Go ahead and rattle them off. I'm listening.
 

1. Nuclear devastation. Plenty to work with here, something like hope in the wastelands of not just the U.S., but anywhere in the world. Nuclear devastation would affect the entire planet, thus leaving an infinite amount of stories to be told of survival, direct or indirect, of mankind, animals, etc... Still plenty of potential here without going into cliches or copying already-existent material, such as that from the "Fallout" videogame series (which is an excellent, and well-developed vision of the future in my opinion, not to mention that I'm a big fan of the games because of the back story, gameplay, writing, etc...).

2. Global Warming. Again, more than enough to work with here to keep things fresh, especially since this result is more likely to happen than nuclear devastation. Stories of survival and hardship in many areas of the world would be a big draw, i.e. what would happen to the inland areas of the world when all the coastal peoples had to slowly migrate to them because their own lands are slowly being swallowed by the ocean?

3. Off-world Lifeform Contact. This is probably the most cliche of all the possibilities here so far, but I think there are far more stories to be told of an Earth that has made contact with other life (or other life that has made contact with us) to be told, whether it be bad or good. Chances are greater that our own peoples and governments would react completely different when it came to off-world life that the conflicts would be endless, leading to a story not even as much about the off-world life as our own inability to agree on a single course of action as a planet to handling a situation.

These are just three examples I thought of off the top of my head, and hope that maybe it can spark an idea or two. I know I just did for myself!

As for the post-apocalyptic, I'm a big fan of the genre so seeing this thread mentioning cliches (every genre obviously has them) struck at me and inspired me to come up with something fresh to avoid the above-mentioned (and below mentioned) cliches.

Thanks for listening!

 

LOL!

Also, dystopias that partially reflect medieval European history and overlook the causal circumstances that; A, caused the Dark (Middle) Ages; B, transcended the circumstances that caused the Dark Ages.

One recent collection of events that shows in a relatively brief snapshot of time what happens when society breaks down played out from Hurricane Katrina.
 

"Bullets the curency of the next millenium"

and i took it to heart for i have started stock pilling them for the 21 Dec 2010 End of the world thing the history channel keeps talking about.

RFW2nd
 

On another note. I love the way the Fallout games depict such a scenario, though, and it's certainly believable.
 

I'd like to see stories where the dramatic change event unravels slowly rather than quickly and is a work in progress rather than a done deal. Also, how 'bout have the reader aware but not the people in said world aware that life as they know it is ending / has ended , albeit slowly...

People in the middle ages still thought they were living in a Roman period long after the time when historians now consider that civilization ended. That's why you have folks like Charlemagne trying to get themselves appointed 'Holy Roman Emperor', or some such nonsense.

Here goes: how'bout a story about someone running for president of the US and its slowly made aware to the reader taht the US he or she or it is running for office in is not in any shape or form our country...
 

With most stories the gangs appear where there is no law, and they become the government. The gangs then go out and collect their "taxes" and eliminate anybody who might challenge their power. They will fight other gang or law for control over the region.
Most stories, such as in the MAD MAX series, has someone who is not going to bow to the gangs, hence the story.

For a post apocalypse story, simply have a group of guys deciding they are going to be in charge, then have someone resisting their control.

I would love to see a story from the gang's point of view. They are doing what has to be done, at least from their point of view, and cannot seem to break the stranger who is resisting them. For this story, the reader doesn't have to like the gang members or leaders, but the reader does have to understand why they are doing it.

Another story would be to have where everybody is trying to prevent global warming, and accidentally cause global cooling where we enter another ice age.

Thanks so much!
 

There is a novel called 'America' (I think) perhaps KDW will know who wrote it.(she knows everything) I don't think the writer is a regular Sci Fi writer.
The novel is about a European explorer visiting America after an ice age that would have been prevented had we only continued our overuse of carbon based fuels.
 

But I have heard that one of the predicted results of global warming is that the temperature difference in the oceans will change to the point that the Gulf Stream will phase out, and the warm water (and, I guess, air) it brings to the British Isles will stop, causing an ice age there, at least.

Supposedly that will contribute to an ice age elsewhere as well (which global warming might help make bearable?).
 

[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited January 24, 2009).]
 

KDW: No shame, you can't read them all.
 

