What the End of the World says about science

What does our obsession with End of the World scenarios say about our relationship with science?

As I wrote about here, I’ve embarked on a post-apocalyptic reading project, to survey 60 years of post-Hiroshima End of the World science fiction, essentially the road to The Road.

Science is a mediator between humans and nature. This mediating role rests on the ability science gives us to predict, control and manipulate nature. Even science done out of pure curiosity is based on control: in order to obtain scientific knowledge, we manipulate nature by doing experiments. The prime test of our scientific theories is how predictive they are, how well they enable us to manipulate nature with predictable results. From a scientific perspective, it is impossible to understand nature without controlling it. Post-apocalyptic science fiction describes situations in which our ability to predict and control fails catastrophically. Nature escapes our control, through world-wide plagues, collisions with asteroids, or invasions by alien species; or else we’re done in by our own efforts at control, by nuclear war or human-induced ecological catastrophe.

Thus End of the World science fiction is a fine setting for fiction writers to explore the relationship between science and society. To what extent does civilization depend on the ability to control nature, i.e., depend on technology? How do our relationships with each other depend on the security of scientific control? Are there dark (animal?) elements of human nature, kept normally under wraps by civilization, that surface when science fails and civilization cracks up? In other words, how much does being human depend on how we relate to nature? What are the negative side-effects of our scientific quest to render nature tame and predictable? Have we deluded ourselves into believing we have more control than we really possess?

And so I’ve laid out a reading list for 60 years’ worth of End of the World novels. The pickins were slim some years, so here and there I stretch the genre. This is a project already in progress. The first few links (1947-1950) will take you to previously posted material, but starting with 1951, follow me here at The Finch and Pea. I’ll update the links below as I progress through the series.

UPDATE: The road to The Road has taken a detour, back to the 19th century beginnings of the genre. Follow along as I trace the two-century history of post-apocalyptic fiction.

1805 – The Last Man, Jean-Baptiste François Xavier Cousin de Grainville

1826 – The Last Man, Mary Shelley

1839 – “The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion”, Edgar Allen Poe

1843 – “The New Adam and Eve”, Nathaniel Hawthorne

1885 – After London, Richard Jefferies

1889 – The Last American, John Ames Mitchell

1893 – Omega: The Last Days of the World, Camille Flammarion

1895 – The Time Machine, H.G. Wells

1896 – The Underground Man, Gabriel Tarde

1898 – The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells

1901 – The Purple Cloud, M.P. Shiel

1906 – The Doomsman, Van Tassel Sutphen; see also Valhalla, George Long

1908 – The War in the Air, H.G. Wells; see also The Evacuation of England, Louis Pope Gratacap

1910 – The Death of the Earth, J.-H. Rosny aîné

1912 – The Night Land, William Hope Hodgson; see also The Scarlet Plague, Jack London, and  The Second Deluge, Garrett P. Serviss

1913 – The Poison Belt, Arthur Conan Doyle

1947 – Greener Than You Think, Ward Moore

1948 – Ape and Essence, Aldous Huxley

1949 – Earth Abides, George Stewart

1950 – City at World’s End, Edmond Hamilton (See also Genus Homo, L. Sprague de Camp and P. Schuyler Miller, Judith Miller’s Shadow on the Hearth, and Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles were published in book form this year.)

1951 – The Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham

1952 – The Long Loud Silence, Wilson Tucker (Also Star Man’s Son, Andre Alice Norton, Vault of the Ages Poul Anderson, and Bernard Wolfe’s Limbo)

1953 – Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke (Also noteworthy are Henry Kuttner’s Mutant and John Wyndham’s The Kraken Wakes.)

1954 – I Am Legend, Richard Matheson (Also The Dark Millennium, A. J. Merak, Hero’s Walk, by Robert Crane, and World In Eclipse, by William Dexter.)

1955 – The Long Tomorrow, Leigh Brackett (See also The Chrysalids, John Wyndham.)

1956 – No Blade of Grass, John Christopher (See also Arthur C. Clarke’s The City and the Stars.)

