is set in a world or civilization after such a disaster. The time frame may be immediately after the catastrophe, focusing on the travails or psychology of survivors, or considerably later, often including the theme that the existence of pre-catastrophe civilization has been forgotten or mythologized. Post-apocalyptic stories often take place in an agrarian, non-technological future world, or a world where only scattered elements of technology remain.
There is a considerable degree of blurring between this form of science fiction and that which deals with ''false utopias'' or Dystopic Societies . A work of apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic fiction might also be called a ruined Earth story, or Dying Earth if the apocalypse is sufficiently dire.
For the most part, western literature and cinema on the apocalypse or in a post-apocalyptic setting tend to follow American mores, with the exception of British apocalyptic fiction. While American and Western apocalyptic and postapocalyptic fiction tend to emphasize the fantastic, with the possiblity of world-ending meteor collisions, mutants, and jury-rigged vehicles roaming a desolate countryside, British fiction is more pessimistic in tone.
Post-apocalyptic literature was not as widespread in Communist countries as the government prohibited depictions of the nations falling apart. However, some depictions of similar-themed science fiction did make it past government censors, such as Andrei Tarkovsky '' Stalker '', made during Russia 's Soviet era, which features the bombed-out landscape and survival-based motives of its characters and was inspired in part by the 1957 accident at the Mayak Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Plant . Recently, Wang Lixiong's '' Yellow Peril '' was banned in the People's Republic Of China because of its depiction of the collapse of the Chinese Communist Party , but has been widely pirated and distributed in the country.
Due to the Atomic Bombing Of Hiroshima And Nagasaki in its modern past, Japan ese Popular Culture is rife with apocalyptic themes. Much of Japan's Manga and Anime is loaded with apocalyptic imagery.Murakami, T.: ''Little Boy : The Arts of Japan's Exploding Subculture'', Yale University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-30-010285-2
The use of post-apocalyptic contexts in movies and the typical accompanying imagery, such as endless deserts or damaged cityscapes, clothing made of Leather and Animal Skin , and marauding gangs of bandits, is now common and the subject of frequent parody.
The number of apocalyptic-themed B-movie s in the 1980s and 1990s has been attributed to film producers on post-apocalyptic films working around their low production budgets by renting scrapyards, unused factories, and abandoned buildings, saving them the cost of constructing sets. As a result, many films that would have been rejected by major studios on the basis of script or concept ended up being made, while others stories were adapted to a post-apocalyptic setting following the success of the '' Mad Max '' series.
Some apocalyptic stories have been criticized as implausible or as scaremongering propaganda. Since they often play on a topical fear, they can be seen to date rather quickly, as seen in the work of John Christopher .
- The Japanese Manga and 1988 Anime film '' Akira '' by Katsuhiro Otomo
- '' Alas, Babylon '', a 1959 novel about the aftermath of nuclear war
- '' The Amtrak Wars '' epic novel series by Patrick Tilley
- '' Ape And Essence '', a screenplay-novel by Aldous Huxley
- '' Apokalipsa Wedlug Pana Jana '' - Robert J. Szmidt 's novel
- The Japanese Manga (and subsequent Anime adaptions) '' Appleseed '' by Masamune Shirow
- ''Autobahn nach Poznan'' - Andrzej Ziemianski 's short story
- The movie '' The Blood Of Heroes ''
- '' A Boy And His Dog '' - Harlan Ellison 's short story and 1975 film
- '' A Canticle For Leibowitz '' and its sequel ''Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman'', both by Walter M. Miller, Jr
- The movie '' Cherry 2000 ''
- The novel '' Children Of The Dust '' by Louise Lawerence
- ''
- The movie '' City Limits ''
- Both the TV series and film '' Whoops Apocalypse ''
- The movies '' Cyborg '' and '' Cyborg 2 ''
- '' Damnation Alley '' - Roger Zelazny 's novel, and the film made of it
- '' Dark Universe '' - Daniel F. Galouye 's novel from 1961
- '' The Day After '', a 1983 film about the effects of nuclear war on a Kansas town
- The film '' Day The World Ended ''
- '' Deathlands '' - by James Axler — A series of books set a hundred years after a nuclear exchange between the U.S. and USSR in 2001 destroys most of the world
- The movie '' Def-Con 4 ''
- '' Delicatessen '' - Marc Caro 's black comedy
- The film '' Le Dernier Combat '' (aka '' The Last Combat '') - directed by Luc Besson
- The
- '' Deus Irae '' - Philip K. Dick (in collaboration with Roger Zelazny ).