*****

I feel the need to cite favorite works in the genre.

Davy, Edgar Pangborn. Except for the narrative frame, which takes place (apparently) on one of the Azores, the action takes place in the northeast United States--only the United States is gone and a bunch of squabbling small kingdoms have taken its place. Civilization as we know it has vanished. Global warming has also taken place and the coastlines are altered. Yet the characters in the story come across as people who are able to put it aside and get on with their lives.

Earth Abides, George R. Stewart. This is one of those "last people on Earth" story, where the vanished civilization is explored and the survivors gradually come together in groups. Here there's a good deal of regret (on the part of the main character, mostly) for the end of our civilization, though he also does his best, bit by agonizing bit, to see that his descendants have a future before them.
 

Nuclear War, Biological War, EMP Pulse destroying all electronic equipment, Aliens, Ice Age, Tidal waves, Asteroids, Quantum wormholes, Earthquakes, Global warming, Genetically engineered plants that eat humans, Time traveller with bomb, Disease/mutant insects that destroy all crops, Mutants, Zombies, God and the Devil etc.

Particular hate: No thought given to the fact that if a real apocalypse did occur, that is the end of the world, nada, Ragnarok. Thus there is no such thing as a post-apocalypse society.

Me? I'd start looking seriously at the present fertility statistics, who needs a futuristic event when mankind is doing so well at causing his own demise.
The last stats from the BMA in the UK were: 1 in 4 women could only reproduce through IVF, and 1 in 4 men were gay, our gene pool is decreasing. Without the aid of medical intervention, will humankind still be here in 1000 years?
So if there was a major disaster, and we did lose some of our technology base, we could be in real trouble...

One last chance to save mankind: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126921.500-one-last-chance-to-save-mankind.html?full=true
 

Heh, I'm writing a semi-post apocalyptic novel (eg the apocalypse is happening slowly, and hasn't killed everyone quite yet), and I am happy to say I've pretty much avoided all these cliches!
 

The way the movie version of something will involve science and scientists, often the scientists who are responsible for the apocalypse in the first place (say, all three versions of I Am Legend---not sure of the Will Smith version, but am relying on press reports), rather than sticking with the Everyman figures of the original material (as in the Richard Matheson I Am Legend, and also its bastard-child movie, Night of the Living Dead.)
 

quote:

---

Gloves without fingers...we usually call them "gloves with holes."

---

Blasphemy!
 

I still say insane bikers who have very little motivation for anything they do. (Especially when they wear fishnets).

[This message has been edited by Patrick James (edited January 29, 2009).]
 

I used to ride with a bike club in Orlando, where the motto was, "We don't go anywhere in a straight line." Why? 'Cos it's fun is why. One person's "fun" can be another's "Why'd they do that?" and a writer's "But what's their motivation?" Insane fun, mayhem 'cos it's mad, that's the motivation.

(And as a plot device, insane bikers are like someone jumping into the room with guns blazing.)
 

As Their Eyes Touched God

Meanwhile, I'm also giggling at all the apocalyptic cliches. Like many things (thinking along the "everything's been written before" lines), I think that avoiding them all may be impossible, but not overdoing them would be a good idea. Good luck with your WIP, wrenbird! Haven't "seen" you around as much lately, stick around, will ya?
 

Haha, it's sort of like the difference between having jeans so long you've worn holes at the knees, and buying jeans from a company that wears the holes into the knees FOR you.

But seriously, I need fingerless gloves. The windows at my office leak heat something fierce, but I can't type with regular gloves on! My hands ache from the cold.
 

The "bomb" scenario was hot when the Cold War was still going on, but right now the chances of a total nuclear exchange seem even more remote than an environmental global catastrophe, so a Roadwarrior-esq type post-Apoc is almost a kind of alternate history. (And I do love the second Mad Max film, to be sure!)

I recently read Lucifer's Hammer by Niven and Pournelle and while it was a terrific read and I enjoyed it a heck of a lot, I couldn't buy into the idea that the comet would literally wipe out the entire United States in the manner described. Even with the endless rain and the climate effects, the interior of the country would not be touched by tsunami and much of the infrastructure and governing mechanisms would remain intact. So while the impact of Hamner-Brown would be a massive event, it would not be civilization-ending in the way described in the book. At least I don't think so, based on events as they're described.

