Weaponised flu, hoax bombs that start exploding, totalitarian America and brain-thirsty zombies – here’s a flood of fictional world endings – and one that’s real
The apocalypse – the literal end of the world – has long captured humanity’s dark imagination. Is it because the end of life on Earth is so impossible to comprehend, or that it feels so frighteningly close at hand? I personally enjoy the terrible dread of dropping into a world near enough to my own that the path it takes to destruction is unsettlingly familiar. However, I also seek out the more personal, poetic explorations of the concept of “apocalypse”, when what is popped is the intimate bubble of our own reality.
Apocalypse films and TV shows keep me on the edge of my seat, heart giddily racing – The Walking Dead, where the horrors perpetrated by the living outpace the deeds of the (un)dead; World War Z and 28 Days Later occupy their own space in my psyche. But as captivating as these flicks may be, it’s the apocalypse in literature that really mesmerises with its ability not only to detail the poignant, terrifying elements of The End both internally and externally, but for its potential to explore it as metaphor. Perhaps the reason we are so curious about the big apocalypse is that so many of us have sustained our share of tiny ones.
via Science fiction | The Guardian http://ift.tt/2klrak1
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