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We all experience times in our lives when we become slightly obsessed with a certain theme. I have had this with sword and sorcery fantasy, humorous science fiction and zombies. Last year I read The Passage, a book that received a lot of attention, praise and some harsh criticism. I enjoyed it while I know many people didn’t.

One of the great things about The Passage was the landscape in the second half. Civilisation is gone with small pockets of survivors clinging to the last remnants of their humanity. I became fascinated with this idea and started searching out anything that could satisfy my new-found hunger.

Like catcher in the Rye but with zombies

The obvious beginning was movies such as The Omega Man, I Am Legend, the Mad Max movies and many of the Romero zombie movies and so many others that it would be impossible to list. In between I also began reading I Am Legend which I quickly devoured, then based on an amazon recommendation I bought The Reapers are The Angels which jumped into my list of top ten books of all time and Feed which despite some immature writing I quite liked.

Both Feed and The Reapers are the Angels follow on from a zombie apocalypse. Vampires feature heavily in I am Legend and The Passage, while war and natural disasters feature prominently in so many stories. Just before writing this I watched the film Stakeland where mutant vampires have brought the world to its knees and a boy is left with a vampire hunter named Mister after his parents are killed.

It was a fairly low-budget film that still had some nice ideas, interesting plot and believable characters even if there will be no acting awards going for this attempt. It made me think however of how I would react to an apocalyptic scenario. Would I rise up and become the leader of a bandit group, or maybe roam the wilderness as the disinterested stranger that shows a gentler side and saves people. Most likely I would be doing the same thing that most people will end up doing. Simply surviving.

What would you do if faced with the end of the world?

The only medium that hasn’t captured my imagination with this kind of setting is video games which is odd as I’m very much a gamer at heart.  I can only assume that it is because of over saturation within the gaming market.  So many games are based in the decaying ruins of a city or the arid wasteland  that is the wilderness.  Game developers have been riding that pony since the early 80′s and because of that I just don’t care.  With a book, TV show or movies you get sucked into the narrative and experience through someone else’s eyes the devastation and lose of humanity in a very unique way.

Zombieland was a great Post-Apocalyptic movie

With a video game the apocalyptic landscape is just a handy backdrop to whatever game mechanics the developers want to show off, or an easy tool for lazy writers so that they don’t have to fit plot points and story devices in a traditional and recognisable environment such as a modern city.  While these games may be good often they are good despite the landscape rather than with help from it.

Let me know your thoughts on these kinds of books, movies and games and let me know of any hidden gems that you would recommend.