Extent of discussion in the group

Are people interested only in fictional apocalypse, or is there interest in the actual peril of the planet, and the possible coming catastrophe that may arrive on a massive scale?

Good point....both. I'm pretty much convinced humans have improved themselves into the ground and set the stage for any number of nasty ends. Post-apocalyptic lit is an entertaining way to think of some of those futures, but I'm sure the reality will be much, much worse.

It could well be, although some post-apocalyptic books are pretty grim themselves. I'm a sucker for them.

Now that I think of it, The Road and the first parts of Canticle for Leibowitz are pretty grim. Still, I think Miller was probably optimistic to imagine a second advanced future for humankind.

To me that is one of the most provocative issues in thinking about a future collapse: does a rump humanity survive to try again (cf. Earth Abides) or do we all go quietly into the night (see Ballard's The Drowned World and similar works)?

So, which do you think?

If we do it to ourselves, I'd say there are survivors. If we're hit by an asteroid, it's a different story!

My thinking on this: http://www.librarything.com/topic/65875#1310863

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1> I prefer reading the fictional as opposed to the real apocalypse.

I'd like to think we're like cockroaches, and some of us would survive (of course, I think I would be one of them, with my wind-up radio and emergency chocolate), at least for a while. It depends on the style of apocalypse, naturally.

I have always loved the PA genre, but lately it is a less comfortable reading experience as I feel we are gearing up for at the very least, the next huge historical conflagration where we wash the earth in blood. How close to apocalyptic that will be is anybody's guess, but I am very worried about things I have no control over, not to mention that I think old Malthus might just get the last laugh.

I have spent my live expecting those very developments, Anastasia. But this has not dimmed my love of the PA genre. Not yet anyway.

>10 Anastasia169: I've not read any, or thought much about, the style of PA that is of the blood-washing variety. It seems more likely than the moon losing orbit.

I just read my first PA novel post-baby, and I was not prepared for the change I felt. I am acutely aware of my shifted priority, and that I need to take care of someone other than myself. That freaked me out a little, reading The Dead and Gone.