It’s the end of the world as we know it.
So, lately I’ve gotten into Jericho, a show I apparently completely missed when it aired back in 2006-2007. It concerned a small town in central Kansas that witnessed nuclear attacks on 23 American cities, and the aftermath of those attacks. It was actually a pretty good show, and I watched both existing seasons in the space of about a week.
This sounds odd to admit, but I’m kind of a fan of nuclear apocalypse fiction. Just like some people are way into zombies, I enjoy the stories of how people survive and rebuild after their whole way of life has been destroyed. I grew up in the Cold War, though, so that might have something to do with it. We (thought) we were under the constant threat of nuclear attack from the Soviet Union in those days, so there’s an instant shortcut into my psyche for those kinds of stories.
The best nuclear apocalypse movie I think I’ve seen, though, was an early-1980s TV movie called The Day After, which focused on the survivors of a nuclear strike on Kansas City, most of them clustered in and around Lawrence, Kansas. (I wonder why Kansas is the destination of choice for nuclear apocalypse fiction, anyway?) Unlike Jericho, there wasn’t much focus on finding out who planned the attacks so much as there was a focus on the aftermath and reconstruction.
So, what’s the best story in the apocalypse/post-apocalypse genre you’ve found? I know there are some out there that I still need to discover. Lay ‘em on me in the comments!
