#Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

[solarpunkpresentspodcast]

In this month’s bonus chat, Ariel and Christina discuss Nebula-award-winning short story “The Year Without Sunshine” by Naomi Kritzer – the first winning story that is being labelled solarpunk! Your hosts consider questions such as: what makes this short story solarpunk, actually? What makes it so compelling? If it’s supposed to be solarpunk, why is there no mention of climate change whatsoever?

These questions (and much, much more) are addressed here - but make sure to read the story first, if you don't want spoilers! It's free and takes about 20 minutes all told and is a genuinely excellent piece of short fiction.

Links:

Link to the story - https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/the-year-without-sunshine/ The historical Year Without a Summer - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer Episode with Jenny Kerber - https://youtu.be/uSz6YvhVsLI?si=hnjAPYUHGkDXUmc4 An analysis of the significance of "nature red in tooth and claw" - https://interestingliterature.com/2016/01/a-short-analysis-of-canto-lvi-from-tennysons-in-memoriam/ Soylent Green - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green Day of the Triffids - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Triffids

[katieaki]

My post-apocalyptic Lesbian Cowgirl Mailman choose-your-own adventure has just updated! Read it here! This is the first installment of PART TWO, so now so now is a PERFECT time to hop on board!! I just made a summary of the first part, here, that tells you basically everything you need to know about Lou, her unrequited love, and the ill-advised journey she is beginning as of this update.

This update is a big deal because it reveals a secret about Lou that I have been keeping since 2020! I HATE keeping secrets, so this was a huge deal for me. This one also has a *pretty* important poll that is proving to already be contentious. Make your voice heard! Excerpt under the cut!

“If you’re suggesting your lady friend broke it off with you because of me,” Holliday continued, a little breathless from her would-be close call, “then I don’t know what to tell you.”

Lou didn’t say anything, just slumped forward in the saddle again. 

“Did she say that?” Holliday asked. “In the letter? Did she say she was breaking up with you because you were taking me?”

Lou held a hand up to silence her, but she did not become silenced.

“Was she worried? Jealous?” she continued. “Because she does not need to worry about that.”

“Hey!” Lou said, rankled by the dismissal in her voice. Plenty of women found her attractive. Maybe not the one she was after at the moment, but many others. Hell, she’d even had to turn down boys a couple times. 

“Not that you’re not perfectly cute,” Holliday said. Her pitch rose in a way that Lou thought might have shown a little bit of genuine fluster. “With your little cowboy getup. The fringe and all.”

“It’s for the rain,” Lou said, feeling defensive. She flexed her hands in her fringe-trimmed gloves. They weren’t a fashion statement. Neither were her chaps. Unlike basically everything Holliday had going on. “It channels the water off of the leather and out of the seams. Keeps you dryer and keeps your gear around longer.” 

“I’m sure you’re right,” Holliday said, politely but disinterestedly. Lou felt her face flush. She shouldn’t have bothered telling her. “Anyway, all I was implying is that I’m spoken for, not that I don’t consider you attractive. But really, regardless, personally, I don’t normally go for girls who are unspeakably rude to me. Though I understand that it works for many people.” 

She guessed she was being pretty rude to Holliday, but she felt she deserved it. Besides everything else, she had been expecting more gratitude from her. She had made it really clear, hadn’t she, that this was not in her job description? The waterworks and the desperation yesterday morning proved Holliday knew this wasn’t routine. And she also knew it was dangerous or else she would have gone it alone. But she was happy to let Lou make the trip alone in reverse. It would be fine for her if Lou died miserable in the desert. Lou bit the finger of her glove and pulled it off with her teeth so she could rub her eye while still holding the reins. She felt she should be getting a little more praise for her selflessness and bravery and much, much less dressing down for her bad attitude. She was helping her against her best interests.

[like-ghosts]

Attention all Like Ghosts-heads

To the 3 or so people who actively follow this project, I got some potentially exciting, or upsetting, news for y'all. Effective immediately, I'm putting any Fallout related content on the backburner, but Like Ghosts will live on. I've realized that, after having my personal gripes with the setting, I've come to the realization that the gulf between Fallout's reality and what I was wanting to do with it was way too wide, and if I wanted to continue this creative venture further I was going to need to rediscover what I wanted in a story.

This is flowery language to say that, Scavenger Hunt and the wider Like Ghosts canon will be completely divorced from the Fallout franchise, giving me and the team (my cat, Tiger) the opportunity to further shape the post-apocalyptic world in a way that, while perhaps similar, offers a wider range of motion for divergences. This means a new setting - New Orleans, a city I've always wanted to write about! Additionally, I'll be working on new factions, new timeline, and mostly new characters! So be looking for that in the future. This isn't to say that I'm abandoning the Like Ghosts of Boston. In fact, I hope in working on the new section that it helps me think about things for the fallout one. Consider each an AU of the other.

