top picks for post-cataclysmic fiction?
Sep. 8th, 2005 06:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eldritchhobbitYesterday I played for my class the original 1938 "The War of the Worlds" radio broadcast by the Mercury Theatre of the Air led by Orson Welles (based, of course, on the 1898 novel by H.G. Wells). No matter how many times I listen to that dramatization, I always seem to hear something new and relevant. It's a truly remarkable and chilling work.
Thanks to all of you who responded to my earlier post on dystopian fiction. I've been thinking about the relationship between dystopian works and post-cataclysmic (or post-apocalyptic, or post-holocaust, depending on which term you prefer) works. On the one hand, they are different literary creatures: to quote The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction by John Clute and Peter Nicholls, dystopias create "hypothetical societies containing images of worlds worse than our own," and post-cataclysmic works focus on "the aftermath" of a disaster, "the kind of world the survivors build for themselves." So dystopias are warnings meant to inspire the reader to change the human behaviors and patterns that will lead to an inferior or undesirable future, while post-cataclysmic works focus on recovery from dire happenings that are not always under humanity's control.
The two seem to me to overlap at points. Some of the societies that emerge from cataclysms in science fiction literature are dystopian. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr., which I mentioned in my last post, is a classic example. A Canticle imagines a dystopian world emerging after a devastating World War III - so, too, does Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, for that matter. (Of course, calling a war a cataclysm neatly sidesteps the issue of culpability, the fact that humans are responsible for war in a way they are not for other cataclysms such as meteor hits, alien invasions, or sudden plagues.) But of course in the literature many dystopian societies become what they are simply because current trends run amok, and not because some terrible disaster or violent clash helps those societies along. Think Brave New World.
It struck me that there also are post-cataclysmic works I find to be noteworthy just as post-cataclysmic works, all discussions of dystopias aside. The Last Man by Mary Shelley, The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, Earth Abides by George R. Stewart, The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham, Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank, and The Postman by David Brin immediately come to mind.
Now that I've thought out loud and rambled quite a bit, I come to my question. Whether they have dystopian ingredients or not, which books would be on your list of the best post-cataclysmic literature?
A quote for the day:
"My wife, my colleagues, my students, my books, my observatory, my... my world... where are they? Did they ever exist? Am I Richard Pierson? What day is it? Do days exist without calendars? Does time pass when there are no human hands left to wind the clocks?"
from "The War of the Worlds" radio broadcast by the Mercury Theatre of the Air,
October 30, 1938
Thanks to all of you who responded to my earlier post on dystopian fiction. I've been thinking about the relationship between dystopian works and post-cataclysmic (or post-apocalyptic, or post-holocaust, depending on which term you prefer) works. On the one hand, they are different literary creatures: to quote The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction by John Clute and Peter Nicholls, dystopias create "hypothetical societies containing images of worlds worse than our own," and post-cataclysmic works focus on "the aftermath" of a disaster, "the kind of world the survivors build for themselves." So dystopias are warnings meant to inspire the reader to change the human behaviors and patterns that will lead to an inferior or undesirable future, while post-cataclysmic works focus on recovery from dire happenings that are not always under humanity's control.
The two seem to me to overlap at points. Some of the societies that emerge from cataclysms in science fiction literature are dystopian. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr., which I mentioned in my last post, is a classic example. A Canticle imagines a dystopian world emerging after a devastating World War III - so, too, does Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, for that matter. (Of course, calling a war a cataclysm neatly sidesteps the issue of culpability, the fact that humans are responsible for war in a way they are not for other cataclysms such as meteor hits, alien invasions, or sudden plagues.) But of course in the literature many dystopian societies become what they are simply because current trends run amok, and not because some terrible disaster or violent clash helps those societies along. Think Brave New World.
It struck me that there also are post-cataclysmic works I find to be noteworthy just as post-cataclysmic works, all discussions of dystopias aside. The Last Man by Mary Shelley, The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, Earth Abides by George R. Stewart, The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham, Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank, and The Postman by David Brin immediately come to mind.
Now that I've thought out loud and rambled quite a bit, I come to my question. Whether they have dystopian ingredients or not, which books would be on your list of the best post-cataclysmic literature?
A quote for the day:
"My wife, my colleagues, my students, my books, my observatory, my... my world... where are they? Did they ever exist? Am I Richard Pierson? What day is it? Do days exist without calendars? Does time pass when there are no human hands left to wind the clocks?"
from "The War of the Worlds" radio broadcast by the Mercury Theatre of the Air,
October 30, 1938
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 11:58 pm (UTC)Connie Willis's novella "The Last of the Winnebagos" I consider a future where dogs becoming extinct a natural disaster so in my mind this story qualifies as post-cataclysmic.
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Date: 2005-09-11 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-09 12:25 am (UTC)Also, The White Mountains, but I don't remember the author because I don't have a copy of it. Excellent, creepy book reminiscent of War of the Worlds (teachers, for some strange reason, were always giving me post-cataclysmic books when I was a youngin').