Maybe this is what makes so many post-Apoc settings hard to believe: they take the ramifications of a singular terrible event, and blow them out of all proportion. There is very little that could affect the entire globe, all at once, to produce the kind of total-end-game scenario that most post-Apoc fiction inhabits. Very little.

More likely than not, a major disaster that affects one continent, won't necessarily spell doom for the others. Not unless we had an impact from a 100-mile wide asteroid that caused so much tectonic disturbance and cast up so much vapor and debris and carbon, that the planet was sent into a dark deep freeze that lasted decades or longer. That might be the one scenario I could buy.
 

For a fresh take on post-apocalypse, I really liked "Dies the Fire" by Stirling, where the "apocalypse" was an global, completely unexplained change in the laws of physics (electrical circuits no longer worked, and chemical reactions were no longer fast -- ie. no gunpowder, explosives, etc. and none of our modern technology worked anymore.)

The idea of "something has changed so that our modern society cannot function" and an exploration of what happens next, in other words, is something I find fresher than "we caused Global Warming: Oh the Humanity!"
 

There is an Island off off Africa that is splitting apart. If half falls away, Florida would cease to exist, along with most of the east coast. It would make the Tsunamis of the Indian Ocean look like a ripple. you saw the effect of 911 and the recent scandals on world economy. consider if everything up to the Appalachians gone. There would be effects along the west coast of the Africa and possibly parts of Europe too What would that do to the world economy?
Placement of the disaster, however small, could devastate world economies.

One must realize that the Post Apocalyptic stories really have nothing to do with the cause of the disaster. It is all about people surviving the aftermath and what goes on from there. The only real effect of the type of disaster is that one might not go into certain areas for different reasons, such as radiation. Beyond that, these are really only survival stories and the cause is meaningless.
Try to start the story from the character in survival mode, the real start of the story, and not even mention the cause of the disaster. It could be that no one knows since there is no news at all.

I remember one scene of a post apocalyptic movie where the bikers were digging through the remains of the city. One of them said to the hero. "We are radiated. and we are active, so we must be radioactive."

It's interesting to note (but irrelavant)that the Greek root word from which apocalypse was derived means a "revealing or "unveiling" and has nothing to do with calamaties (except that calamaties happened to be what were revealed to John).

In the dozen-plus post-apocalyptic stories I've seen (movies) or read, the disaster served primarily to put modern people in what amounts to a medieval setting where violence becomes much more critical to problem solving. So I'd find a story where surviving people don't split into some type of tribes and fight for dominance a pleasant change.
 

quote:

---

I'm at a loss. Aren't "fingerless gloves" called "mittens?"

---

Mittens are a whole different species. Mittens cover the entire hand, including the fingers; only they encase the fingers in a single pocket (minus the thumb, which has its own pouch).
 

-- Lord Humungus
 

FALLEN ANGELS by Niven, Pournelle, Barnes.

Remarkably good.
 

quote:

---

The syntax for a quote is [quote]quote string

---

thanks
 

One movie I saw (about 1966) was Crack in the World in which a volcano was creating an unstoppable rift in the earth's crust. Scientists tried, unsuccessfully of course, to stop it and a cone-shaped chunk of the planet hurtled into space.

Something much better is the novel Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank (c.1959?) As this is so old, I don't believe that it was considered cliche at the time. This deals with the survival of a community in Florida after a nuclear war.

I have worn fingerless gloves years.
 

I love that factories and corporations have long since ceased to exist, but everyone and their moms carry assault rifles with working 5.56mm bullets. This does, of course, make video games in post-apocalyptia more fun (thank you, Fallout 3). I'm not a gun expert, but I understand you need a fair amount of precision to make automatic weapons, as well as to make bullets that fire in anything more advanced than a musket. I'll buy that people can figure out how to make relatively small metal pellets and stuff gunpowder into a tube (assuming they have access to saltpetre...)

Also -- don't mean to set off a firestorm or anything, but I did a double-take at JudyMac's post earlier. Where are you getting your numbers -- 1 in 4 men are gay? I suspect gay men everywhere would rejoice if this were the case, and there would be a far more equitable set of rights if the oppressed population was 25% of the country.

