Fictional apocalypses

[11NigelTufnel]

I enjoy a good apocalypse film or series, but I often find that I get annoyed with the silly plots though and want to know much more about the practicalities. I started watching Lost, but quickly stopped when it turned out to not be about surviving a plane crash and all mystic woo. 28 weeks later annoyed me because they moved back to an urban area with no clear line of sight for zombie interlopers. It was also a time when there would still have been millions of dead to eat, so the rat population would have exploded and been there to spread the rage disease.

No one ever seems to worry about food security and start farming, they just assume that supermarkets will feed them forever. Even though a supermarket is probably the most dangerous place to go at the beginning of an apocalypse. I have never seen a movie apocalypse consider that people will release their dogs before they die and with no other apex predators (in UK), there would quickly be packs of feral dogs. Or the damage that deer would do without being culled.

Has anyone actually written a realistic apocalypse taking into account what would really happen? Obviously I am assuming that zombies, extinction level pandemics and killer robots are realistic here!

Yes, that’s it, thank you! I remember thinking it sounded interesting, but never got round to watching it.

Glad to see that other people remember Children of the Dust.

A couple more recommendations - the books Bannerless and The Wild Dead by Carrie Vaughn are set in a post-apocalyptic society, with some flashbacks to the apocalypse itself.

Y: The Last Man is a series of graphic novels that start with the almost instant death of every man on earth. The first book makes the point that this means most pilots are dead (and in fact many planes crashed when it happened), most cargo ship crews are dead, etc, but there’s also the detail that many of the roads are impassable as they’re full of cars where the driver died, and it takes a long time to clear them. An interesting point that I hadn’t seen anywhere else.

I really loved the series Snowpiercer (the one with Jennifer Connery and Sean Bean) -- apocalypse is caused by the earth freezing after the powers that be, seeded the clouds incorrectly. Survivors live on a train that is perpetually circling the earth. There are some unbelievable bits but overall I really enjoyed it.

Worse yet, she's had to marry her son.

@Beautyofthedark that's the chestnut! Thanks!

Lockdown by Peter May. A book not a film but a totally relatable scenario of a virulent flu with London at the epicentre. It was written in 2005 but rejected by publishers because they didn't believe that UK citizens would ever accept that sort of restriction to their freedom.

The Mandibles, more about economic apocalypse, has continued to haunt me. It's very good on human behaviour in unprecedented circumstances and foretold things like toilet paper shortages which we then saw in the pandemic.

I also loved The Passage by Justin Cronin. Total classic of the genre. Was written before Covid and tells about how a virus which started off in bats but spread to humans decimates the population but also turns many/some into sort of vampires. These vampires are then hunting survivors. There’s definitely some farming going on.

@TipulophobiaIsReal 😂 I'd take dh and dd too though
@Qwerty21 we'd have very little choice, we live in a small ex mining village in a tiny house. Very few supplies beyond the first week and lots of neighbours to fight for resources. I think a Dawn of the Dead existence in Asda is preferable to going to the local pub, having a nice cold pint and waiting for it to blow over 😂

Shaun of the dead is probably more realistic than most

I am Legend

I don't know if anyones said it yet. But in 28 days\weeks later there are no zombies. The people are infected not dead.

Thank you for this great thread.

Can’t believe a PP has described ‘The Death of Grass’ as cosy catastrophe. It’s shockingly, and casually, violent. John Christopher clearly believes civilisation is the thinnest of thin veneers.

On the John Christopher front, The Prince in Waiting trilogy is very powerful. And it’s only when I reread The Tripods as an adult that I really understood the last couple of chapters. Humanity is already beginning to tear itself apart without its alien overlords.

Slightly off-piste but the History of Bees by by Maja Lunde is about the eventual dystopian breakdown of the human race, with three linked stories, all focussing on bees, starting in medieval times, then into the near future when there are hardly any bees to pollinate plants. It's a great read.

There have been two adaptations that I know of. One in 1994 and one in 2020.

The Stand https://g.co/kgs/aa4ZuXH

The Stand https://g.co/kgs/w76uQgt

The earlier one isn't perfect but I prefer it. The more recent one was edited with a butcher's knife. Rather than allowing the epic journey to unfold, it starts in the middle and then jumps around so crazily that people would struggle to follow the plot at all unless they were very familiar with the story already.

Looks like the 1994 version is free to watch on YouTube. It's definitely worth a watch!

Left field suggestion, but I rather liked the ‘Married with Zombies’ series of books (and I’m a zombie nut). The whole premise, to me, was so different to usual, and having to deal with a partner you want to leave in the middle of an apocalypse seemed intriguing. I wouldn’t say it was the best written thing ever but it kept me entertained. And it has plenty of ‘how the fudge do we deal with this practicality?’ stuff.

@FirstTim3Mummy I watched the last train when it was on TV and really enjoyed it. Now I see that it had Sacha Dhawan in one of his first roles.

@Qwerty21 I love that you have thought this through properly. The first place that violent gangs would head is the supermarket. If you were barricaded inside, the fresh section goods would be going off very quickly, so imagine the smell, maggots, disease potential etc. I would want a quick raid on a chemist, then stay the hell away.

@Fuhjutvb you're right, they aren't proper zombies. I am not sure I would care what caused it if they were chasing me though. 28 days later was absolutely brilliant, the terror of walking through London and it being completely empty. I was willing him to be quite and stop drawing attention to himself. 28 weeks later just made me angry that they would all be so stupid.

Perhaps because I imagine almost everyone would kill themselves. I would. I have no desire to live the rest of my life in fear of zombie attacks, farming vegetables and wondering how I will feed myself come winter.

🤣🤣🤣 oops lol

I like Day of the Triffids and War of the Worlds. V v retro sci fi.

'stillicide' by Cynan Jones. It was serialised into 12 episodes for radio, and is a short book.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/oct/23/stllicide-cynan-jones-review

About water management, and a water train / icebergs etc. Brilliant idea.

Are you thinking of Jericho? Nuclear bombs going off in the USA. Then there is an EMP so they are virtually cut off.

It did feature a few things like the town having a BBQ to use up all the frozen food that was defrosting.

Trying to make alcohol for the medical centre.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jericho_(2006_TV_series)

I think an interesting premise would be to set something in the Amish community because they are already set up to live without electricity and plumbing.

@CuppaWhiteTea That book wound me up so much.

EVERY male in it can ride a motorbike and EVERY female can't.

I enjoyed a lot of it but that was infuriating.

The thing about setting up a farm is that most people have no experience of producing enough food to be fully self sufficient. I know people have allotments, but spending a few hours at the weekends and coming home with a couple of cauliflowers and some strawberries isn't really the same thing. Even if you did manage to plant enough volume and variety you still have to wait for it all to grow. And that's assuming the weather is agreeable.