Stephen Drivick's Blog - Posts Tagged "babylon"
End of the World Fiction
This is my fifth entry for the April A-Z blogging challenge. Today we look at the letter E-End of the World Fiction
“I'm Stephen Drivick and I am going to destroy the world.”
When I opened my Twitter account, this was going to be the first line of my profile. Then I chickened out, thought it was a little too cute, and changed it to something else.:)
When I was in high school, (in the 80's) the End of the World was serious business. They made us watch The Day After, and taught us how nuclear bombs worked in science class. They sent home actual disaster plans that included what to do in case of nuclear war. The Cold War was at its peak. The thought that the Russians could attack any day was a real, horrifying thought.
All this preoccupation with widespread destruction led me to apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction. One of the first books I picked up in high school was The War of the Worlds By H.G. Wells. It was a little antiquated, but a really good read. Wells described a terrifying invasion of other worldly monsters in 1800's England. Man was hopeless against the attacks, and it takes a few germs to bring down the invaders. I still read it today on my Kindle. The description of the Martian death call in the empty confines of a dead city still raises goosebumps on my skin.
A few years later, I picked up Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank. This is the story of a fifties-style nuclear war and its effects on a rural Florida town. Again, a little antiquated but a very good read. It had a realistic view of survival, that ends with a community debating carrying out the death sentence on some bandits. Alas, Babylon had a great influence on the style of Sometimes We Ran.
And then there's The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It's a story of a father and his boy going south trying to escape an unspecified apocalypse. The book is chock full of disturbing images like cannibalism and coughing up blood, so it's not for the timid. Look past that, and it's a story of keeping your humanity in a world turned upside down. It's about surviving at all costs, and what lengths you would take to make it. No novel about the apocalypse before or since, I think, has influenced the genre more. The Road also has a permanent spot on my Kindle.
There are many other books about the End of the World that I have read. Some were pretty good, others descended into gore festivals with leather bikini clad women fighting over the last can of peaches. They've all been a pretty good romp through the genre. I don't know why people are fascinated with the End of the World. I imagine a real apocalypse would not be as much fun with all the death and all. At their heart, stories about the apocalypse and its aftermath are fun adventure tales. I think that it is the reason we all like them so much. I picked zombies to write about, and it has been kind of fun.:)
“I'm Stephen Drivick and I am going to destroy the world.”
When I opened my Twitter account, this was going to be the first line of my profile. Then I chickened out, thought it was a little too cute, and changed it to something else.:)
When I was in high school, (in the 80's) the End of the World was serious business. They made us watch The Day After, and taught us how nuclear bombs worked in science class. They sent home actual disaster plans that included what to do in case of nuclear war. The Cold War was at its peak. The thought that the Russians could attack any day was a real, horrifying thought.
All this preoccupation with widespread destruction led me to apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction. One of the first books I picked up in high school was The War of the Worlds By H.G. Wells. It was a little antiquated, but a really good read. Wells described a terrifying invasion of other worldly monsters in 1800's England. Man was hopeless against the attacks, and it takes a few germs to bring down the invaders. I still read it today on my Kindle. The description of the Martian death call in the empty confines of a dead city still raises goosebumps on my skin.
A few years later, I picked up Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank. This is the story of a fifties-style nuclear war and its effects on a rural Florida town. Again, a little antiquated but a very good read. It had a realistic view of survival, that ends with a community debating carrying out the death sentence on some bandits. Alas, Babylon had a great influence on the style of Sometimes We Ran.
And then there's The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It's a story of a father and his boy going south trying to escape an unspecified apocalypse. The book is chock full of disturbing images like cannibalism and coughing up blood, so it's not for the timid. Look past that, and it's a story of keeping your humanity in a world turned upside down. It's about surviving at all costs, and what lengths you would take to make it. No novel about the apocalypse before or since, I think, has influenced the genre more. The Road also has a permanent spot on my Kindle.
There are many other books about the End of the World that I have read. Some were pretty good, others descended into gore festivals with leather bikini clad women fighting over the last can of peaches. They've all been a pretty good romp through the genre. I don't know why people are fascinated with the End of the World. I imagine a real apocalypse would not be as much fun with all the death and all. At their heart, stories about the apocalypse and its aftermath are fun adventure tales. I think that it is the reason we all like them so much. I picked zombies to write about, and it has been kind of fun.:)
