Saturday, December 31, 2016

Ten of the best books with fictional apocalypses...graded for plausibility

At the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog Jeff Somers tagged ten top books with fictional apocalypses...and gave them a plausibility grade. One title on the list:
The Children of Men, by P.D. James

The apocalypse James imagines is a slow strangulation of the human race through the simplest manner possible: sterility. While the ultimate cause for the human race’s inability to reproduce isn’t explored in detail, the fact is, fertility rates have been dropping in the real world for some time, so this is one slow, whimpering world’s end that is entirely plausible—as is the horrific societal breakdown surrounding it.

Plausibility rating: Growing likelier by the day.
Read about the other entries on the list.

The Children of Men is on Justin Cronin's list of ten top world-ending novels, Anita Singh's list of five P.D. James novels you should read, Torie Bosch's top twelve list of great pandemic novels, Joel Cunningham's list of eleven scary fictional diseasesJohn Mullan's list of the ten most notable New Years in literature, Amanda Yesilbas and Charlie Jane Anders's list of the twelve most unfaithful movie versions of science fiction and fantasy books, Ben H. Winters' list of three books to read before the end of the world, and John Sutherland's list of the five best books about the end of England.

--Marshal Zeringue