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!

I see someone else mentioned a book that deals with the after-effects of an EMP. Along those lines, the book One Second After does a great job of showing how we would be affected if an EMP went off in our atmosphere. It is a novel, so not a text book. Chilling. When I first read it I told everyone I cared about to read the book. Really good read; horrifying, scary, interesting, sad. There are two additional books but I didn't think they were as good as the first. Highly recommend.

As would I, as a back up, also things like chicken manure pellets. I already have heritage seeds, which are much more useful long term, seeds aren't viable forever and I would want to be able to save seed. Farming is slow though, I'd get next to nothing right now, a bit of kale, mustard, cabbage. You also need to know that you are staying put, it's much more a long term option.

When I was a supply teacher I did a few weeks near the Welsh border.

Normally I'm in Birmingham or Coventry or another city and for the 'Equality and Diversity' unit I get the class to do a poster of things like the languages they speak, faith, many have parents or grandparents who come from far and wide and the poster has numerous languages, cultures, types of food they eat etc etc.

Well on the border everyone was white, most spoke some Welsh and one spoke French so we did 'E and D for the zombie apocalypse'.

That's why if the apocalypse is on the horizon I'm heading there.

Between them there was the ability to drive a tractor, knife throwing, alcohol brewing, shooting ability and having a gun, knowing how to skin and gut a rabbit.

@sashh But will they want you? I'm sure you're adorable, but would would you be bringing to the party? I think you need to move now and embed yourself. We had a lot of lockdown and post-lockdown incomers and they have not been welcomed by the natives. I moved here over 10 years ago and am only just accepted. There a John Christopher book (The Guardians?) where the city dwellers are kind of imprisoned in the squalor of the cities so as not to clutter up the countryside where life is more civilised. This is entirely plausible!

Thank you for all the book ideas.
I've ordered a good few for my holiday 🙏🏻👏👏

@MrsBobtonTrent yes, I have skills they don't. I'm great at organising but I can knit, sew, crochet and I can also do some basic electronics so if there has been an EMP I can build a basic radio (I have a drawer full of electronic bits and pieces).

But they might just learn my skills and throw me to the zombies.

I thought the book was terrific but the film wasn't great.

I’ve just bought Brother in the Land

One second after is the best post apocalypse book and more realistic I think

@Sideorderofchips

Looks interesting so I've just ordered the Audible copy. I like to listen instead of reading as I can get in 2 hours a day on my bus journeys to work - I can have a few chapters and still look out of the bus window.
I listened to Leave The World Behind last year in anticipation of the Netflix film but it was really awful so haven't actually watched it yet. The book just bizarrely rushed the end and then just ended in such a way that it was almost like it was someone's creative writing essay and they were at their submission deadline!

This thread is so knowledgeable on apocalypses! Thanks to everyone who suggested things. I have been listening to lockdown on the library app, and have the mandibles and the history of bees lined up. The stand seemed a bit epic to commit to. I loved the children of men book and agree that the film wasn't quite as good, but had good parts. The day of the triffids is always a bit too close to my actual gardening style 😂

I read the book in advance of watching the Netflix film too.

I hated the writing style. The writer seemed too focused on spending pages and pages describing the most minuscule item, and in-depth the pre-pubescent daughter's outline in her swimming costume.. made me feel 🤢

This looks good, have just bought the kindle version.

It's actually way more realistic of the perils of food, medicine and people

@CantFindTheBeat

You're right - it was very poorly written. It ended so suddenly that I thought that my tablet had developed a fault and missed a huge bunch of chapters but sadly no, tablet was fine and the writing was defective 😆

Have just finished "One Second After" from this thread recommendations. It was really good but disturbingly realistic.
I found myself coming to the conclusion that in the event of anything apocalyptic you just need to get as far into the wilderness as possible as quickly as possible and live off the land in a cabin.
But then the temptation to have community is also great for sharing and company.

@MrsBobtonTrent I loved John Wyndham when I was younger but yes to male middleclass white attitudes!

One small rant of his was that women will have to stop relying on men and being the helpless female. Damn that was annoying - 50 years ago women weren't allowed to do woodwork, metalwork, or even heavy labour. You tried and got told that's men's work and not for you.

He really was rather oblivious, wasn't he?

But I really enjoyed The Kraken Wakes and some others. The Kraken Wakes foretold what might happen during significantly rising sea levels, in among the attack-by-aliens storyline.

It feels like there is a gap in the market for a book/ film of the type we’re taking about on this thread. Maybe not a film as I guess it wouldn’t pack out the cinemas- it’s quite niche 😀

Oh please do! I definitely don't have the time or imagination to write a book, but would love it if someone's wrote the perfect apocalypse.

I was stewing this week over the Avengers movie where half the population has been dusted and they bring them back 5 years later. Genuinely don't know how on earth this was conceived as a good idea. Food production would have been halved, so there would be mass famine. The returners would have no access to the financial system and their assets would have been redistributed. Hardly going to help family relations if dad wants your house repossessed, or your husband blew the lot on booze and hookers because you were dead. And that's assuming that people were dusted equally across professions, not much going to go well if all the returners are the ones with no life skills. I will never watch another one again in protest. Special dispensation may be made for Thor as he is so pretty.