Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic science fiction

Apocalyptic science fiction is a sub-genre of science fiction that is concerned with the end of the world or civilization, through nuclear war, plague, war, or some other general disaster.

Post-apocalyptic science fiction is set in a world or civilization after such a disaster. The time frame may be immediately after the catastrophe, focusing on the travails or psychology of survivors, or considerably later, often including the theme that the existence of pre-catastrophe civilization has been forgotten or mythologized. The fall of civilization may also be the fall of a space based civilization. This plot device allows writers to write Soft science fiction while accounting for the lack of technological advancement and thus remain relevant to the present day no matter how far in the future the events are set.

There is a considerable degree of blurring between this form of science fiction and that which deals with false utopias or dystopic societies.

Examples (listed by nature of the catastrophe)

World War III:

• Walter M. Miller, Jr's novel A Canticle for Leibowitz
• Pat Frank's novel Alas Babylon
• The Mad Max, Road Warrior, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome trilogy of films
• Harlan Ellison's short story and 1975 film A Boy and His Dog.
• Mordecai Roshwald's novel Level 7
• Philip K. Dick
  • Deus Irae (in collaboration with Roger Zelazny).
  • Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
  • The Penultimate Truth
  • The World Jones Made
  • and many of his short stories
• The Polish movie Sexmisja
• Marc Caro's black comedy Delicatessen
• The computer role-playing game Fallout series
• The Amtrak Wars epic novel series by Patrick Tilley
• The Day After, a 1983 film about the effects of nuclear war on a Kansas town
• the film Testament
• the Shanarra Series by Terry Brooks, a fantasy book set after WWIII destroys all technology and warps the human race into other species.

Pandemic:

• The novel The Last Man by Mary Shelley
• The novel Earth Abides (1949) by George R. Stewart.
• The novel I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, filmed as The Last Man On Earth and The Omega Man.
• The films La Jetée, Twelve Monkeys and 28 Days Later
• The novel and miniseries The Stand by Stephen King
• The novel A Gift Upon the Shore by M.K. Wren
• The novel Oryx and Crake by Magaret Atwood
• The BBC television series Survivors, written by Terry Nation

Alien invasion:

• H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds (in several media)
• John Christopher's The Tripods
• The TV-series V

Ecological catastrophe:

• The novel Greybeard by Brian Aldiss, in which the human race becomes sterile.
• The novel In the Drift by Michael Swanwick (also an Alternate history story; the premise is that the 1979 Three Mile Island reactor incident resulted in a large release of radioactivity.)
• The collection of stories Flight of the Horse by Larry Niven
• The film Silent Running
• The film and novel Quintet
• The Kevin Costner film Water World

The Computers take over:

• The novel and movie, Colossus: The Forbin Project (not exactly an apocalypse, however)
• The future depicted in the Terminator film series
• The film Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution by Jean-Luc Godard
• The film The Matrix
• Harlan Ellison's short story I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

The decline and fall of the human race:

• Planet of the Apes
• The latter part of H. G. Wells' The Time Machine
• The 1970s movie Zardoz

After the Fall of Space Based Civilization:

• Frank Herbert's Dune Saga
• Isaac Asimov's Foundation series

Various:

• Much of the work of J. G. Ballard, in which the current era is sometimes described as the pre-Third, referring to World War III.
• Much of John Wyndham's work, e.g. The Day of the Triffids, The Chrysalids, later reprinted in the US as Re-Birth
• After London by Richard Jefferies; the nature of the catastrophe is never stated, except that apparently most of the human race quickly dies out, leaving England to revert to nature.
• The Purple Cloud by M.P. Shiel (A volcanic eruption floods the earth with cyanide gas, leaving only two survivors)

To be categorized:

• First Spaceship on Venus
• The novel In The Country of Last Thing by Paul Auster
• ''Lucifer's Hammer by Jerry Niven and Larry Pournelle
• Ape and Essence by Aldous Huxley