This actually leads me to my other personal pet peeve of far-future writing, both apocalyptic and just plain-old-futurey: the absolute loosening of sexual "values" results in 1) apocalypse, 2) ennui, malaise, and godlessness (that often leads to apocalypse) that only the main character discovers a way out of. These plots tend to sound to me like "our kids have no respect" crossed with the fall of civilization. It's hard to read such a story and not hear "You kids get your keisters off my lawn!" echoing around my head.

1. It's been done to death.
2. It takes an overly simplistic view of youth and society as a whole.
3. It usually ignores the effects of religion (which often disappears in the book), <insert favorite STD>, and the quasi-cyclical nature of what people view as "values." All three of these things will likely be around until the end of humanity, even with the evil influences of that darn rock-&-roll music.

That people will think differently about sex in the future -- sure, I buy that. It's part of speculating the nature of the future to write about it. That they will have destroyed the world through sexual permissiveness, or at least created a world where half the people couldn't care less if it were to be destroyed? I don't think so. I think in any version of the future there will still be sex in the form of hippie love communes, modern traditional marriages, illicit homosexual encounters, and of course two teens sneaking out into the woods at a promise-keepers' "purity" convention.

[This message has been edited by micmcd (edited February 02, 2009).]
 

My high school class read Alas, Babylon. Out of all the stories we read and watched about nuclear devastation, that's the one I actually enjoyed.

Edited to add: I remember liking ALAS, BABYLON, too, but it's been a long time since I've read it.

[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited February 02, 2009).]
 

On the one hand, the tolerances on modern ammo are too tight for people to make anything useful from scratch. Too wide or long, won't fit the chamber, gun won't be fireable. Too short or thin, pressure will spike when the trigger is pulled and the gun (and possibly shooter) will be damaged, probably seriously.

On the other hand, people commonly make their own ammunition through a process called "reloading", in which you take fired brass, clean it and resize it, reload it with new gunpowder and primer, and pack a new bullet in the end. The equipment required to reload is mechanically simple.

It is entirely feasible for an individual to cast his own bullets, and (in a real pinch, and after a lot of dangerous experimentation) make his own gunpowder. It is the brass and primers that require advanced manufacturing processes.

Because there are millions of rounds of good brass extant (which can be reused 3 or 4 times) and a lot of primer caps that will remain good indefinitely, it is possible to have a Fallout 3 sort of future. The ammo supply would most likely run out when the last unfired primer cap was ignited.

As to the RPGs, you probably have a point.
 

.22 bullets today don't have a percussion cap. The percussion-sensitive primer compound is poured into the casing before the powder.

None of the processes used to make bullets would defy preindustrial age technology. Given the need and the knowledge, a late bronze age technological level would suffice to make bullets, though steel age for the barrels. Reliability, range, and accuracy would not be as high, nor would full automatic weapons be reliable due to inherent inconsistency in casing sizing, but still plausible for a small and primitive manufactory to produce bullets. In the alternative, the latest advancement in fire delivery, Lead Storm's electic ignition technology, is relatively simple to reproduce.

Flame throwers are hazardous devices, even the best made modern ones have disastrous outcomes in inexperienced hands.

RPGs are also relatively simple to reproduce in otherwise primitive conditions. And, again, reliability, accuracy, and range would suffer, but if delivered on target, effectiveness would not be diminished. In Heinlein's Farnham's Freehold Farnham tipped homemade explosive projectiles with a friction-percussion senstive compound. Fortunately, Heinlein didn't accurately portray the chemical preparation. Authentic, but not sufficiently accurate for an amatuer chemist to make it.

[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited February 03, 2009).]
 

Air rifle technology would be fairly easy to develop and quite effective and faster firing than guns. my only thought is of an air rifle based society, having to fire in space.....

I think common sense implies a few things.
1. It is harder to build things in post-apoc than it is now. materials are more scarce, etc. (This is situation dependent, but probably, usually true.)

2. If 1 is true, and RPG's are easy enough to make, as you imply, I think the police would be going against them more often now.

In other words "if it were so easy, more people would do it."

Having them around in P.A. stories isn't like... absurdly ridiculous or anything but, for me, it requires some additional suspension of disbelief.

