Do you enjoy post-apocalyptic fiction, and do you see parallels with the current volcano situation?

[bran]

I do, of course, have great sympathy for those who are stuck in difficult situations/locations because they can't fly, but I can't help but be fascinated by what is a sort of mini-apocalypse. We have in a sense been bumped back to the 1930s in terms of international travel. I am surprised both at the sheer number of people who are affected and at how life is mundanely trotting along despite this.

I liked Alain de Botton's thoughts on the current situation, he also seems to have gone a bit post-apocalyptic in his view.

It's reminding me of the fuel strike. Whe the roads were empty and quiet and we all had to walk and plan everything. I am enjoying it with teh proviso that I assume it won't last forever.

I love post-apocalyptic fiction (although I haven't read anything good in a long time). I think its fascinating as well.

I wish I had a job where I could study post-apocalyptic scenarios all day. Do you think there is such a job?

I think there are jobs that are basically disaster planning Paula, but I imagine they are fairly prosaicly to do with ensuring clean water supply and that sort of thing.

It seems to me that most modern apocalypse books deal with things that cause most of the population to be wiped out so population dislocation isn't much of a factor. There are older books (On the Beach, Death of Grass) where the population is essentially left intact, but because they were written before cheap mass travel they don't deal much with the specifics of population dislocation either.

The current situation has set me thinking about what would happen if a supervolcano blew (eg Yellowstone Park). It's likely that you wouldn't be able to fly in any part of the globe after that, plus there would be food shortages because of bad harvests and an inability to transport the harvest that succeeds.

They are lucky in a way with Yellowstone because it is observed all the time. They think there are supervolcanos that nobody knows about because there is no cone.

Has anybody read Liz Jenson's 'The Rapture' as that's the first thing I thought of re: the volcano.

Yes, but Alain de Botton is an overpaid twat who can probably use his trust-fund to get everywhere by taxi.

I quite like Alain de Botton in small doses. Agree he isn't really connected to reality though.

I haven't read The Rapture, it has extremely mixed reviews on Amazon.

Do you think having warning that Yellowstone was about to blow would make much difference Paula? I suppose if people took the warnings seriously then the immediate vacinity could be evacuated, and people elsewhere in the world could choose not to take outward flights on business or holiday in case they couldn't get home. But there's very little that could be done about the changes to the weather and the effect on harvests.

I wonder if this situation might be a push for new technology to be developed, an engine that will not be affected by ash perhaps. Or super-trains that travel across continents at high speed, perhaps in vacuum tunnels so that there is no wind resistance.

Post-apocalyptic fiction often seems to focus on things that have been lost due to whatever disaster happened, but historically problems often lead to a leap forward in development.

janeite I finished reading the rapture last week, then I woke up in the morning and heard about the volcano! Was pretty freaky because there are some (albeit small) parallels mainly the disaster in Iceland sweeping down and affecting the UK. I felt weird all day

Yes! What did you think of the book? I liked it a lot but thought the ending was a bit predictable and silly.