# is there such a thing as post-apocalyptic fantasy?



## Man Of Mercy (Feb 6, 2014)

It's very likely I've just missed all the examples of it which stand out, but I have found myself wondering this. I'm not thinking about worlds affected by catacalysms in their history, which I'm aware of, more the sense of total collapse of civilization following very recent catastrophe, which is what plenty of science fiction near-future ideas revolve around, but as far as I can see not nearly as many fantasy works. I realise that part of the point of post-apocalyptic fiction is the sudden regression in the level of societal and technological advancement to around a feudal level, or even below, and a lot of fantasy is set in worlds where technology and society is around the feudal level anyway,but it's usually possible to regress it lower. There seems to me no reason why apocalyptic catastrophes couldn't occur in fantastical worlds. Magical overload, angry gods or demons, plague, natural catastrophe could all turn a civilised, if primitive world into a depopulated, savage wasteland.

I suppose part of the problem is that science-fiction post-apocalyptic ideas have a lot of appeal in their likeliness - that they could quite possibly happen to that horrible place called the real world any time soon, while fantasy is disconnected from this personal element by dint of being a much less possible world. Nevertheless, I think it's a topic with potential.


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## Jo Zebedee (Feb 6, 2014)

Mark Lawrence's Broken Empire?


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## chrispenycate (Feb 6, 2014)

There are numerous 'a long way past apocalypse' type fantasies, where some time in the past, frequently distant, a golden age of more advanced magic, higher living standards, a great empire – have been brought down. Sometimes by a great evil that still lingers, and is the principle antagonist of the degenerate descendants, the heroes of the present tomes. Sometimes it's just time, and laziness, and an empire that has decomposed slowly.
I'd put Bujold's 'Sharing knife' tetralogy for the former, and Barbara Hambly's 'Winterlands'  series for the latter, though there are plenty of choices available.

The 'close to the catastrophe' ones are rarer. The fall of Atlantis has spawned a few (MZBradley?), and the fall in living standards associated with the withdrawal of the Roman Empire can be felt in a couple of the Arthurian ones; but a good apocalypse should be fast and violent, not a lingering decomposition.

There is a general impression that the serfs will hardly notice the difference, that the rewards will have been hoarded by the rich, but evidence on out time line suggests that a rich society will distribute its benefits almost inadvertently throughout the populace, and the loss of a magic irrigation system for growing delicate fruits for noble palates will involve the death by starvation of hundreds of thousands of peasants. 

But the majority of fantasy novels concentrate on the actual crisis point, and when the 'goodies' win at the end of the book nobody looks into how much damage has been done to the economy, to agriculture, to the infrastructure and architecture. But presumably, even with high power magic, that wouldn't have been that much worse that our local war-battered planet went through.


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## Vince W (Feb 7, 2014)

You might consider R. E. Howard's Conan stories to be post-apocalyptic. They take place after the sinking of Atlantis, a supposedly advanced society. Things are certainly rougher than most fantasy settings and the magic tends to be rare and rather deadly.


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## Mirannan (Feb 7, 2014)

All of the D&D settings have a catastrophe (sometimes more than one) in their past, which affects the events of the present. Niven's series of books about a magical past have the apocalypse actually in progress. The rather obscure books by Blish, Black Easter and The Day After Judgement, are set in a world based on the coming of Armageddon.


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## Teresa Edgerton (Feb 7, 2014)

Yes, there are quite a lot of them.  Especially in young adult fiction right now.


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## j d worthington (Feb 8, 2014)

I suppose you could call a fair amount of Michael Moorcock's fantasy "post-apocalyptic", as it frequently deals with the final stages of this or that civilization (or even an entire universe), and what comes after... or takes place in a milieu which takes the place of a previously-existing civilization or world. Even some of his "science fiction" borders so closely on fantasy that it can easily qualify as either (e.g., *The Blood Red Game*, *The Rituals of Infinity*). The Eternal Champion Cycle can easily be seen as such, since different aspects of the Champion bring about the destruction of the world(s) in which they find themselves in order to bring about another... with the overarching idea that these are struggles to find (or establish) a more humane existence. 

At any rate, you might find some of the following of interest: 

The 17 Best Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy Novels 

(though I would hesitate to label *The ice Schooner* fantasy, I suppose a fairly good argument might be made for such; Smith's Zothique cycle -- one of his very best, in my opinion -- on the other hand, is almost the definition of the term "post-apocalyptic fantasy") 

Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 

List of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## jastius (Feb 16, 2014)

they have been doing 'borderlands' anthologies for quite a bit now.. about a nuclear accident tearing the wall between mundane world and faery and the town that springs up along the faultline..
people live in shattered buildings and abandoned city businesses, living a scrabbling hand to mouth existence, bartering for goods and services.


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## K. Riehl (May 1, 2014)

_Ariel_ and _Elegy Beach_ by Steve Boyett are both great post-event fantasy.


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## George Ian (May 21, 2014)

Suppose the population of Earth was almost wiped out by the release of existing biological weapons under the influence of mindminders from an alien super race. The aliens then take over the planet, collecting all human survivors in an enclosure in the Lake District and providing them with the basics to survive - just so they can be watched - purely for entertainment. The humans do not disappoint. Could that be considered fantasy?


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## BAYLOR (Jul 8, 2014)

Sword Shannara by Terry Brooks would fit that category.

The Tv Show Thundar the Barbarian come to mind.


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## Grimward (Jul 8, 2014)

> Sword Shannara by Terry Brooks would fit that category.


With the exception of the first 3 Word and Void books (which more or less occur in "our" time), the entire Shannara series is post-apocalyptic (although it gets confusing as to exactly how many apocalypses there are over the entire timeline of the series, which spans MANY centuries).  Indeed, Brooks' flair for introducing technical aspects of the world we know as "remnants" into his plots is one of the reasons I like his work.