---

lol rich, that makes me think of Dr. Strangelove

[This message has been edited by Zero (edited February 03, 2009).]
 

Just making black powder, the least needed grenade ingredient, nowadays is a heavily controlled industry. Before the discovery of one particular and counterintuitive safety protocol for making black powder, manufactories blew up all the time.

The early motion picture industry relied on a simple to make pre-petroleum age plastic film that was highly explosive and incendiary. Theaters burned down regularly before a more stable plastic was developed. The same material is common today as a primer compound in British munitions. The same material was used to make early 20th Century plastic objects. Faux turtleshell hairbrush handles, among other things, were made from it. It had a curious tendency to explode in extreme circumstances. Even fireworks manufacturing is heavily controlled in most countries. Heck, even some fertilizers are heavily controlled since the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing.

It's far simpler, safer, and cheaper to buy RPGs on the gray or black market war zone weapons market than to make them. But they can be made in primitive conditions.
 

Today, just about any American rifle, no matter how cheap, will shoot to mechanical accuracy of about 1 minute of angle.

So while it would be possible to build something like a primitive rifle, and something like a primitive bomb launcher, p.a., it's not going to be possible to replicate the accuracy, reliability, and destructive force that make today's weapons so darn useful. You can't put a molotov cocktail in a slingshot and call it an RPG, even if the gross function is the same.

We CANNOT permit a mine-shaft gap.

[This message has been edited by J (edited February 03, 2009).]
 

Zip guns used to be a commonplace criminal weapon. Not anymore, the criminal culture just doesn't know how to make one or prepare it for firing anymore, not when handguns are readily available on the street.
 

quote:

---

You can't put a molotov cocktail in a slingshot and call it an RPG, even if the gross function is the same.

---

The Gays was just me being idiotic. I saw someone posit the 1 in 4 people are gay thing, which strikes me as kinda high, and made a feeble attempt at humor. And I wasn't even drinking at the time.

So, Scout's Honor, I will no longer attempt to be funny unless I'm drunk. At least that way I'll have an excuse.
 

I googled the mine shaft gap and was illucidated. I have seen Dr. Strangelove, of course, but it was about 20 years ago and I had forgotten the dialogue I will have to pause from administering CPR long enough to see it again.

Another PA cliche-- utopian/distopian enclaves.
Beneath the Planet of the Apes- A Boy and His Dog-

Amazing how a simple question about cliches could get so big. I am pondering writing a very cliche filled post-apoc story just to take advantage of it all.
 

Ants. Spiders. Rats. You name it.

My apologies if this got mentioned before?
 

The greatest word that solves all problems in comic books, though, is: SOMEHOW.

Peter Parker managed to get bit by a radioactive spider that SOMEHOW transferred its DNA to him.

SOMEHOW Reed Richards and company didn't die when exposed to radiation.

Bruce Banner SOMEHOW survived a gamma ray(?!!) explosion and SOMEHOW manages to keep his pants on even though every other piece of clothing doesn't make it through the transformation.

SOMEHOW it's good stuff.
 

I am reminded of that greatest of all B-movie heroes, The Toxic Avenger!
 

SF proper grew out of it fast enough---but the comics never did.

(I had just been thinking of posting a complaint about mutant superpowers, but when I got here, I see you guys were ahead of me.)
 

And regarding mutations in comic books again (forgive the slight sidetrack), why are all mutations in those stories useful? razor-sharp claws, powers of flight, weather-control, super-strength?

I don't like Piers Anthony's Xanth stories in most respects, but I did like one thing about them. EVERYONE in Xanth had powers, but that doesn't mean that those powers were useful. For instance, there were some people who could make a purplish spot appear on the wall, and that was it.

OK, sidetrack over, carry on.
 

Matter Eater Lad. Seriously. Was his nemesis Tums? Pepcid? (And didn't he die by eating a black hole or something? The thing is, Matter Eater Lad could be a really cool concept for a sci-fi horror story.)
 

http://www.cracked.com/article_15049_marvel-comics-vs-science-5-most-absurd-superhero-origins.html

quote:

---

I remember one line from a list of Bart Simpson's Biggest Beefs: Years of exposure to radiation, but no cool superpowers...

---

I guess the ability to glow in the dark doesn't count