- The German novel '' Die Letzten Kinder Von Schewenborn '' by Gudrun Pausewang
- '' Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? '' - Philip K. Dick
- '' Down To A Sunless Sea '' - David Graham 's novel of the last plane out of a fall-of-Saigon-like New York City
- '' Dr Bloodmoney '' - Philip K. Dick
- '' Emergence '' - David R. Palmer 's novel
- '' Fail-safe '' - The novel by Eugene Burdick , the movie of the same name, and the television live-action play '' Fail-Safe ''.
- Fallout Series - The Computer Role-playing Game
- '' Farnham's Freehold '' - Robert A. Heinlein
- The anime/manga series '' Fist Of The North Star ''
- '' Fitzpatrick's War '' by Theodore Judson .
- '' Gamma World '' - The Role-playing Game from TSR, Inc. , the makers of '' Dungeons & Dragons ''.
- '' The Gate To Women's Country '', a novel by Sheri S. Tepper
- ''Gibbon's Decline and Fall'', a novel by Sheri S. Tepper
- ''The Greatwinter Trilogy '', three novels by Sean McMullen
- '' The Handmaid's Tale '', a novel by Margaret Atwood
- The movie '' Hell Comes To Frogtown ''
- The Horseclans novel series by Robert Adams
- '' Hungry City Chronicles '', a science fiction series by Phillip Reeve
- The Judge Dredd comics franchise, first popularized in 1977 by John Wagner , Carlos Ezquerra and Pat Mills .
- The Short Film '' La Jetée '' ( 1962 ) by Chris Marker
- The Japanese film '' Castle In The Sky '' by Hayao Miyazaki .
- '' The Last Ship '', a 1988 novel by William Brinkley
- The short story "Let The Ants Try" written by Frederik Pohl under the Pseudonym James MacCreigh .
- '' Level 7 '' - Mordecai Roshwald 's novel
- '' Logan's Run '' by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson , and the film based on it.
- The '' Mad Max '' trilogy
- The novel '' Malevil '' by Robert Merle
- Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles .
- '' Masters Of The Fist '' and '' The Long Mynd '' - Edward P. Hughes ' novels
- The movie '' Miracle Mile ''
- The Morrow Project - The Role-playing Game from Timeline Ltd.
- The Japanese film '' Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind '' by Hayao Miyazaki.
- '' Neuroshima '' - The Polish Role-playing Game from Portal Publishing
- '' On The Beach '' - Nevil Shute 's novel, and the films based on it.
- '' Pebble In The Sky '' by Isaac Asimov . (A later book, '' Robots And Empire '', gave a different explanation.)
- The series '' The Pelbar Cycle '' by Paul O. Williams
- '' The Penultimate Truth '' - Philip K. Dick
- The Visual Novel '' Planetarian ''.
- The '' Planet Of The Apes '' film series (Based on the novel '' Monkey Planet " by Pierre Boule
- '' The Postman '' - David Brin 's novel and the 1997 movie of the same name.
- '' Post-Nuke '' - a dramatic Webcomic that takes place in a nuclear winter.
- '' Pulling Through '' - Dean Ing
- The film '' Radioactive Dreams ''
- '''', the Stanley Kubrick movie made from that novel.
- Red Dawn - John Milius ' 1984 movie.
