Emmerich, Roland 120–1, 155–6
The End of the World (J. Leslie) 17
entropy of the universe 138–42
environmental change see climate change
Environmental Success Stories (F. M. Dunnivant) 179
Epic of Gilgamesh 32
‘Eternal Return’ concept, Nietzsche’s 151–3, 183
Ethelred, King 52
eucatastrophe vs tragedy 145
European settlers, disease spread by 81–3
evangelical Christians 25
extinction events, asteroid 127
F
Fail-Safe (E. Burdick and H. Wheeler) 108
Fail Safe film 108–9
falsification, scientific 143
The Female Man film 88
Firestorm (E. Struzik) 157–8 ‘The Flea’ (J. Donne) 100–1
Fleischer, Richard 159–60
floods 28–9, 30–2
four horsemen of the apocalypse 23, 41
Frankenstein (M. Shelley) 26, 27, 111
Freud, Sigmund 95–6
front end vs back end of time concepts 12–14
G
Gaiman, Neil 15, 39
‘Galactic Center’ novels (G. Benford) 114–15
Gameau, Damon 168–9
Garland, Alex 62
Gay Science (F. Nietzsche) 151
Get Out film 61
Gibson, William 171–2
The Girl with All the Gifts (M. R. Carey) 58
global warming see climate change
God, Christian 11, 24, 43–4
God, Hebrew 24, 29
gods’ inability to uncreate 27–9
Good Omens (T. Prachett and N. Gaiman) 15, 39
graphic novels 57
gravity 144–5
Great War 105
Greek mythology 27–9, 79–80
Greeks, Ancient 10, 79–80, 164
Greenberg, Stanley R. 160–1
Groundhog Day film 153–4
Guns, Germs, and Steel (J. Diamond) 81
H
Haitian slave plantations 59
Halperin, Victor 59
heat death, universal 138–42, 153–4, 183
heatwaves, killer 163
heaven, Christian 10
Hebrew Bible 10
Hebrew God see God, Hebrew
Hindu mythology 31–2
HIV 85, 101–3
Hobson, Henry 72
Holbein, Hans 92–3
Homer 10, 79–80
Hopi people 38
Horse River Fire, Canada 157–8
Huastec people 32
humour, apocalyptic 14–15
I
Iliad (Homer) 79–80
imperialism, Western 118
Independence Day film 9, 89, 120–1
India 32
Industrial Revolution 158–9
‘Inhibitors’ series (A. Reynolds) 115
insurance, apocalypse 7–8
invasion stories 118–24
Islam 24, 25
isopsephy 49–50
J
Jaffa, Rick 89–90
Jerusalem, Siege of 45–51
Jesus 11, 25, 33, 44–5, 47–8
Jewish messiah 33, 44, 47
Jones, Duane 61
Josephus 51
Judaism 33, 44–8, 51
K
Kant, Immanuel 176–7
Kermode, Frank 25–6, 186–7
Kirkman, Robert 57
Kubrick, Stanley 15, 108–11
L
The Last Man (M. Shelley) 93–5, 97
Leslie, John 17
Li Hong, Prince 34
Lif and Lifthrasir 37
Liu Cixin 121–4
Love and Death film 74
Lugosi, Bela 59
Lumet, Sidney 108
M
maculae/sunspots 134–5
Maggie film 72–3
Mahdi (end-times messiah) 25
Mahshar Al Qiy’amah 24
Make Room! Make Room! (H. Harrison) 159–60
Malthus, Thomas 158–9
Manu 31–2
Marshall, George 163, 172
Martin, John 39
Mass Effect video game 115
Maté, Rudolph 125
Matrix trilogy films 90–1, 115–17
Mayan calendar 3
Melancholia film 126
Mesoamerica 32
Mesopotamia 31, 32
messiah figures 25, 33, 44
see also Jesus
Meteor film 125–6
Micromégas (Voltaire) 117
The Migration (H. Marshall) 99
Mind at the End of its Tether (H. G. Wells) 183–4
Minecraft video game 174–5
Miscellaneous Discourses Concerning the Dissolution and Changes of the World (J. Ray) 134–5
Moore, Tony 57
mortality, human awareness of 4–6, 184–6
mortality, religion structuring 24
N
Native American people 82
Near East 31
Nero, Emperor 50
Newton, Michael 67
Nietzsche, Friedrich 151–3
The Night Eats the World film 72
The Night Land (W. H. Hodgson) 147–8
Night of the Living Dead film 56, 61
Noah 29, 31
Nolan, Christopher 87
Norse mythology 9, 34–8
nuclear reactors 26, 52–3
nuclear weapons/holocaust 15, 70, 107–11
O
Odin 34–5
Old Testament 29
Omen film trilogy 39
Outbreak film 80, 84
overpopulation, global 159–61
ozone levels 179
P
Palawan people 83
pandemic anxiety 84
‘Parasitology’ trilogy (M. Grant) 70
The Passage trilogy (J. Cronin) 58
Passover 46
Peloponnesian plague 85
pessimism, philosophical 141–2
Physics of Immortality (F. Tipler) 149–50
Pickens, Slim 109–10
Pitman, Walter 31
Plague Inc. video game 88
plagues 80–1
alien infections in fiction 87–8, 89
Ancient Greece 79–80
antibodies and immunity 81–2
assigning agency to 85–90
Black Death 81, 92
Covid-19 85, 86, 100, 105–6
disease spread by European settlers 81–3
