In recent years, it seems like books about the End of the World have become more popular. I’ve no hard numbers, so perhaps I’m wrong and it’s been a phenomenon for a while now.
A recent example of this is Dungeon Crawler Carl, a novel that begins a series about how an alien incursion results in the majority of humanity being recycled, some entering into something along the lines of a deadly game show, and the rest dealing with a planet without modern technology.
Another example from a few years before would be Tao Wong’s System Apocalypse. The System comes online, absorbing the Earth, providing mana to humanity and beasts alike, with these changes turning both into monsters.
I knew Tao from a gaming shop he used to run, along with another author, David R. Packer, who has written a trilogy in Tao’s world, as well as a few of his own.
I can’t remember what it was that originally motivated me to read the System Apocalypse series, but I’d guess someone, possibly him, had mentioned it, and I’d grabbed a copy to check it out.
Both books have the themes of the end of the world, the changing of the rules, abuses of power, and how one copes with big changes. DCC has a strong undertone of revolution, which seems to strike a chord with people in these trying times.
A bit ago, I remember reading something that someone had written that based on the math, Smaug, the dragon from The Hobbit, would hardly qualify as a hoarder of wealth, given how much wealth has been concentrated into the hands of a small percentage of humanity. This was a spinoff on the whole billionaires are like dragons memes.
The wealth inequality and power imbalances are a theme of many of these novels, and in some ways, a key element of progression fantasy in general. Progression fantasy being the umbrella category that most LitRPGs fit into, of which the two end of the world series mentioned above fit solidly into.
The dissatisfaction with the world, and with the inequality, are probably a strong reason these particular series are resonant with folks lately. Not to mention that whole end of the millennium doomsday cult mythology that left its mark on those who grew up in the ending years of the last century.
There have been end of the world movies for a long time, but somehow there is a sense that LitRPGs and progression novels in general, while about the end of the world, have a different approach to it than most of the fiction. There’s a more fundamental focus on growth than most of the movies I can think of.
Usually, the end of the world is averted or survivors are collectively rebuilding something.
LitRPGs have a more colonial theme to them, an inevitability of colonization and then struggling not to be lost in this new paradigm that has been forced upon them. That feels different to the movies that came before, which generally had either folks fighting off the invaders, or surviving in a world destroyed by the invaders. Having to make the best of it in a system imposed by the invaders is fairly uncommon, I can only think of one example off the top of my head, the poorly regarded Battlefield Earth. And even that falls into fighting them off fairly quickly.
It has occurred to me that one of the benefits about writing in a world that’s been partially destroyed is that you can justify not understanding things by simply handwaving them as not how things work anymore.
Another example that comes to mind, is the BuyMort series, in which the enemy is very clearly capitalism writ large.
There was a sense that the world was becoming more egalitarian, and yet, quietly, the kings and rulers of previous generations were replaced by various robber barons and other capitalist heroes.
At the same time, generations of pro-capitalism propaganda have created a hostility towards community building and social goods.
People have been taught to work against their own self-interests, and that complicates circumstances. It’s hard to improve systems if people have been poisoned against those ideas.
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