1957 – On The Beach, Nevil Shute

1958 – The Tide Went Out, Charles Eric Maine

1959 – Alas, Babylon, Pat Frank (See also We Who Survived, Stirling Noel.)

1960 – A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter Miller (And Dark December, Alfred Coppel.)

1961 – The Wind From Nowhere, J.G. Ballard

1962 – Hothouse, Brian Aldiss (See also The Drowned World, J.G. Ballard)

1963 – Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut

1964 – The Burning World, J.G. Ballard (See also The Penultimate Truth, Philip Dick, The Wanderer, Fritz Leiber, and Greybeard, Brian Aldiss)

1965 – The Genocides, Thomas Disch (Also Dr. Bloodmoney or: How We Got Along After The Bomb, Philip Dick.)

1966 – This Immortal, Roger Zelazny (See also Edgar Pangborn’s The Judgment of Eve and The Crystal World, J.G. Ballard)

1967 – The Einstein Intersection, Samuel Delany (See also Ice, Anna Kavan)

1968 – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick

1969 – Damnation Alley, Roger Zelazny

1970 – The Day After Doomsday, Rena Vale (See also The Incredible Tide, Alexander Key)

1971 – The Day After Judgment, James Blish

1972 – The Sheep Look Up, John Brunner

1973 – Hiero’s Journey, Sterling Lanier (And Edmund Cooper, The Cloud Walker.)

1974 – Inverted World, Christopher Priest

1975 – Dhalgren, Samuel Delany

1976 – Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang, Kate Wilhelm  (Also Deus Irae, Philip Dick and Roger Zelazny.)

1977 – Lucifer’s Hammer, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

1978 – Dreamsnake, Vonda McIntyre (See also The Stand, Stephen King)

1979 – Down to a Sunless Sea, David Graham (See also, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams, Engine Summer, John Crowley, and Shikasta, Doris Lessing.)

1980 – Riddley Walker, Russell Hoban

1981 – Starship and Haiku, Somtow Sucharitkul (See also The Quiet Earth, Craig Harrison.)

1982 – A Rose for Armageddon, Hilbert Schenk

1983 – Orion Shall Rise, Poul Anderson

1984 – The Wild Shore, Kim Stanley Robinson (Also Emergence, David Palmer.)

1985 – Fiskadoro, Denis Johnson (See also The Postman, David Brin, This Is The Way The World Ends, James Morrow, and The World Ends in Hickory Hollow, Ardath Mayhar.)

1986 – Nature’s End, Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka (See also, Watchmen, Alan Moore and David Gibbons)

1987 – The Forge of God, Greg Bear (See also Swan Song, Robert McCammon)

1988 – At Winter’s End, Robert Silverberg (See also The Last Ship, William Brinkley)

1989 – Lilith’s Brood (Xenogenesis), Octavia Butler

1990 – Wolf and Iron, Gordon Dickson (See also, A Gift Upon The Shore, M.K. Wren)

1991 – Fallen Angels, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn

1992 – Children of Men, P.D. James

1993 – The Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler

1994 – Queen City Jazz, Kathleen Ann Goonan

1995 – Amnesia Moon, Jonathan Lethem

1996 – The Killing Star, Charles Pellegrino and George Zebrowski

1997 – Eternity Road, Jack McDevitt (Also In The Country of Last Things, Paul Auster.)

1998 – Aftermath, Charles Sheffield

1999 – Mara and Dann, Doris Lessing

2000 – The Slynx, Tatyana Tolstaya  (original Russian publication was in 2000)

2001 – The Night of the Triffids, Simon Clark, or possibly The Aftermath, Samuel Florman

2002 – The Tain, China Mieville or The Year Zero, Jeff Long (See also, Y: The Last Man, Brian Vaughn and Pia Guerra)

2003 – Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood

2004 – Dies the Fire, S.M. Stirling

2005 – It’s only Temporary, Eric Shapiro, The Possibility of an Island, Michel Houellebecq

2006 – The Road, Cormac McCarthy (Also Max Brooks, World War Z.)

Read along, posts your thoughts, and list your suggestions for other post-apocalyptic novels. And check out the rest of our science fiction posts here at the Finch and Pea.