Tiring for a brief moment of science fiction and fantasy’s endless calamities, averted and otherwise, I recently turned for solace to non-fiction. Specifically, the text I fished out of my teetering Mount Tsundoku1 was Riley Black’s 2022 The Last Days of the Dinosaurs.
I see some skeptical faces out there. How can a book about a global-scale apocalypse be in any sense heartening2? The answer is simple.
The Last Days of the Dinosaurs’ subtitle reads “An Asteroid, Extinction, and the Beginning of Our World.” The cataclysmic end of the Mesozoic is only the beginning. Having documented the demise of the old order, Black leads the reader through the early stages of the recovery, from the very early days when opportunistic survivors dominated, to the era a million years after impact, when the ecologies that dominate our world began to take shape. The clear moral here is that a chapter ended, but the story itself continued.
Of course, I could just as well have turned to science fiction for that moral. Exploring the worlds that rise out of the ruins of the previous order is a popular pastime in science fiction. Consider these five works.
“By the Waters of Babylon” by Stephen Vincent Benét (1937)
(Collected in Cities of Wonder) The lands to the north, the west, and the south are treasured hunting grounds to John’s people. To the east, the Great Burning left only the Dead Places, which are taboo to all save the priests who retrieve metal from the cursed lands. The demon-haunted Place of the Gods is forbidden to all, even priests.
The son of a priest and a future priest himself, John is well aware of the law. Nevertheless, something draws John towards the Place of the Gods. There he discovers the true nature of the Place of the Gods, and perhaps, just perhaps, takes the first step back towards civilization3.
This short tale may seem entirely conventional save for two details related to the date it was published. First, this story helped establish the conventions of the after-the-end narrative. Second, while many details might lead readers to the conclusion that the Great Burning was a nuclear war, the story pre-dates the first atom bomb by eight years.
Second Ending by James White (1961)
World War Three killed nine out of ten people, but enough infrastructure survived to support reliable hibernation. This is good news for terminally ill Ross. He can be placed into suspended animation until a cure is found for his disease. The results are a mixed success. Ross wakes, now healthy, to discover that humans have, during his long slumber, not only annihilated themselves but almost all life on Earth.
Fortune smiles on Ross. First, life may be (mostly) dead but there is an army of robots to carry out his orders. Second, thanks to the upturned cuffs of the clothes he wore on his way to cold sleep, a few seeds survived the apocalypse. Third, thanks to suspended animation, Ross has all the time he needs to oversee Earth’s terraforming… although he might be surprised to learn how long that will take.
For the most part, this short novel is a tribute to what one human can accomplish, given only determination, knowledge, and a vast army of relentlessly obedient, highly advanced robots. That said, Second Ending may feature the longest timescale needed for terraforming ever featured in a science fiction novel.
As the Curtain Falls by Rob Chilson (1974)
Humanity triumphed during the Dawn Age, conquering the stars themselves. That was a very long time ago, longer than any person living on Earth can imagine. A billion years is long enough for uncounted civilizations to rise and fall, for the oceans to vanish, for history to become myth and then forgotten.
Nevertheless, time has not erased everything. Humans survive, if in fewer numbers than in the past. Nor is the Dawn Age entirely erased. Trebor of Amballa hopes that among its relics is one that will let him bend a dying Earth to his will.
A cynic might speculate that the course Trebor takes towards his destiny is less driven by pragmatism and more by Chilson’s desire to show off his vivid worldbuilding. Earth in a billion years is a very alien world, where materials like plastic and fiberglass have been incorporated into everyday biochemistry.
The Breaking of Northwall by Paul O. Williams (1981)
A thousand years before, the Great Fire erased civilization. Only a few widely scattered survivors were spared. After ten centuries, a few communities, Pelbar being one, have clawed their way back to town-sized city-states. Between them, pugnacious nomads make travel ill-advised.
Jestak was the only survivor to return from an ill-fated exploratory mission. His silence about what befell his companions is suspicious. Jestak is silent because he believes conservative Pelbar does not want to hear what he learned. Once, a single great nation dominated continent. Perhaps it can be united again! And just perhaps, Jestak is the person to set that process in motion…
This novel and the series of which it is a part are a celebration of E Pluribus Unum. It’s also an exploration of the consequences of founders being drawn from tiny groups. Pelbar seems to have been founded by a particular sort of academic, while one of the nomad tribes is almost certainly descended from feral boy scouts.
Fallen by Melissa Scott (2023)
Artificial Intelligences were supposed to provide the Ancestors with boundless leisure and wealth. Instead, the AIs rebelled. The AI were ultimately defeated, the survivors exiled to another dimension known as the “possible.” This victory did not come soon enough to save civilization.
The Successors believe salvaged Ancestor relics can supercharge progress. The Newfounders believe the inherent risks outweigh any possible benefits. Starfarer Nic’s successful use of an ancient artifact to ply her trade makes her proof of the Successor creed. Her upcoming attempt to save a doomed city may be evidence that the Newfounders are right.
Generally speaking, in science fiction, yay progress people are correct while technophobes are wrong. In Fallen’s case, readers familiar with Finders, the other book in the Firstborn, Lastborn space opera series, may not be confident that this rule of thumb is correct this time. Although published first, Finders is set later, after someone crashes civilization again. Is Nic that someone? Read and find out.
SF authors love writing stories about people crawling from the ruins almost as much as they love writing stories about people creating those ruins in the first place. Such up-from-disaster works abound. No doubt I missed some of your favorites. Feel free to tell us about them in comments below.