I hope I didn't upset anyone with this announcement, but if so, I get that and understand. If y'all choose to stay, please do so.

[joncronshawauthor]

Why Do We Love Post-Apocalyptic Stories More After the Pandemic?

In a world where the Covid-19 pandemic has left us all feeling like extras in a low-budget zombie flick, it’s no surprise that post-apocalyptic fiction is making a comeback. You’d think that after living through a real-life apocalypse, people would want to steer clear of stories featuring death, disease, and the collapse of civilisation. But no, it seems we just can’t get enough of watching the…

[you-are-my-neverland]

you ever watch or listen to something and all of a sudden there’s a whole duology in your head that must be written immediately. anyways: apocalypse fiction anyone? a hint of supernatural worldbuilding and spiritual sensitivity? friends that go through life and death situations? other things that are half formed in my head? 

[ image id: a wall of text in times new roman font, with several sections blacked out. it reads:

THE PREMISE

a duology that spans an apocalypse and then the post-apocalypse world.

BOOK ONE follows the apocalyptic event itself and the aftermath. [several lines of blacked out text]

There are two categories of monsters: Soul Stealers and Sun Eaters (commonly collated as suneaters). Soul Eaters are wraiths, humanoid shadows with glowing silver centers where the human heart would be. [wall of blacked out text]. Sun eaters are Soul Stealers monstrous companions. [sentence of blacked out text]

BOOK TWO is set ten years after the apocalypse and the events of book one. It follows a handful of young initiates who begin training to be Seekers/Guards, those who can traverse the wastelands and combat Soul Stealers and Sun Eaters. / end id]

[nightingaelic]

Seeing your post about post-apocalyptic accents and dialects, I think you'd like A Canticle for Leibowitz, if only because for part 2 and 3, and the 2nd book, there's at least three or four major languages in play in what was America. Southwest, Alleghenian, English, which is now to them what Latin is to us, and Latin itself, which has split into two sub-languages, Vulgate and Modern, both of which are apparently different enough it's more like a very early split between today's Romance languages; technically the same language but different enough that someone who speaks one might not be able to speak the other

What a coincidence, I just put A Canticle for Leibowitz on my book club's reading suggestions list 😊

[parklandcryptid-studies]

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Hell Followed With Us takes the bigoted idea of the monstrous trans person and injects it with enough righteous queer fury to take on the very people that created the monster to begin with.

[jksimmonscompletist]

The End (2020)

Format: A single episode of the TV miniseries The Stand.

Director: Josh Boone

Writers: Josh Boone and Benjamin Cavell

Is J.K. Simmons in this? For one scene.

Who does he portray? General William Starkey, a very pessimistic man.

What does he do? He sits in a room with lots of monitors and talks about how screwed the world is.

And then he shoots himself.

How bald is he? The usual amount. He's got, like, a beard too.

Is anybody else in this? Yes, it would be even shorter if a character from the pilot was the only person in it.

Is it worth seeing if I’m not a J.K. Simmons completist? I'd say so, although I cannot speak to its quality as an adaptation. But as a post-apocalyptic horror story, I'd say it works quite well.

[kammartinez]

By Sara Youngblood Gregory 

About halfway through HBO’s acclaimed series, The Last of Us, we meet one of its most compelling characters: a fearsome rebel leader named Kathleen, played by Melanie Lynskey, who has overthrown the fascist federal government in post-apocalyptic, zombie-infested Kansas City. But what could many fans not stop fixating on? “She’s like a mom shouting at a bunch of kids,” one reddit user, in a riveting piece of TV analysis, noted.

If you haven’t been following the massively popular video-game-turned-prestige-TV-show, the series—which will wrap up its first season on Sunday—explores a world ravaged by a mutated fungus that takes over the minds and bodies of infected humans, turning them into zombies, and leading to societal collapse. It’s unsettling and thought-provoking and, oddly enough, not nearly as silly as it sounds.

When Joel, a surly smuggler played by Pedro Pascal, and Ellie, a rough-and-tumble teenager played by Bella Ramsey, arrive in Kansas City, Kathleen has instigated a tense manhunt for citizen informants who have betrayed her cause. She is brutally violent, blithely giving orders to kill civilians, but also an emotionally complex villain, devastated over the death of her brother—and viewers simply could not handle it. They balked at the mere hint of Kathleen’s femininity (her violence aside), and in particular, bristled at her high, soft voice. The complaints went something like this: Kathleen’s girlish pitch doesn’t fit into a cut-throat survivalist world; her voice doesn’t communicate power or strength; it’s wholly unrealistic that hardened soldiers would be “taking orders from a manager-seeking soccer mom,” as another redditor put it. Basically, in a world where mushroom zombies are a thing, there's just no way this woman would become a ruthless leader of men.