- '' Riddley Walker '' - Russell Hoban 's novel
- '' Six-String Samurai '' - action/comedy/musical film.
- '' Sexmisja '' - The Polish movie
- The Shannara Series by Terry Brooks , a fantasy book set after WWIII destroys all technology and warps the human race into other species.
- The movie '' Steel Dawn '', post-'' Road Warrior '' ultra-low budget stuff
- The movie '' Stryker '', derivative of '' Road Warrior ''
- ''The Survivalist'' series by Jerry Ahern (first novel ''Total War'' from 1981 )
- ''Swan Song'' by Robert R. McCammon
- The film '' Testament ''
- '' This Is The Way The World Ends '' - James Morrow 's novel
- The film '' Threads '' BBC docu-drama showing Nuclear War
- '' Time Capsule '' - Mitch Berman 's novel
- The Traveler novel series by D. B. Drumm (first novel ''First, You Fight'' from 1984 )
- '''' - The Role-playing Game from Game Designer's Workshop
- Numerous episodes of '' The Twilight Zone '' and its revivals, including " The Old Man In The Cave "; " Time Enough At Last "; " A Little Peace And Quiet "; " Voices In The Earth "; " Shelter Skelter "; and Quarantine ".
- '' V For Vendetta '' by Alan Moore
- The '' Vampire Hunter D '' novels and Anime films, set ten thousand years after a nuclear war occurs in 1999 .
- '' Warday (novel) '' - Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka 's novel
- The film '' The War Game '' by Peter Watkins
- '' Wasteland '' - The Computer Role-playing Game .
- '' Wizards '' - Ralph Bakshi's film about a good wizard and his evil brother some two millennia after Armageddon
- The movie '' World Gone Wild ''
- '' The World Jones Made '' - Philip K. Dick
- '' World Without End '' - Edward Bernd's {Link without Title} film starring Hugh Marlowe and the film debut of Rod Taylor . Robust 20th Century men help pale nerds and their beautiful women emerge from underground and retake the post WWIII surface from mutants.
- ''Yellow Peril'', a Chinese novel by activist Wang Lixiong under the pseudonym Bao Mi, about a nuclear civil war in the People's Republic Of China .
- The novel '' The Alien Years '' ( 1998 ) by Robert Silverberg
- The novel '' Battlefield Earth '' by L. Ron Hubbard and the Razzie award winning movie based on the novel
- The film and original television series Battlestar Galactica
- The SNES/PS1 video game Chrono Trigger , where modern civilization is at risk of being destroyed by an Alien Parasite in 1999 AD .
- The Computer And Video Game '' Destroy All Humans! ''
- The novel '' Footfall '' by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
- '' The Forge Of God '' by Greg Bear
- The anime '' Genesis Climber Mospeada ''
- The Computer And Video Game '' Half-Life 2 ''
- '' The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy '' by Douglas Adams (in several media)
- The film '' I Come In Peace '', directed by Craig R. Baxley
- Independence Day (film) , a 1996 film
- '' Invasion Of The Body Snatchers ''
- John Wyndham 's novel '' The Kraken Wakes ''
- The Computer And Video Game Manhunter
- Tim Burton 's film '' Mars Attacks! '' ( 1996 ), based on the Trading Card series '' Mars Attacks ( 1962 )
- Stephen King 's novella, '' The Mist ''
- '' The Ophiuchi Hotline '', '' Steel Beach '', and the rest of the Eight Worlds Series , by John Varley
- '' Outlanders '' series by Mark Ellis aka James Axler
- ''Outlanders'', a Japanese Manga by Johji Manabe .
- Robert A. Heinlein 's '' The Puppet Masters ''
- The film '' Signs '', directed by M. Night Shyamalan
- The anime '' The Super Dimension Fortress Macross '' and its sequels
- John Carpenter 's films '' The Thing '' and '' They Live ''
- Don Bluth 's animated film '' Titan A.E. ''.