In an interesting twist, Janny Wurts' Wars of Light and Shadow series (while much more fantasy than science fiction, at least as I think about the genres) actually originate from a Science-Fiction-like apocalypse in Space, but since the survivors had to completely change their way-of-life to adhere to the "rules" for inhabiting their new home, there's very little of their previous culture to be found amidst every day life.  This, I think, would disqualify the series from truly having a post-apocalyptic setting.


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## JonH (Jul 10, 2014)

Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn.


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## The Neon Seal (May 21, 2015)

George Ian said:


> Suppose the population of Earth was almost wiped out by the release of existing biological weapons under the influence of mindminders from an alien super race. The aliens then take over the planet, collecting all human survivors in an enclosure in the Lake District and providing them with the basics to survive - just so they can be watched - purely for entertainment. The humans do not disappoint. Could that be considered fantasy?



That sounds cool; sort of like a cross between V, The Hunger Games and Arkham City.


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## The Ace (May 21, 2015)

Everything Terry Brooks has ever written is supposed to be linked, his contemporary stories a lead-up to the apocalypse, leading up to, 'Shanarra,' afterwards.


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## Teresa Edgerton (May 21, 2015)

There is also a novel called *World Enough and Time, *that I read back in the 1970s or 80s, though I forget the author.  It takes place in our world after a magical apocalypse.


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## The Ace (May 21, 2015)

Teresa Edgerton said:


> There is also a novel called *World Enough and Time, *that I read back in the 1970s or 80s, though I forget the author.  It takes place in our world after a magical apocalypse.



Dan Simmonds wrote a short story collection, "Worlds Enough and Time."  I don't know if he was misquoting Marvell ("Had we but world enough and time/ This coyness, Lady, were no crime." - "To his coy mistress.") or trying to be a little different.

Of course, there's also the first book of James Kahn's, "New World," series of the same name.


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## The Neon Seal (May 21, 2015)

I'm working on a post-apocalyptic science fantasy if that counts... Probably doesn't.


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## Teresa Edgerton (May 21, 2015)

James Kahn, I think that was the one I was thinking of.  I don't doubt that both of them were quoting Marvell.


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## Phyrebrat (May 22, 2015)

The Dark Tower collection of 7 books. 

PH


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## Alias Black (May 28, 2015)

I think the concept is probably explored more in video games as compared to literature. Shadowrun and the Fallout series comes to mind.


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## The Neon Seal (May 28, 2015)

Alias Black said:


> I think the concept is probably explored more in video games as compared to literature. Shadowrun and the Fallout series comes to mind.



There is also the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, which is sci-fi, but embraces some fantasy elements.


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## Overread (May 28, 2015)

I wonder if part of the issue is that we see post-apocalyptic easily when its contrasted to modern or semi-modern times. Because we already have the idea of things progressing on a "normal" pathway and then to see it failed and fallen apart we see it as an apocalypse. But in fantasy worlds the more they get removed from our own time-period the more fantasy they become. Thus even when things are apocalyptic in nature we can't recognise it because we don't have a comparable non-apoc time to compare and contrast it to. That is unless the book is part of a series and thus the earlier parts detail the build up to the disaster; giving us a taste of times before the event that triggers the catastrophe.


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## Alias Black (May 29, 2015)

I interpreted post apoc as a genre rather than its literal meaning. So I'm thinking what we have now, but all destroyed and people living on the fragments that remain.

But the literal interpretation of it could be interesting as well. The wheel of time could be post apoc if you push the theory of the wheel being never ending and ever renewing. At some point the dragon could have lived in an age of science, then as the wheel turns and returns to the age again several revolutions later, we have the current arc.


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## BAYLOR (May 29, 2015)

Gotrek and Felix might fit into this category.


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## Jezrah (Jul 11, 2015)

If you're looking for something that is a more "immediate" aftermath of an apocalyptic event, that is a tough one to find in fantasy fiction.  There are plenty of them in sf and in mainstream fiction, but I think that's because those genres are ones that we can see more as mirroring our own condition, and the role of the post-apocalyptic novel is more aimed at that than anything else.  So we have novels like Canticle for Leibowitz (though to say that's "immediate" aftermath is a stretch, I suppose) that looks at it with an sf approach, or more mainstream novels like Alas, Babylon or Earth Abides or On the Beach.  But those are all making commentary about Cold War issues more than anything.  A fantasy novel just doesn't work that way for the most part.  The post-apocalyptic theme of the cautionary tale, or the survival tale just doesn't resonate in a world that we can't somehow relate to our own.

But I would argue that a great deal of fantasy is actually some form of post-apocalyptic tale, though it's more of a "long game" and not an "immediately after" sort of story.  Tolkien is a prime example.  There was a much higher civilization in the past that has fallen due to war.  The story of the LOTR is one that plays out in the ruins of that civilization (often literally).  That's just one example.  Donaldson's Covenant series, Williams' Osten Ard series, Brooks' Shannara series, Wolfe's New Sun series, Vance's Dying Earth, Jordan, Martin, etc., etc., all take that approach where there had been a prior civilization that was greater in some way (whether it be technologically or magically or culturally).  In each case that earlier civilization is gone and the story we read takes place in a world that has risen out of the ruin of the old one.


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## Brian G Turner (Jul 11, 2015)

Jezrah said:


> all take that approach where there had been a prior civilization that was greater in some way



That's a very good point, and echoes our own history in terms of ancient monuments found all across Europe by mediaeval peoples (especially Roman and megalithic).

And welcome to the chronicles forums.


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