Even in real life, women in leadership positions are often pressured to sound less “shrill,” be tougher and more masculine (which is maybe why grifter Elizabeth Holmes famously felt the need to take on that low, deep voice). But this misogynistic thinking is particularly ingrained in mainstream sci-fi. When shows take a risk to deviate from that norm, fanboys freak out, creating the world's dumbest feedback loop. What’s so frustrating to me, as a dedicated fan of the genre, is the knowledge that any new worlds that arise after devastation (real or imagined, whether by zombies or climate change) will require both women and qualities considered feminine to rebuild.  

Gender roles are obviously socially-constructed, and yet, their conventions shape our lives and justify exclusion and oppression—even in our fantasy worlds. Femininity—which I’m defining in a traditional sense as relating to women, softness, motherhood, physical weakness, emotional communication, collaboration, and submissiveness—is often an affront to the gritty, survivalist mentality of the apocalypse genre, which in a Covid-era, climate change-ravaged Earth, has captured the imagination of so many. (See: The Last of Us, Station Eleven, Y: The Last Man, The Leftovers, to name just a few.) Masculinity, on the other hand, can be summed up with, as one sociologist put it, "no sissy stuff." It's supposedly all about competence, leadership, self-reliance, violence, and dominance. Where femininity might say, "let’s figure this out together," masculinity responds, "it’s me over you, and I’m not sharing my prepper bunker." These stereotypes are why so many people expect, even in fiction, to see femininity collapse alongside society. And it’s this stunning lack of imagination on the part of fantasy creators and their core audience that sucks the life from fresher, feminine takes on the genre.

Of course, women can’t just disappear from dystopian and post-apocalyptic media—shockingly, we’re actually a crucial part of keeping the human race around. So there are acceptable work-arounds that permit some women to still walk the post-nuclear earth without threatening a rigid gender hierarchy that refuses to go extinct. To survive, it’s permissible that some women kill their softness and emulate men (think zombie apocalypse survivor Andrea, and her turn from “girl next door�� vibes into a hardened, gun-obsessed killer in The Walking Dead). Others are allowed to maintain their softness only by becoming dependent on a strong man (think Kee, the sole pregnant woman living in a dystopian world faced with human infertility and extinction, who links up with a badass dude in Children of Men and barely makes a peep during the entire two-hour movie).  

I was heartened that The Last of Us attempted to push against this mentality with parts of Kathleen’s character arc and physique. As a curvy woman, her body is a marked departure from the wiry-thin buffness of survivors like The Last of Us’s Tess, or more iconic heroines like Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor in the Terminator series. But in other ways, The Last of Us falls to the same tropes as the rest of the genre. Ellie, who is still a young teen, gets traumatized repeatedly—and thus psychologically hardened—and teams up with a pseudo-father figure, satisfying the “kill your softness” and the “find yourself a man” conventions. Both factors work together to make fans not just cheer for Ellie as a hero, but believe in her as a survivor.

Showtime’s Yellowjackets, whose highly anticipated second season premieres later this month, seemed at first like an exception to the dystopian-death-to-femininity theory: A high school girls’ soccer team stranded in the Canadian wilderness must use their guts and wits to survive for 18 months. But, really, the show is just a gender-bent re-telling of The Lord of the Flies. The girls are grossed out when their periods sync up, they fight over boys (how original), and soon, they form a cult and hunt each other for dinner. Ironically, Yellowjackets showrunners defend their teenage-girl-as-cannibal conceit and argue that not allowing girls to be barbaric is in itself reductive. But what’s disappointing  to me is that these characters quickly shed the feminine skills that would help them—collaboration, communication, trust, interdependence—to reach for their knives instead.

To find a different approach to post-apocalyptic gender politics, we have to look towards depictions of dystopia that aren’t getting the multi-million dollar HBO treatment. Pick up any book by pioneering Black sci-fi writer Octavia Butler, and you’ll find a strong cast of women who survive not because they reject womanhood, but because they are women. In Butler’s Parable of the Sower, protagonist Lauren Olamina survives displacement, climate change, and a collapsing, fascist United States (sound familiar?) because she cultivates community with the “weak,” uses her intuition, and shares her knowledge and resources. And in adrienne maree brown’s speculative fiction series Grievers, Dune, a young queer woman immune to a racist, bio-weaponized virus that devastates Detroit, slowly creates distance from her more masculine, independent, and suspicious self by connecting with the traditions of the women in her family. These qualities—which exist pretty much in opposition to all the usual markers of masculinity—are the exact tools that make these women survivors and leaders.