freedom from civilisation 95–8
globalisation/interconnectedness 83–4, 86
gothic 19th century portrayal 93–5
human sociability 99–100, 105–6
humans as plague 90–2
humans deserving 89–92
and humans on the same side 89 ‘last man’ trope 93–9
light-hearted portrayal of 92–3
science fiction 87–90
and sex 100–3
Spanish Flu 103–5
zombies 62–3, 88
Planet of the Apes films 90
plastic pollution 27
Polidori, John William 93
Pompeii 50
Popper, Karl 143
population growth 158–9
Pralaya 31–2
Pratchett, Terry 15, 39, 176–7
Prince, Russ Alan 8
probability, Bayesian 17–22, 182
Prometheus 27–9
Prose Edda (Snorri Sturluson) 37–8
Puluga 32
R
Ragnarök 9, 37
see also Norse mythology
Ramis, Harold 154
Ray, John 134–5
Red Alert (P. George) 107–8
religion, purpose of 24
religious doomsday 23–4
belief of imminence 25–6
Book of Revelation 8–9, 15, 39–54
floods 28–9, 30–2, 34
gods’ inability to uncreate 26–9
messiah figures 25, 33–4
Norse mythology 34–8
punishing human sinfulness 27–30, 31–3, 38
saving the faithful 32–4, 38
valiant defiance of Vikings 34–8
Resident Evil video game and film franchise 65
Revelation, Book of 8–9, 15, 39–54
Reyes, Xavier Aldana 71
Rigaut, Jacques 11
Robinson, Kim Stanley 170
Robles, Angelo 7–8
Roche, Boyd 173–4
Rocher, Dominique 72
Roddenberry, Gene 169
Roman Empire 45–6, 48–50, 164
A Romance of Two Worlds (M. Corelli) 117
Romero, George A. 9, 56, 61
Russ, Joanna 88
Rutherford, Ernest 135–6
Ryan, William 31
Ryle, John 104
S
Saberhagen, Fred 114
Saint John’s Book of Revelation 8–9, 15, 39–54
Saint Luke 48
Saint Matthew 48
The Satan Bug film 87–8
Schopenhauer, Arthur 142
‘Science in the Capital’ trilogy (K. S. Robinson) 170
Scott, Walter 5–6
‘The Screwfly Solution’ (A. Sheldon) 87
Self, Will 175–6
Sellers, Peter 109–10
The Sense of an Ending (F. Kermode) 186–7
seven suns, Buddhist 23
Seveneves (N. Stephenson) 6–7
sex and plague 100–3
Shaun of the Dead film 66–7
Shelley, Mary 27, 93, 97, 111
Shelley, Percy Bysshe 93
Sheol, Hebrew 10
Shippey, Tom 35–6
Silver, Amanda 90
sinfulness, punishing human 27–30
Skyrim video game 175–6
slavery and racial discrimination 59, 60–1
Smith, Agent (The Matrix) 90–1, 116
Snowpiercer film 164–5
social decay and zombies 69–70
Sontag, Susan 103
Soylent Green film 159–61 ‘Space’ trilogy (C. S. Lewis) 117
Spanish Flu 83, 103–5
Sparta 80
Special Report on Global Warming (IPCC report 2018) 162–3, 167
Spider Woman, Hopi culture’s 38
The Stand (S. King) 39
Star Trek 169
Stephenson, Neal 6–7
storytelling and the apocalypse 6–9, 32–4, 38, 145–6, 185–9
Stross, Charlie 59, 60
Sturluson, Snorri 37
Sun, death of the 134–9 ‘Supper’s Ready’ (Genesis) 39
survival guides, zombie apocalypse 56
Survivors TV series 84
Sveinsson, Brynjólfur 35
T
Taoism 33–4
Tasmania 82–3
Tawa 38
technology-/machine-led apocalypse advanced alien lifeforms 117–18, 119–24
destruction by asteroid 124–8
human loss of control 111–13
life-hating computer intelligence 112, 115–17
life-hating killer robots 112–15
The Matrix film trilogy 115–17
The Terminator film series 112–13
Temple of Jerusalem 46, 50
‘The Terminal Beach’ (J. G. Ballard) 134
The Terminator film series 112–13
Thacker, Eugene 70
thinking in the wrong direction 12–14
This Is The End (S. Rogen and E. Goldberg) 15
The Three-Body Problem (Liu Cixin) 121–2
Thus Spoke Zarathustra (F. Nietzsche) 151
The Time Machine (H. G. Wells) 130–4, 142, 183
timor mortis 4
Tipler, Frank 149–50
Titus 45–6, 49, 50
Tlapanec people 32
Tolkien, J. R. R. 145
Torah 29
Trump, Donald 86
U
Übermensch, Nietzsche’s 153
UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 162–3, 167
universal heat death 138–42, 153–4, 183
Utnapishtim 32
V
vampires 72–3
Vermes, Géza 44–5
Vespasian 28–49, 45
video games 9, 65, 88–9, 115, 174–9
Vishnu 32
von Trier, Lars 126
voodoo 59
W
Wachowski sisters 115–16
Wailing Wall 46
The Walking Dead graphic novel and TV series 57–8
Wampanoag people 82
War and Peace (L. Tolstoy) 52
The War of the Worlds (H. G. Wells) 89, 119–20, 183–4
Ward, Peter 127–8
Wells, H. G. 6, 89, 119–20, 130–4, 142, 146, 183
Western imperialism 118
When Worlds Collide film