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Date: 2005-09-09 09:42 am (UTC)John Christopher wrote quite a lot of post-cataclysmic books: I liked the post-plague love triangle of Empty World, and there was a future feudal series, The Prince in Waiting, but I can't remember much about them now.
Oh, and he wrote The Guardians! Which I think has a post-cataclysmic setting, but is mainly about the politics of a future Britain divided between the (rural) County and the (urban) Conurb. Terrific book.
Wow, this is bringing back memories. I must just go and hit the library...
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Date: 2005-09-11 02:24 pm (UTC)Thanks again!
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Date: 2005-09-12 09:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-14 04:37 pm (UTC)I still give major props to Mary Shelley's The Last Man as a favorite, by the way - so much more sophisticated and pointed than Frankenstein, and that's saying something! There's been some really good scholarship published about it, but I'm still surprised there isn't more.
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Date: 2005-09-14 05:45 pm (UTC)BTW, a post on my friends list today reminds me of another post-cataclysmic/dystopian book, Facial Justice, by L.P. Hartley, in which a uniform society is maintained by compulsory facial surgery. (Another one I haven't read, despite there being a copy not three feet away from me...)
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Date: 2005-09-12 09:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-14 04:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-11 02:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-09 09:52 am (UTC)I gruesomely enjoyed I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. I remember loving The Changes trilogy by Peter Dickinson as a kid, but I wonder what I'd make of it now. Children of Morrow by H.M. Hoover was another one I devoured as a child. I went through John Christopher's books below...
But, apart from The Stand, my favourite post-cataclysmic story is Day of the Daleks, novelized by Terrance Dicks. Cataclysms! Time travel! Daleks!
I'll continue thinking and maybe come up with some more, or even something thoughtful ;-)
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Date: 2005-09-11 02:22 pm (UTC)I Am Legend was the basis for both The Last Man on Earth and The Omega Man, wasn't it?
Daleks! We can never have enough Daleks!!! Thanks SO much for your recommendations...
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Date: 2005-09-12 09:19 am (UTC)LOL! Did you like the mini-series? I think it does a good job of catching the 'feel' of the book.
I'd tried a few other King novels by that time and I simply detested his writing style. Is The Stand a very different creature?
What was it you didn't like about his style? I know some of his earlier books like Carrie have that disjointed, stream-of-consciousness style, not so good. The Stand is a lot more fluently written; very character-driven, very fast-moving. All about magic and rationality and religion and America... damn, it's a good book!
I went through a period of reading a lot of King, not so much now. I think he's a great short story writer, and a great novella writer. His novels are a bit bloated, and often go for the gross-out, which does little for me (in print - love film gross-out!). The Stand is his longest book, but I don't, personally, find it bloated, although the publishers did - it was originally published in a cut-down form. The one on the shelves now is generally the uncut version, which came out in 1990 (once the market could sustain a book that size by King).
I guess you could get a library copy and try the first few chapters? (I couldn't put it down - I think I read it in two or three nights.) I think he's a devotee of Lovecraft, if that makes you warm to him at all!
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Date: 2005-09-14 04:47 pm (UTC)All about magic and rationality and religion and America...
You mean, like Neil Gaiman's American Gods? *wink* (Yes, I know Gaiman came after King...)
I thought the mini-series was fine. As I recall it lost a bit of momentum at the end, but that might be the medium, not the story. I wish I could give you specifics about what I didn't like about King's writing, or what it was of his that I read, but my impressions were that he was gimmicky and unimaginative in his word choices, and as a whole his prose was very disposable. People like Bujold can use ordinary language and still write passages you want to commit to memory: King's style seemed more like that of a short-order cook than a chef.
I don't mean this to be insulting - I know it's a question of taste. But I may have to give him another try, thanks to your posts!
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Date: 2005-09-14 05:41 pm (UTC)King's style seemed more like that of a short-order cook than a chef.
Heh, that's good! There are some bits in The Stand that make I can quote from memory - and given that my memory is awful, he must have been doing something right. But I absolutely 'get' him not being to everyone's taste.
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Date: 2005-09-09 02:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-11 02:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-11 06:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-14 04:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-12 01:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-12 09:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-12 08:02 pm (UTC)Post-cataclysmic literature
Date: 2006-04-02 06:18 pm (UTC)There was a trilogy of books I read several years ago, which took place in America after we had lost all electricity and other modern necessites. It was not post end of world but we just lost the use by using all the natural resources (I think). Everyone was very medieval and the states had seperated and some had formed together to form new independent countries and they would spy on each other and fight each other, anyway it was really interesting. It was a whole new way of looking at what might happen in the future. I have no idea who the author was on the names of the book. I'm pretty sure it was a female. If anyone know what I;m talking about please let me know
Post cataclysmic literature
Date: 2006-04-02 06:21 pm (UTC)