Recently, astronomers spotted an asteroid—2024 YR4—on a trajectory that brings it uncomfortably close to Earth in 2032. Odds of impact? About 2.3%—which sounds both reassuringly low and just high enough to make you wonder if you should start crossing things off your bucket list. It’s not a planet-killer, but at an estimated 130 to 300 feet across, it’s big enough to make a mess.
The usual experts are monitoring it, running calculations, assuring us there’s no need to panic. But there’s something about space flinging rocks at us that taps into a deep, ancient anxiety. Maybe that’s why we’re so obsessed with apocalyptic fiction—not because we expect the end, but because we can’t help imagining it.
Post-apocalyptic landscapes stretch across books, films, and video games—desolate highways, ruined cities, nature reclaiming what was once ours. Whether it’s the eerie emptiness of The Road, the corporate biotech nightmare of Oryx and Crake, or the brutal survivalism of The Last of Us, one thing is clear: we love watching the world burn.
But why? What is it about dystopias and the end of civilisation that resonates with us so deeply?
1. The Appeal of the Reset Button
There’s something darkly compelling about the idea of starting over. Imagine a world stripped to its bones, all the complications of modern life—bills, emails, endless scrolling—cease to matter. Sometimes that does sound... vaguely appealing. And what’s left is survival. A raw, elemental existence where choices matter again.
Post-apocalyptic fiction often taps into this desire for simplicity, even as it terrifies us. In The Road, a father and son navigate a dead world where food, fire, and trust are life-or-death decisions. There’s nothing easy about their journey, but there’s also a strange purity to it. No distractions. No noise. Just survival. Life is stripped down to its most basic element, and every action has weight.
Don't get me wrong: it's not a fun fantasy of wiping the slate clean. But we have to question whether or not it taps into something deep within us when we see these kinds of stories.
2. The ‘What If?’ Factor
Apocalyptic fiction is a thought experiment. What happens when the government collapses? When nature fights back? When a virus spreads too fast to contain?
Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake plays with this on a terrifyingly plausible level. The world doesn’t end with a bang, but with the slow, methodical work of genetic engineering, unchecked capitalism, and scientific hubris. It’s not about if it could happen—but when. For me, these types of stories are far more terrifying.
And that’s the unsettling magic of dystopian stories. They make us think. They force us to look at our own world, our own systems, and ask: How close are we?
It also forces us to analyse how we would act in this type of situation on a more personal level. Speculative fiction is often a lens for our own real-world anxieties. I'm sure we all like to think that we'd be smart and survive whatever happens... but the truth is, most of us probably wouldn't. And that's also part of the horror—that even before it happens, we understand on a base level that we're probably doomed.
3. Hope in the Ruins
For all their bleakness, post-apocalyptic stories aren’t just about destruction. These stories almost always explore our resilience. About finding hope in what remains.
Even in The Road, probably one of the bleakest novels ever written, there’s a flicker of humanity. A father protecting his son. A small, trembling light in the dark. In The Last of Us, the world is violent and brutal, but Ellie and Joel’s journey is driven by love, by survival together.
That’s what makes these stories powerful. They ask: When everything is gone, what still matters? And the answer is always the same—human connection, love, the stubborn refusal to let the light go out.
4. The World, But Without Us
There’s an eerie beauty in imagining the world without people. Dystopian fiction often serves as a reminder: we are not permanent. Oryx and Crake explores this through the remnants of human civilisation—genetically modified animals roam free, abandoned structures crumble, and the world moves on without us.
It’s a haunting thought, but also a strangely peaceful one. I always think about the movie adaption of I Am Legend, where the city is both a graveyard and a garden. Skyscrapers stand silent, their glass facades reflecting nothing but sky. Weeds crack through the pavement, nature creeping back over what humanity left behind. There’s something unsettling about how quickly the world forgets us—how vines drape over abandoned cars, how deer roam Times Square as if it were just another forest clearing.
But that’s what makes it so immersive. The emptiness feels real, heavy with the weight of time, every shadow whispering of the life that used to be there. The sound design—the hush of wind through vacant streets, the distant rustle of unseen movement—pulls you in, makes you feel the isolation.
It’s a vision of the apocalypse that’s eerily beautiful, a world not destroyed but reclaimed. And that, perhaps, is the most haunting part: the quiet reminder that the earth does not need us. It will go on, wild and untamed, long after we are gone.
So, Why Do We Keep Coming Back?
Because apocalyptic fiction lets us peer into the abyss from a safe distance. It taps into our deepest fears—climate collapse, pandemics, societal breakdown—and gives them shape, lets us experience them without actually living through them.
But more than that, it reminds us what matters: not the world we built, or the things we owned, but the people we would walk through fire for.
And maybe, in the end, that’s why we love these stories so much. Not because they show us the end, but because they remind us of what’s worth saving.
What are some of your favourite apocalyptic stories, and why? Drop them in the comments below!
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