Butler and brown’s depictions of womanhood lean on the true history of women surviving world-ending events. Writer Franny Choi argues in her latest work that the apocalypse is nothing new—it’s happened over and over again to marginalized people.

“What is more dystopian than the transatlantic slave trade? What is more dystopian than the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which effectively ended Japanese colonial rule?” Choi, who is Korean-American, said in an interview with NPR. “To know that my being here is dependent on someone having made a life out of an impossible situation makes me feel like I too can survive the things that are thrown at me.”

The post-apocalyptic genre, sadly, is often far more concerned about what happens to (usually white) men when their power and comfort is at stake, rather than a true reckoning of what destruction can do, and has done, to people already suffering in the sexist, racist world we live in. If womanhood and survival are linked arm-in-arm, it’s society that undermines that connection.

True femininity is a tool for better, more just worlds. Through community care, communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and empathy, femininity has already survived the worst, and will continue to do so. Maybe not on TV, but always where it counts.

[dramyhsturgis]

Why You Should Read The Last Man by Mary Shelley

One of the most relevant works you can read right now was published in 1826.

[bobmueller]

After - Chapter 27

Adam gets ready for his trip to Ohio. His ex-wife is going to help him check on his ex-wife.

I’d given myself an arbitrary deadline of next Monday to leave for Ohio and search for Sarah and Taylor. That meant I had a lot of work to cram into the next few days. I needed food, clothes, and gear for at least two weeks, based on what I saw on my way up from Jasper. I assumed that some communities would be recovering, but I had no idea what that was going to look like. And given the…

[solarpunkpresentspodcast]

Just gonna promote this again because it's ME IT IS MY RESEARCH ahem but also we talk about how it's related to solarpunk. I swear we get there, despite the super grim / totally generic and tropey cover image, there is solarpunk and hope. We just gotta get through the historical context first.

[katieaki]

🌟 Post-Apocalyptic Lesbian Cowgirl Mailman Choose-Your-Own Adventure 🌟 updated today! It's a big one! Read it for free on my patreon, here. Vote in our important, feelings-related poll here. Lou's ghost-related catastrophizing below the cut.

The feeling that she was going to die out there kept nipping at her heels. She couldn't shake it and she didn't want to die not knowing what the letter said. That was how you got stuck as a ghost. She felt herself going pale at the thought. Trapped in an eternity, an actual eternity, of misery in the middle of the desert, in the perpetual state of not knowing what the letter said. They would tell stories about her. 'If you ride out far enough due west of Hereafter, you may encounter a little cowgirl on the road. She'll be real pathetic and crying and heartbroke and you'll smell the scent of jasmine perfume in the air, so thick you can taste it. She's weeping for the love of a beautiful saloon girl. She'll look as real as you or me until you look down and see she has no feet.' The letter would blow away off her corpse or be destroyed by the elements, so she would never know what it said and would never be freed. Her only hope, slim as it was, would be to one day get exorcized by a priestess into the warm, black nothing of true death, where she might finally know peace. 

[joncronshawauthor]

🎉 Celebrating 7 Years & Gearing Up for Fantasycon | Author Diary – October 4, 2024 📚🎙️

🎉 7th Anniversary of the Author Diary Podcast: This week marks the seventh anniversary of my Author Diary podcast. It’s been a wonderful journey of sharing insights, challenges, and triumphs from my writing life. I’ve enjoyed connecting with all of you, and I’m grateful for your continued support. 📖 Current Writing and Reading: I’ve been making steady progress on “Forged in Blood,” the latest…

[mightymur]

[ISBW] Exploring the Post-Apocalyptic World with Waubgeshig Rice

S20 Ep23: In Which Mur and Waubgeshig Rice explore post-apocalyptic worlds. It’s like, ultimately, words are expendable. You just pick different ones. – Waubgeshig Rice Transcript (This post went live for supporters on August 21, 2024. If you want early, ad-free, and sometimes expanded episodes, support at Patreon or Substack!) Chapters: (00:00) Intro (01:45) Waubgeshig Rice dropped out of…

[matthewarnoldstern]

Apocalypse reconsidered

In the post-apocalyptic novel I'm writing, I question tropes in this genre and show how the end of the world can be the beginning of something better.

If you read my latest newsletter, you know that I’m working on a post-apocalyptic novel. (To receive future issues, use the signup form on this page.) I’m racing to finish it before we have an actual apocalypse, which can come from several sources (including the one I write about in my book). As I write, I’m questioning many beliefs people have about what an apocalypse would be like. Many of our…