POST-APOCALYPSE IS THE NEW CRUSOE

If you were stranded on a desert island, what sci fi genre would you take with you? With a surge in video games, movies, comics, and novels, it might be post-apocalyptic. But, most people haven’t realized that the post-apocalypse is just the deserted island castaway story all over again. In an era where the Galapagos Islands have to limit the number of tourists, and Mt. Everest has had 169 people climb it in one day, the idea of uncharted land seems laughable. Robinson Crusoe was one of the first English language novels, and was popular enough to spawn two sequels, and imitators like Swiss Family Robinson, and Gilligan’s Island. With the globe fully mapped, the only places left to explore are fictional islands like in Lost, or beyond Earth like in Lost in Space.

Enter the post-apocalypse, where you get to rediscover the same land, only with a twist. We know New York now but what will you find after the fall? Cockroach people fighting mutant pizza monsters? Baseball Furies on Central Park Zoo animal-led hot dog cart chariots? It’s familiar and new at the same time.

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