some awesome links about post-apocalyptic fiction

[intertribal]

This is why racism remains a "thing" in my novel, which is post-apocalyptic (and I don't even have the apocalypse coming from across borders - it's just part of social organization in Junction Rally, as it has been for all its years of existence).  The Yellow Plague: Asians and Asian Americans in Post-Apocalyptic and Zombie Fictions by Bao Phi:

But like many brands of American horror and action genres, popular post-apocalyptic and zombie fictions tend to veer towards straight American male fantasy - many of the fictions and films in the genre operate under the assumption that, if all hell breaks loose, all issues of race, class, and gender are (supposedly) irrelevant compared to basic human survival - and consciously or otherwise, most leaders that emerge in these imagined post-racial scenarios are straight, white alpha males. In the Western pop imagination, there seems to be a desire to wipe the difficult questions of co-existence off the table - and what better way to do that, then to imagine a situation where five to ten random (and mostly white) strangers must fight off mindless brain-hungry hoards while trying to divide the bullets, bacon, and fresh water into equal shares? Where the musings and philosophies of fancy pants artists and social commentators like myself are next to useless?

Let's say that North Korea or China suddenly launched an attack on present-day America, like in the video game Homefront or the upcoming remake of Red Dawn. The popular, traditional white male western narrative would then position a white hero leading a resistance of people against the invaders, and our race wouldn't matter - because we're all Americans right?

No. History has taught us is if that shit went down, and Asians in Asia attacked America, the first people who would be fucked would be Asian Americans. We'd be imprisoned without due process, called traitors, tortured and murdered in the street. And yet none of this is ever explored in post-apocalyptic scenarios where Asians bring about doom. I guarantee you, if a science-project-gone-wrong in North Korea causes zombie apocalypse tomorrow, you can bet it's the Asian Americans who won't be getting their share of beans at the survivalist pot luck.

I think this argument - on the emotional/psychological desire for an apocalypse to "wash away" people and structures you don't like - is perfectly applicable to post-apocalyptic fiction that isn't British and isn't even all that "cozy" (i.e., involves cannibals and zombies and killer flus).  Some of the comments imply it better fits the American model anyway.  Related: "AEnema" by Tool: "Some say we'll see Armageddon soon/ I certainly hope we will/ Learn to swim, see you down in Arizona Bay." Who reads cosy catastrophes? by Jo Walton:

I argued that the cosy catastrophe was overwhelmingly written by middle-class British people who had lived through the upheavals and new settlement during and after World War II, and who found the radical idea that the working classes were people hard to deal with, and wished they would all just go away.

In the classic cosy catastrophe, the catastrophe doesn’t take long and isn’t lingered over, the people who survive are always middle class, and have rarely lost anyone significant to them. The working classes are wiped out in a way that removes guilt.

And from the comments (man, this is so why Zombieland did not work for me):

On a bad day, it could even be secretly, guiltily desirable: all those people who fit so well in the modern world, but didn't know how to deal with *real* change, would be swept away. And the people who knew how to prepare would be vindicated. The reader is implicitly in the category of people who can deal with change, of course, by virtue of having read the book.

The desire to be freed of social constraints and to get fat off humanity's detritus crosses the economic divide.  

Pop Agitprop from Cheap Truth #13, published in the 1980s, a series of scathing reviews by sci-fi authors, of sci-fi authors - I think this gets to the heart of the problem with a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction very well (and is related to that terrible Dodge Ram commercial as well, re: the sheer amount of self-stroking misanthropy that goes into crafting a post-apocalypse):

The gem of this collection is Vernor Vinge's "The Ungoverned," a sequel to his commercially successful novel THE PEACE WAR. In this ideologically correct effort, radical Libertarians defend their realm from an authoritarian army. Thanks to their innate cultural superiority and a series of fraudulent plot Maguffins, they send the baddies packing with a minimum of personal suffering and a maximum of enemy dead.

First, and very characteristically, it is post-apocalyptic, conveniently destroying modern society so that a lunatic-fringe ideology can be installed as if by magic. Vinge avoids extrapolating their effects on society, because society is in shambles.

John Dalmas contributes a decent male-adventure Western. Unfortunately this story pretends to be SF. It is set on yet another colonial planet lapsed into barbarism, a fictional convention that allows SF writers to espouse reactionary social values without a blush of shame.

Dean Ing's recent novel for Tor, WILD COUNTRY, takes a similar tack. This book, the last in a post-apocalypse trilogy, is a meandering series of shoot-'em-ups. Its hero is an assassin. The villain is a gay heroin-smuggler, as if an America devestated by nukes did not have enough problems. Ing's hasty depiction of future society is grossly inconsistent; ravaged and desperate when the plot requires desperadoes, yet rigidly organized when Ing suddenly remembers the existence of computers.

The book is a Western, set in a West Texas conveniently returned to the robust frontier values of Judge Roy Bean. Men hold their land, with lasers if possible, while women raise corn and keep the home fires burning.

The book is speckled with maps, diagrams, and lectures on the Second Amendment, which, one learns, "absolutely and positively, guarantees citizens their right to keep and bear arms."  Like his fellows, Ing treasures this amendment, the last remnant of the American policy that he is willing to respect. There isn't much mention of, say, voting, or separation of powers. Power resides in the barrel of a gun, preferably the largest and shiniest possible.