- John Christopher 's '' The Tripods ''
- The TV-series '' V ''
- The novel '' The Visitors '' ( 1980 ) by Clifford D. Simak
- H. G. Wells ' '' The War Of The Worlds '' (in several media)
- TV Series (1966) " The Invaders " -Created by Quin Martin and Larry Cohen US
- TV Series (1970) " UFO " - Gerry Anderson Production UK
- The novel '' Aftermath '' by Charles Sheffield , in which Alpha Centauri goes Supernova and causes cataclysmic climate change
- The 1976-1979 TV series '' Ark II '' - pollution devastates humanity
- The novel '' Cat's Cradle '' by Kurt Vonnegut , in which all the water on Earth freezes
- The novels '' Clade '' and '' Crache '' by Mark Budz
- The film '' The Day After Tomorrow '' written, directed and produced by Roland Emmerich . Based in part on the novel '' The Coming Global Superstorm '' by Art Bell & Whitley Strieber
- The novel '' The Death Of Grass (UK)/No Blade Of Grass (US) '' by John Christopher , which was made into the film '' No Blade Of Grass '', in which a virus that destroys plants causes massive famine and the breakdown of society
- The novel '' Deus X '' by Norman Spinrad , the results of Global Warming
- The novel '' The Drowned World '' by J.G. Ballard - Climate change causes flooding
- The Novel " The Burning World(US)/The Drought(UK) " by J.G. Ballard - a super drought evaporates all water on earth
- The Novel " The Crystal World " by J.G. Ballard - Jungle in Africa starts to crystallize all life and expands outward
- The novel '' Dust '' by Charles Pellegrino , in which all the insect species on Earth die out, and the ecology crashes as a result
- The novel '' Fallen Angels '' by Larry Niven , Jerry Pournelle , and Michael Flynn , in which space-based civilization exists despite the government's wishes during an ice age.
- The novel '' The Fifth Sacred Thing '' by Starhawk
- The collection of stories '' Flight Of The Horse '' by Larry Niven
- The novel '' Greybeard '' by Brian Aldiss , in which the human race becomes sterile
- The novel '' Hothouse '' by Brian Aldiss , which presents a dying Earth where vegetation dominates and animal life is all but extinct. Originally published in the United States in abridged form as “The Long, Hot Afternoon of Earth.”
- The novel '' The Ice Schooner '' by Michael Moorcock which is set in a new ice age on earth
- The novel '' In The Drift '' by Michael Swanwick (also an Alternate History Story ), in which the 1979 Three Mile Island reactor incident resulted in a very large release of radioactivity, devastating the Northeastern U.S.
- The film '' It's All About Love '' written, directed and produced by Thomas Vinterberg
- The novel '' The Last Gasp '' (1983) by Trevor Hoyle
- The vidoegame ''Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker'' in which a flood has decimated the fictonal world of Hyrule .
- The novel '' Make Room! Make Room! '' by Harry Harrison , which was made into a 1973 film '' Soylent Green '' directed by Richard Fleischer
- The novel '' Nature's End '' by Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka.
- The manga and film '' Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind '' by Hayao Miyazaki
- The novel '' Oryx And Crake '' by Margaret Atwood
- The anime '' Overman King Gainer '', which depicts humanity living in domes after an ecological disaster.
- The film '' Quintet '' directed by Robert Altman
- The film '' Serenity '' and television show '' Firefly '' by Joss Whedon , in which the Earth's resources and biosphere get used up prompting mass exodus for the stars.
- The novel '' The Sheep Look Up '' by John Brunner , in which the United States is overwhelmed by environmental irresponsibility and Authoritarianism .
- The film '' Silent Running '' directed by Douglas Trumbull
- The novel '' The Snow '' by Adam Roberts , in which the world is buried under Kilometres of unnatural Snow .
