(no subject)

[camwyn]

Still haven't seen or read I Am Legend, though I intend to. Haven't seen Cloverfield yet either. But between the ads, and an ad or two for Discovery Channel's (or Animal Planet's, not sure which) special on post-humanity Earth, it occurs to me... I'd kind of like to see what happens to someone who winds up in a REALLY post-apoc world. No ragtag bands of survivors, no distorted social structures, no mutants, no zombies, no gladiatorial pits o' Mel Gibson... Nothing. Just a hundred years' worth of life without humans.

And one twentieth or twenty-first century human making the DO NOT WANT face for all they're worth.

Comments

[avariel-wings.livejournal.com]

If you'd like to imagine details of it, I will happily dump a character into it.

[camwyn]

I'll see what I come up with. I was brainstorming on the train from Hoboken to Secaucus and the sight of the Meadowlands swamps made me think of the idea...

[camwyn]

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I want to do this as fiction rather than RP. Can I throw the first part of it at you when I figure out exactly how I'm going to screw with the main character?

[avariel-wings.livejournal.com]

Sure!

[zou.livejournal.com]

Are there dogs and cats in the super post-apoc world?

[camwyn]

Only the viable breeds, and they're nearly all collapsed into two or three appearance groups, anyway- the shepherd/wolfy types, the terrierish small dogs, and the generic Yellow Labbish variety. The cats've mostly looked like, well, cats. No flatfaces or hairless types, though.

And the cockroaches are gone from New York. No humans- no heat in winter.

[cupenny.livejournal.com]

Given all the "But the cockroaches will survive!" I've heard about post-apocaliptic settings, I find this so very amusing.

[camwyn]

Oh, they still exist. But they're a species from farther south than NY. They need warmth to make it through winter.

Get down to, like, DC or Virginia and they'll still be there.

[pelogrande.livejournal.com]

It calls to mind the Justice League ep where Superman is sent far into the future, post humanity. The sun has gone red so he's powerless and has to fight his way across a far-evolved landscape.

It's not every day you get to watch a bearded Superman fight off animals with a sword.

[camwyn]

Ooh. Haven't seen that one.

[badninja.livejournal.com]

Damn.

[camwyn]

This kind of thing is why it's probably best not to let my mind wander. It comes back wagging its tail with this kind of thing in its jaws. And that's on a good day.

[badninja.livejournal.com]

Well, -I- think it's awesome. *g*

[camwyn]

The next question, of course, is what happened. Because something did, of course, and I have to have that in mind before I inflict the Big Empty on anyone.

[maxineofarc.livejournal.com]

There's going to be a piece on the History Channel Monday called Life After People. Although it starts from the assumption that all humans just vanish one day and goes on from there (so no worrying about ramifications of an apocalypse) it sounds pretty intriguing.

[camwyn]

That! That's the print ad I was thinking of, not Animal Planet after all. Thank you.

[avram]

Have you read Vernor Vinge's Marooned in Realtime?

[camwyn]

Afraid not. I know the premise and the plot, though.

[sdelmonte]

I am vaguely reminded on the end of Clarke's classic, Childhood's End.

[camwyn]

Alas, another classic I've not read. I've concentrated more on his short stories.

[sdelmonte]

I love his novels, but will admit tat they are heavy on ideas and short on characters. This is probably the one where he actually comes closest to creating strong characters over the length of a book.

[arionrhod.livejournal.com]

There is a story called "Second Ending" by James White in his short story collection "Monsters and Medics". In the story a man wakes from cryosleep to find he's not just the last human in the world, he's the last life PERIOD. No plant or animal or anything exists any longer. All there are is robots. Great story. Very powerful about his feelings at knowing he's all there is left of an entire planet.

[hortorum.livejournal.com]

Nick Sagan's "Idlewild" books are pretty good on the whole "No-one home" score.

[starknakedsoul.livejournal.com]

I consider I Am Legend a pure love story. It is high on my sci-fi movie favorites. Did anyone read the book? How well did the movie translate from the ink?

[ebony14.livejournal.com]

It doesn't. The movie takes the basic premise and runs with it. Given that Richard Matheson wrote it in 1954, the modernization was well done and very logical. The end of the film is completely different from the end of the book. I recommend the book greatly; it is an excellent story.

It doesn't end like you think it will.

[the_croupier]

You know, I've had this little stack of Richard Matheson trade paperbacks sitting on my shelf, and I've been meaning to dig into them for ages. I've barely even read him, but I know he rocks.

I guess it's nice to know I have some unread awesome sitting there on my bookshelves, waiting for me.

[ebony14.livejournal.com]

The story's a little dated, but Matheson's book is an excellent piece of work. There's a graphic novel version out there as well, which does a good job of translating it to the visual medium.

For post-Humanity, you might look for After Man: A Zoology of the Future by Dougal Dixon. I remember it from high school, and thought it was a pretty cool book on evolution.

[camwyn]

I remember thumbing through After Man once. I don't remember bothering to read the whole thing. There was something about it that annoyed me, and I can't for the life of me remember what it was. Might have to try again next time the library's open.