No We Can't by Hunter (this one is political, but I think it ties in nicely with the apocalyptic, and post-apocalyptic, vision, and the desire for this vision to actually happen - thanks to realthog for linking it):

Past-America could provide at least some modest layer of security to prevent its citizens from descending into destitution in old age; we in this day cannot. Past-America could pursue scientific discoveries as a matter of national pride, even land mankind on an entirely other world; we cannot. Past-America was a haven of invention and technology that shook the world and changed the course of history countless times: whatever attributes made it such a place we cannot quite determine now, much less replicate. Public art is decadent. Public education is an infringement. Public works are for other times, never now.

America of the past could build highways and railroads and a robust electrical grid. We cannot even keep them running. Of course we cannot keep them running: that was past-America. That past America had a magic that we modern Americans cannot match. Perhaps it was beholden to Satan, or to socialism, or merely to some grandiose vision of a better future, one with flying cars or diseases that could actually be cured, with proper application of effort. Whatever the case, past-America was wrong and stupid, and we know better.

We are told all the things America cannot do. We have yet to be told any vision of what we might still be able to do, or what hopes we should still retain, or why our children will be better off than we were, or why we ourselves will be better off than we were a scant few decades ago. Perhaps the very climate of the world will have changed, and the sky will be hotter, or the storms will be bigger, but none of those are things we can do anything about. Perhaps there will be nuclear disasters, or oil spills, or epidemics, or perhaps a city here or a city there will be leveled by some unforeseen catastrophe; we can be assured of it, in fact, but none of those things are things we can expect to respond to better next time than this time. Those are not, we are told, the tasks of a nation.

Comments

[wendigomountain.livejournal.com]

The Alpha Male stuff can be annoying. "Alas, Babylon" is one of my favorite post-apoc books, but it still irritates the hell out of me. The strapping, square-jawed retired military guy leads people to build civilization, with the help of commandeering his black tenants Model A and well water (which they have been using to live for years.)

In this subgenre, there's a lot of meek inheriting the earth kind of stuff, which is why it's almost always the middle class. In British ideologies (as evident with what happened during WWI and earlier when the Upstairs/Downstairs culture was going strong) characters of the middle class might try to preserve their aristocracy. Much the same way as they were running headlong into battle and jumping on grenades for their masters.

From my personal experience, if Shit were to Go Down, my neighbors would probably only be concerned with a sudden scarcity of Sudafed and Natty Light. They could hardly care less about survival as long as they can cook meth and get their drink on. The middle class, who is in a constant flux of getting by and living in convenience, would probably be the most able to drag themselves out of the muck and carry on. The rich would probably soon realize once money wasn't worth much, and how little they mattered. That's the whole crux of the situation.

With "Alas, Babylon," on a realistic model, those neighbors with the Model A would have told soldier-boy to hit the road. What I hated about that book was a need to return America to what it was before the bombs dropped. Which back then, more than likely included Jim Crow, gas-guzzling cars, fighting the Soviets, and all the other bullshit subscribed to in a modern society.

Honestly, I think the whole appeal stems from the fall of the Roman Empire, where the conquering/colonizing Romans finally just had to get the hell out, leaving the natives of any given area to return to a semi-traditional way of life. The original Post-Colonial movement.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Good to know, I will now avoid Alas, Babylon.

Do you really think it's the meek inheriting the Earth? I'm not sure I'd describe the middle class characters that inherit the Earth as meek, because the meek can't save themselves without a Strong Leader to order them around. Or maybe it's the meek +1 Alpha.

As for what happens in natural disasters - I think it's true that many of the poor would die (though probably not all), but I think both the rich and middle class would be equally likely to get to higher ground. I mean, it never ceases to surprise me how few post-apocalypses involve the survival of people like the President or some King/Queen - no way those people are "dying on their feet," they're the first in the super-secure bunker. It's true that the loss of an economy might be a greater shock to a wealthy person, but the average wealthy person would still have Lots of Things, and I think it comes down to temperament as to whether a rich or middle class person would adjust to life afterward.

Did the natives return to a semi-traditional way of life? Weird. Former European colonies wanted to emulate colonist power, but I don't know much about Rome. Of course, the need to return America to what it was before the bombs dropped in Alas, Babylon could also be interpreted as a return to a semi-traditional way of life, where the strong rule over fiefdoms (not saying that's what happens since I haven't read it, just saying semi-traditional could mean a lot of things, and not everyone benefits from living an un-modern lifestyle). One man's nostalgia is another man's nightmare.

[wendigomountain.livejournal.com]

Good point about Alas, Babylon in returning to semi-traditional.

I think maybe the author hinted toward a world with more equality, since eventually, GI Joe does wind up being the closest with his black neighbors. But with it being 1953, and the racist atmosphere of the US at the time, it probably behooved him to reign in his equality with those characters. So, they played the whole "Yes, Boss. No, boss" card. Totally pissed me off.

I think Europe returned to their old ways as much as any colonized world can. That's the royal bitch of a post-colonial society: no matter how hard you try to shake the influences and imposed social structure of the colonizers, you can't get rid of all of it.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sounds annoying. Honestly whenever you have a post-apocalyptic novel and the hero is a military veteran or reservist or what-have-you in a town full of civilians, it's a red flag. I learned that from Under the Dome. Why oh why couldn't the protagonist just be a short order cook? Even though Battlestar Galactica doesn't bother me at all, because there an entire ship with a standing hierarchy survives, you don't just get one guy who's like "well, I clearly have ALL the authority in this situation."

No, you certainly can't, and to some extent I think it would have been foolish for the former European colonies to try. But of course, they became independent in a globalized world with a globalized economy, not the world of the Roman empire.