- The novel trilogy '' Snowfall '' by '' Mitchell Smith '' (Snowfall, Kingdom River, and Moonrise) in which North America has retreated into hunter-gatherer societies and military kingdoms some 500 years after an apocalyptic Ice Age .
- The film '' Ultimate Warrior '' - (1975) starring Yul Brynner
- The film '' Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea '', where the atmosphere catches on fire.
- The film '' Waterworld '' starring Kevin Costner
- The novel '' The World In Winter(UK)/The Long Winter(US) '' by John Christopher in which a decrease in radiation from the sun causes a new ice age.
- The film '' The Quiet Earth '' written by Craig Harrison
- The novel '' Ill Wind '' by Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason in which a microbe consumes all materials based on petroleum.
- The Novel " The Ragged Edge(US)/A Winkle In The Skin (UK)" - John Christopher - Civilization destroyed by massive world-wide earthquakes
- The Novel " The Wind From Nowhere " by J.G. Ballard - First published novelWorld destroyed by increasingly powerful winds
- The Film " The Day The Earth Caught Fire " (1964) - Earth starts hurtling toward sun as a result of man's nuclear testing
''See main article: Cybernetic Revolt ''
- The evangelical Christian film series 1972 '' A Thief In The Night '', sometimes referred to as the ''Mark IV'' films.
- The young adult book series '' Countdown '' by Daniel Parker , in which a demon wipes out the entire human population save for teenagers.
- The role-playing game, in which the Earth is reduced to a haunted, radioactive wasteland as a result of the Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse ravaging the planet shortly after an eldritch nuclear war.
- '' The End Of The Age '', by Pat Robertson
- The book and film series '' Left Behind '', concerning the Rapture .
- The Anime and Manga '' Neon Genesis Evangelion '' in which over half of the human population is killed and the survivors are subsequently attacked by beings of apparently mystical nature named " Angels ."
- The film '' Prince Of Darkness '', directed by John Carpenter , in which all Hell breaks loose.
- The film ''The Rapture'' (1991)
- The novel Shade's Children by Garth Nix , in which a group of extradimensional beings invade earth and cause all human adults to vanish.
- The novel '' The Taking '', by Dean Koontz in which a malevolent demonic force kills off the majority of the human race.
- '' The Third Millennium '' (1995) and '' The Fourth Mellennium '' (1996), by Paul Meier
- The Tribe 8 role-playing game, in which sadistic demons invade (and conquer) the Earth.
- The CLAMP anime '' X/1999 '' in which the seven Dragons of Heaven battle the Dragons of Earth to save the world.
- ''After London'' by Richard Jefferies ; the nature of the catastrophe is never stated, except that apparently most of the human race quickly dies out, leaving England to revert to nature.
- Much of the work of J. G. Ballard , in which the current era is sometimes described as the ''pre-Third'', referring to World War III .
- The 1961 film '' The Day The Earth Caught Fire '', directed by Val Guest
- Destructomundo , Podcast covering numerous genres and sub-genres of apocalyptic/post apocalyptic science-fiction, the show often takes an irreverent view of many world ending scenarios.
- The film '' Crack In The World ''
- The Novels '' Dies The Fire '' and '' The Protector's War '' by S. M. Stirling , in which a disaster of indeterminate cause (most speculation within the novels concerns an all-powerful outside force ie. aliens or an act of god/gods) causes electricity, combustion engines, and modern explosives to cease function.
- The Manga and movie '' Dragon Head '', by Mochizuki Minetaro
- The machinima '' Red Vs Blue '', the main characters are sent to the future in what they believe is a post-apocalyptic world.
- Jules Verne 's '' The Eternal Adam '', in one night all the emerged land submerges and some island emerge. The survivors start a new mankind.
- The movie '' The Last Woman On Earth '', directed by Roger Corman , in which all the Earth's oxygen temporarily vanishes - leaving only three survivors.
- The where the Moon is about to crash into Termina .
