What Genre is Post-Apocalyptic Fiction?

by Andrea Rhyner
(Fairbanks, Alaska)

Question: Where genre is Post-Apocalyptic fiction? Is it a subgenre? Is it Fantasy, Sci-Fi, or Historical-in-Reverse? Any books on writing that I have read do not include it in their list of genres. I want to give special considerations and thought to focus areas but are unsure what they are. In Sci-Fi/Fantasy I would focus on "world building." For Historical my focus would be research and setting. Your advice would be most welcome!

Thank You,
Andrea D Rhyner

Answer: Post-Apocalyptic is a for the most part a form of science fiction. It really started to boom in the 1950-60s after the invention of nuclear weapons, the Club of Rome's study, and the book Silent Spring. People began to seriously consider the idea that humans were capable of destroying civilization, if not all life on the planet. Prior to that point, science fiction was usually optimistic for the future. That is, it tended to show futures in which science and technology improved life and expanded human civilization.

Post-Apocalyptic science fiction differs by speculating that science and technology might lead to the destruction of human civilization. It then explore the idea of what life might be like for the survivors.

Since the 1960s, other potential causes of an apocalypse have been explored, both human-driven and otherwise, such as pollution, plague, overpopulation, asteroid collision, alien attack, etc.

There is also a Christian sub-genre that looks at Apocalypse as an act of God and prophesy rather than the result of a scientifically valid cause. It asks questions like, "What might life on earth be like after the rapture?"

At the risk of offending some people, I would classify post-rapture stories as fantasy. They certainly can't be called science fiction, since they are not about how scientific and technological progress affect the world. The Apocalypse they present relies on supernatural causes or interventions. Nonetheless, fantasy and science fiction are close cousins since they both present worlds or other elements that do not exist today and have never existed1.

Regardless, all Post-Apocalyptic stories speculate on what the world might look like if civilization were to fall. Perhaps human life would regress. Perhaps the survivors could rebuild civilization. But if they but rebuild it, how would things be different? Would it be re-built at a lower level of technology? Would scarcity of resources limit the new civilization? What lessons might the new civilization learn from the apocalypse? What might they do in an effort to correct the problems that led to the apocalypse?

If you're writing such a story, your task is world-building, since you have to decide what will have survived in the future and how, including how much knowledge and technology will be retained, what kind of culture and political system might evolve, etc. However, you can use historical research into periods before modern technology existed for ideas on how humans might cope without it.

Popular Articles

---