The End of the World (Alternatives) - Hardcover

3.67

9 ratings by Goodreads

9780809310333: The End of the World (Alternatives)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0809310333 ISBN 13: 9780809310333

Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983

The essays selected by the editors to ex�plore these apocalyptic visions are: The Re�making of Zero: Beginning at the End,” by Gary K. Wolfe; The Lone Survivor,” by Robert Plank; Ambiguous Apocalypse: Transcendental Versions of the End,” by Robert Galbreath; World’s End: The Imag�ination of Catastrophe,” by W. Warren Wagar; Man-Made Catastrophes,” by Brian Stableford; and The Rebellion of Nature,” by W. Warren Wagar.

Wolfe sees in these postholocaust narra�tives a central attraction the mythic power inherent in the very conception of a remade world.” This power derives from three sources: the emergence of a new order from the ashes of the old system, and thus a kind of denial of death; the reinforcement of one set of values as opposed to another; and as something always replaces whatever was destroyed, a promise that nothing can anni�hilate humanity.

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About the Author:

Eric S. Rabkin is Professor of English and Associate Dean for Long Range Planning at the University of Michigan.

Martin H. Greenberg is with the College of Community Services at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay.

Joseph D. Olander is Vice-Presi�dent for Academic Affairs, University of Texas, El Paso.

From Publishers Weekly:

Starred Review. A sensitive introduction by Robert Silverberg sets the tone for 19 varied glimpses of humankind's ending, arranged thematically and ranging from the nuclear bang of Norman Spinrad's "The Big Flash" to the sad whimper of George R.R. Martin's poignant "Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels." Lester Del Rey's wrenching "Kindness" nods to the last living Homo sapiens while John Helfers's "Afterward" envisions a blue-whitebrown planet sterilized of human contamination. Orson Scott Card's "Salvage" and Nancy Kress's elegiac "Fools Like Me" eloquently humanize the inhuman and convincingly imagine the unimaginable. Even longtime SF fans who know many of these classic stories will be thrilled to have them all in one place, a moving and powerful reminder of humanity's capacity for self-destruction and powerful will to survive.
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