- The novel '' The Lost Continent '' ( 1916 ) by Edgar Rice Burroughs , in which an isolated and feuding Europe has retreated into barbarism
- The novel '''' by Stephen Baxter has the deliberate creation of a new Vacuum State in the universe, incidentally annihilating all existing matter in the Universe - including the Earth.
- " Nightfall " by Isaac Asimov ; A rare cosmological event causes an Earth-like society inhabiting a multistar system to collapse as they experience their first nightfall
- '' The Purple Cloud '' by M.P. Shiel ; An unknown event floods the earth with a poisonous gas, leaving only two survivors
- ''The Revenants'' by Sheri S. Tepper ; the nature of the catastrophe is never stated but technology has been displaced and a bizarre religion is dividing society into ever-smaller, racially-divided units.
- Although not generally recognized as such, the '''' episodes " Demons " and " Terra Prime " refer to the rise of military rule and an act of Genocide perpetrated on radiation-scarred survivors of the war a century earlier.
- The novel ''Taronga'', by Victor Kelleher ; after an unknown disaster simply described as "Last Days" a boy ventures throughout his surroundings, finding refuge in Tarronga Zoo and befriending a Tiger .
- The film '' Titan A.E. '', in which the Drej destroy Earth to stop the advancement of humankind.
- Much of John Wyndham 's work, e.g. '' The Day Of The Triffids '' (majority of the population blinded), ''The Chrysalids'', (later reprinted in the US as '' Re-Birth '') which contain elements of ecological disaster (''Web'', ''The Crysalids'' and '' The Kraken Wakes (flooding caused by aliens)''), nuclear war (''The Crysalids''), decline of man as a dominant species (''Day of the Triffids'' and ''The Midwich Cuckoos'') and alien invasion (''The Kraken Wakes'' and possibly ''The Midwich Cuckoos'')
- The video game '' Final Fantasy VI '' where the villain destroys and takes over the world, creating the '' World Of Ruin ''.
- The anime OVA series ''Giant Robo'', in which a scientific experiment causes all power generation to stop worldwide, resulting in the death of 1/3 of the Earth's population in a week.
- The novel ''Présence de la mort'' (1922) by Charles Ferdinand Ramuz where the Earth falls into the Sun.
- '' Aftermath '' by Gregory Benford
- '' Dhalgren '' by Samuel R. Delany
- Moorcock's '' Dancers At The End Of Time '' stories, which are set in the days of the final collapse and end of the Universe itself
- '' The Final Programme '', movie based on Michael Moorcock 's Jerry Cornelius stories
- Many (perhaps most) '', in these films, space aliens use mind-controlled giant monsters to destroy Earth's capitals
- The novel '' In The Country Of Last Things '' by Paul Auster
- '' Nosutoradamusu No Daiyogen (Translated as: Nostradamus's Great Prophecy)'' a.k.a. ''The Last Days of Planet Earth'', a 1974 Japanese film.
- The novels '' The Peace War '' ( 1984 ) and '' Marooned In Realtime '' ( 1986 ) (together also know as '' Across Realtime '', 1991 ) by Vernor Vinge
- '' Reign Of Fire '', in which a race of terrifically powerful dragons awakes from sleep and decimates the world.
- The role playing game '' Rifts '', in which a massive release of psychic energy triggers several disasters, as well as various magic-based anomalies.
- '' Andrei Tarkovsky '''s film '' Stalker ''
- The role playing game '' Torg '', in which several alternate realities invade earth simultaneously, some primitive, some technological, and some supernatural.
- The role playing game '' Wasteworld '' {Link without Title} .
- The Japanese anime series Wolf's Rain takes place in a post-apocalyptic world.
- The novel The Lathe Of Heaven by Ursula K. LeGuin contains apocalyptic science fiction elements.
- The manga '' Japan '', written by '' Eiji Otsuka '' and illustrated by '' Mami Ito ''.
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