Thank you - this has been a longstanding interest of mine, particularly the ways tropes have morphed as literature refocuses from nuclear apocalypse to climate. I'm a science fiction and fantasy writer, so I'm most familiar with how this has worked in genre - actually particularly in Lovecraftian fiction. I would argue that a lot of Lovecraft's stories do reflect the disruption of WWI, with recognizable PTSD from experiencing Horrors that looks a lot like reactions to the shifting political and military reality. Charlie Stross's more recent Laundry books started with a Cthulhoid imminent apocalypse that clearly reflected the Cold War, and then shifted to an "it's not an event, it's an era" model that's more climate-change-like.
In genre more generally, another of my interests is the cozy apocalypse in which people like the author just happen to have the right skills to thrive in the post-whatever world, and rebuild in their image. I think these did a lot of harm during the Cold War in convincing some people that nuclear apocalypse would be survivable and maybe even desirable. Perhaps because of the politicization of climate change as something to anticipate at all, I see less of this now, though there's an argument to be made that some solarpunk futures depend an awful lot on a sufficient threshold of people deciding to think like the author.
Thanks for you're insights. I was just skimming the surface here because I'm certainly no expert on the infinite depths. Thanks!
A friend just introduced me to Call of Cthulhu (I'm a bit of a Lovecraft noob!). I can see what you mean. It just takes more analysis to tease those connections out in fantasy etc. No doubt some Tolkien-fans could unpack a lot of similar stuff here.
Interesting point about cozy apocalypse. There's definitely a branch of "clean slate" style utopias (i.e. the current world is conveniently wiped out so we can start over). I've touched on HG Well's Things to Come in this series which does that.
Thank you - this has been a longstanding interest of mine, particularly the ways tropes have morphed as literature refocuses from nuclear apocalypse to climate. I'm a science fiction and fantasy writer, so I'm most familiar with how this has worked in genre - actually particularly in Lovecraftian fiction. I would argue that a lot of Lovecraft's stories do reflect the disruption of WWI, with recognizable PTSD from experiencing Horrors that looks a lot like reactions to the shifting political and military reality. Charlie Stross's more recent Laundry books started with a Cthulhoid imminent apocalypse that clearly reflected the Cold War, and then shifted to an "it's not an event, it's an era" model that's more climate-change-like.
In genre more generally, another of my interests is the cozy apocalypse in which people like the author just happen to have the right skills to thrive in the post-whatever world, and rebuild in their image. I think these did a lot of harm during the Cold War in convincing some people that nuclear apocalypse would be survivable and maybe even desirable. Perhaps because of the politicization of climate change as something to anticipate at all, I see less of this now, though there's an argument to be made that some solarpunk futures depend an awful lot on a sufficient threshold of people deciding to think like the author.
Thanks for you're insights. I was just skimming the surface here because I'm certainly no expert on the infinite depths. Thanks!
A friend just introduced me to Call of Cthulhu (I'm a bit of a Lovecraft noob!). I can see what you mean. It just takes more analysis to tease those connections out in fantasy etc. No doubt some Tolkien-fans could unpack a lot of similar stuff here.
Interesting point about cozy apocalypse. There's definitely a branch of "clean slate" style utopias (i.e. the current world is conveniently wiped out so we can start over). I've touched on HG Well's Things to Come in this series which does that.