of Futures Past: the Story of Prediction. Webb & Bower, 1980. , (pp. 167–168). ||Film |1933 |Eco |Deluge | |Deluge is a 1933 American apocalyptic science fiction film, directed by Felix E. Feist and released by RKO Radio Pictures.|Novel |1933 |War |The Shape of Things to Come |Wells, H. G. |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.|Novel |1934 |War |Quinzinzinzili |Régis Messac |Predicting a great world war that ends with the vanishing of humanity. Only a group of children survives and forms a strange new humanity.|Novel |1934 |War |The Black Flame |Stanley G. Weinbaum |Comprises two novellas, Dawn of Flame and The Black Flame, with a common character, Black Margot, a.k.a. Margaret of Urbs, a.k.a. the Black Flame|Story |1934 |Technology |"Rex" |Harl Vincent ||Novel |1935 |Technology |Nightmare Number Three |Stephen Vincent Benét ||Film |1936 |War |Things to Come | |A future Second World War leads to a breakdown of civilization in most of the world, with technology returning to medieval levels by 1970.|Novel |1936 |War |Wild Harbour |Ian MacPherson |A war much worse than World War I leads to complete social collapse in Great Britain|Story |1937 |War |By the Waters of Babylon |Stephen Vincent Benét ||Radio | data-sort-value="1938" | 1938, 1943 |Eco |"Oxychloride X" |Arch Oboler |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".|Radio |1938, 1968–1973 |Aliens |"The War of the Worlds" |Orson Welles |The radio play, originally directed and narrated by Welles and premiered on The Mercury Theater on the Air, later remade for local broadcast by, and over, station WKBW (now WWKB)-AM, in Buffalo, New York.|Novel |1939 |War |The Death Guard |Philip George Chadwick |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.|Film |1939 |War |Peace on Earth |Hugh Harman |A cartoon short where animals rebuild a post-apocalyptic world after humanity has fought war to the point of extinction|Story |1941 |War |"Magic City" |Nelson S. Bond ||Story |1941 |Eclipse |"Nightfall" |Isaac Asimov ||Play |1942 |War (also ice age and flood) |The Skin of Our Teeth |Thornton Wilder ||Novel |1943 |War |Gather, Darkness |Fritz LeiberGather Darkness by Fritz Leiber . Vintagelibrary.com (1996-05-10). Retrieved on 2009-02-13. ||Story |1944 |Eco |"The Great Fog" |Gerald Heard |A mildew-generated fog appears to undermine civilization.Brian Stableford, "Ecology and Dystopia", in Gregory Claeys, (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Utopian Literature. Cambridge University Press, 2010 (pp.259-280).|Novel |1945 |Sun |Rescue Party |Arthur C. Clarke ||Radio |1946 |War |The Fifth Horseman (radio play) | |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.|Novel |1946 |Eco |Mr. Adam |Pat Frank |Depicts a world in which a nuclear power plant explosion renders the entire male population infertile|Novel |1947 |Technology |With Folded Hands |Jack Williamson ||Novel, Screenplay |1948 |War |Ape and Essence |Aldous Huxley ||Story |1949 |War |"Let the Ants Try" |Frederik Pohl (under the pseudonym James MacCreigh) ||Novel |1949 |Disease |Earth Abides |George R. Stewart ||Story |1949 |War |"Not with a Bang" |Damon Knight ||Story |1949 |Impact Event |"The Big Eye" |Max Simon Ehrlich ||Story |1949 |War |"Time to Rest" |John Wyndham |Short story sequel "No Place Like Earth"|Novel |1950 |War |Shadow on the Hearth |Judith Merril |Later adapted for television in 1954|Novel |1950 |War |Pebble in the Sky |Isaac Asimov |A later book, Robots and Empire, gave a different explanation|Story |1950 |War |"Dear Devil" |Eric Frank Russell ||Story |1950 |War |"There Will Come Soft Rains" |Ray Bradbury |Short story in The Martian Chronicles, which shares the title and themes of the poem by Sarah Teasdale.|Story |1950 |Disease |"The City" |Ray Bradbury ||Radio |1951 |War |"The Last Objective" |Paul Carter |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.|Film |1951 |War |Five |Arch Oboler |The film shows the aftermath of a nuclear war, centered on a group of five survivorsFive (1951) . FilmFanatic.org. Retrieved on 2009-02-13.|Story |1951 |Disease |"The Visitor" |Ray Bradbury |Short story in The Illustrated Man|Film |1951 |Impact Event |When Worlds Collide | |Scientists discover that a star named Bellus is on a collision course with Earth.|Novel |1951 |Impact Event, Monsters, Disease |The Day of the Triffids |John Wyndham