What’s the draw of pre-apocalyptic stories?

I read with interest io9.com’s article on the growing popularity of pre-apocalyptic movies, compared to post-apocalyptic movies. The post-apocalyptic concept had big audiences during the Cold War, sparked in my thought by the relative newness of the suddenly-potentially realistic possibility of total nuclear obliteration. Before that, probably the only thing people “realistically” thought could wipe out the entire world was God.

The io9 writer ascribed greater meaning to pre-apocalyptic stories this way:

We may or may not be living in a pre-apocalyptic world right now, but most of us are definitely not living in a post-apocalyptic one. The only thing post-apocalyptic stories tell us is that some of us may survive the end of everything, in whatever reduced circumstances. But pre-apocalyptic stories have a lot more meaning — they tell us how to use our last days, and whether it’s worth struggling against the looming disaster.

I would have gone one step farther than that in the first sentence. I believe one of the biggest draws to pre-apocalyptic movies is not that we may or may not be living in a pre-apocalyptic world, but that from a subjective perspective every day we live is a pre-apocalyptic experience to our ultimate individual apocalypse–our death. Pre-apocalyptic stories about the world are a macro-level view of our own internal dialogue about what we do with our life every day.

A lot of the stories described deal with the knowledge of a future event that is perceived as either unavoidable, or avoidable only at great effort. It’s date may or may not be known. Even in the Termiantor movies when the date “Skynet” was switched on was a known quantity, that was only an “end date” . . . the protagonists had up to that time to affect change, but not more unless intervening events provided more, and quite possibly a lot less. I think our lives are viewed much the same way. I may not know the day I’m going to die, but I know what my life expectancy is (roughly), so I can’t count on having much more than that time, and I may have significantly less time.

In these pre-apocalyptic stories, the protagonists are often trying to, obviously, prevent the apocalyptic event with the kind of fervor that we don’t normally run around with trying to stave off death. But not always true . . . Deep Impact comes to mind, where the apocalypse, at least for some, becomes unavoidable, and how do people deal with that. I think stories like that tend to be more uncomfortable, because they hit closer to home. We are all going to die, and we would rather watch movies about how heroes go about preventing the inevitable than movies about people trying to deal with the inevitable (unless they’re doing something very heroic while grappling with the inevitability, and even then that’s generally frowned upon as not being happy-ending enough). Let’s face it, most of us are, at best, heroes in small ways rather than big ones. Being a good parent, or a good friend, or being a volunteer, or a charitable contributor. Rescuing a dog.

I don’t think it’s necessary to invent artificial apocalypse scenarios, whether it is putting faith in ancient Mayan calculation, or the Biblical warnings of the end of the world (which was originally supposed to have come shortly after Jesus’ death), but I do think it is important to ascertain potential apocalyptic events that have their basis in fact, such as the potential consequences of global warming or how to deflect a giant asteroid, or, if humanity lasts far into the future, how to escape Earth permanently.

At the end of the day, we are all living in our own pre-apocalypse. If you would be unhappy with your legacy if you died tomorrow, then what is holding you up?

One of the earliest stories that made my question my religion.

When I was young, I was a voracious reader. Particularly science fiction and fantasy, but pretty much anything I could get my hands on. I read the Dragonlance Trilogy . . . the whole thing . . . on the way to Florida in the car. I loved the Thomas Covenant series, among others. But science fiction writers really just took a blender to my imagination. I read Bradbury, Clarke, Asimov, and I loved in particular anthologies and collections of short stories. The medium of the short story, and the skill of particularly adept authors–to take a single idea and turn it into a powerful communication of that single idea within just a few pages–always amazed me.

Asimov was by far my favorite science fiction short story author. I have a tattered old copy of a collection of his short stories in my basement that is practically falling apart from use. In that specific and particular book is my favorite short story of all time, The Last Question. It challenged my preconceptions of religion, about what could be. And it does it in a way that is framed, in retrospect, subtly against the backdrop of everything you learn growing up. That is, in part, the genius of it, its introduction of minute dischord. Make it too foreign to your culture, to your frame of reference, and an idea will slide off like water off the back of a duck.

So many things, as we age, turn out to be not as good as we remember them. This short story has always to me bucked that trend. It could be because of the personal value I attach to it, but I read it today and the last lines still make my arm hairs raise on end.

So, if you have the opportunity, I recommend taking a quick read of The Last Question. I am not naive enough to think that it will in any way change the perspective of an adult, entrenched in their thinking–either it will be preaching to the choir, or beating on the brick wall–but you may just enjoy it for what it is, a short story of excellent quality by one of the best writers of the 21st century.