If books and films were to be believed, the human race is completely f*cked. Any time now we'll be scorched with radiation, flattened by meteors, wiped out by aliens, zombies and/or mutants, or perhaps simply crumble under the trannical rule of a totalitarian government. It's all so depressing you might as well top yourself now, by jumping in front of the 57 bus. Or at least, you should if it wouldn't involve a two-hour wait for the bloody thing to turn up.
Recently I read two novels with very different takes on possible dystopian futures. Hunger Games (which I gave a
slightly negative review) predicted that a comically evil government would take over the US, controlling the population through a sinister gameshow in a plot that makes slightly less sense than a sozzled Albanian. I followed this up with Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, which painted a very different picture - corporations effectively becoming mini-states, controlling their populations while those outside the bubbles struggled to survive.
Minor spoilers for Oryx and Crake follow - and if you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend grabbing a copy.
Atwood's apocalyptic vision is a lot more gripping and terrifying to me, as her world is so vividly painted and realistically detailed that you can actually see these screwed up events becoming reality. The idea that a single human being could wipe out our entire race simply on a whim is the scariest thing imaginable, because it really could bloody happen.
But Atwood's novel isn't po-faced and overly bleak like a lot of apocalypse stories. She keeps it human on every level, enthralling us with Jimmy's tumultuous relationship with his parents and the cool-yet-unhinged character of Crake. She recognises our changing attitudes to sex and violence and takes it to the extremes, so Jimmy and Crake spend their spare time watching shows such as Noodie News (with butt-nekkid presenters) and Live Executions, and browsing websites such as Hott Totts (the name says it all). It's horrifying but hilarious all at once.
To date, Oryx and Crake is my favourite apocalyptic novel and shows just how shallow the likes of Hunger Games really is. I promise I'll stop ragging on that book eventually...just not right now...
So, do you have a favourite end of days novel you'd like to big up? Let me know, cos I'm hungry for more.
