Alpabetical Doomsday Introduction: Welcome to the End of the World

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Here's a very abbreviated overview to a vast literature of the end of times/apocalypse/technocaust/end of the world themes.  This is just a short working list, really, and includes only short stories or novels.  In many cases there is just one example (where there could be hundreds).  There are no movies or television shows listed, though I think that they must be enormously outnumered (and the scale of orders of magniutue) by the print media. 

Alien Invasion:  The War of the Worlds 1898, H. G. Wells; The Moon Men 1926, Edgar Rice Burroughs; The Puppet Masters, 1951, Robert A. Heinlein

Botanical endgame virus destroying all plant life: The Death of Grass by John Christopher  On the opposite end is  1962 novel Hothouse by Brian Aldiss where the plants take over everything.

Climate Change: The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard 1962.  Conversely Ballard wrote the novel The Drought  in 1964 about all of the water on earth drying up.

Crystallization (!):  this one sounds painful:  The Crystal World by J.G. Ballard 1966. Everyone and everything begins to form into crystals.

The Drought by J.G. Ballard A super drought evaporates all water on earth.

Dying Sun:  The World in Winter by John Christopher 1962

Earthquakes: A Wrinkle in the Skin, John Christopher, 1965

Environemntalism and Rush’s dream-come-true: The Bridge by D. Keith Mano (1973) envirofascists exterminate humans to save the world.

Extraterrestrial Threat:  When Worlds Collide by Philip Wylie, 1933

Flood: Flood by Stephen Baxter (2008) gigantic underground oceans seep to the surface and inundate the world.

Human general malaise, dystopia, ennui: Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End ; City (1952) by Clifford D. Simak; Friday  by Robert A. Heinlein;. Galápagos by Kurt Vonnegut.; Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle;l H. G. Wells' The Time Machine

Human Wars:  After London 1885 Richard Jeffries; Ape and Essence 1948 Aldous  Huxley ; Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 1968 Philip K Dick,.; The Last Man 1826 Mary SHeley.

Ice Water catastrophe: Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, 1964:  Time of the Great Freeze by Robert Silverberg , 1964 and in 1969 The Ice Schooner by Michael Moorcock

Insect extermination: Charles Pellegrino’s Dust, 1998.  The ecosystem collapses after bugs disappear.

Infertility caused by nuke power plant meltdown:  1946 Mr. Adam by Pat Frank Also the infertility endgame in Greybeard by Brian Aldiss, 1964.

Meteor: Survival 2000 1991, James McPhee;  Titan 1997, Stephen Baxter; The Day of the Triffids 1951.

Monsters: Skeletons, (1992) by Al Sarrantonio.  The Earth is ravaged by a raised-from-the-dead society of super monsters comprising all animals that ever lived, ever, but in super-skeleton form. Yikes!

Nature’s Death: Nature's End by Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka. (1986)

Nuclear-bomb-induced-methane-fueled superhurricanes. Mother of Storms by John Barnes – 1995

Nuclear weapons:  too, too many to reckon with here.  Ray Bradbury famously ends the world at the same instant via an exchange in Fahrenheit 451, for example. Mordecai Roshwald's Level 7, Nevil Shute's On the Beach and Pat Frank's Alas, Babylon,

Overpopulation and mass famine:  Anthony Burgess’ The Wanting Seed 1962. Also 1966 novel Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison (made into Soylent Green). The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood, tale of developing underpopulation caused by infertility caused by pollution. 

Petroleum-eating microbes: Ill Wind (novel) by Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason 1995.

Plagues:  The White Plague 1982 Frank Herbert; The Scarlet Plague 1912 Jack London; Oryx and Crake 2003 Margaret Atwood; The Children of Men 1992 P.D. James

Pollution Children of Morrow by  H. M. Hoover.

Religious: Book of Revelation, the Book of Daniel, the short story The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke (1953), and on and on.

Robot Revenge/Overlords: Erewhon's section The Book of Machines (1872); The Machine Stops 1909,by E. M. Forster ; The Mind Machine (1919) by Michael Williams;  R.U.R. (play, 1921), by Karel Čapek, The Metal Giants (1926), by Edmond Hamilton ; Automata (1926 short story) by S. Fowler Wright

Snow: The Snow by Adam Roberts (2004) everyone buried under lots and lots of building snows.

Space-based: Aftermath by Charles Sheffield, 2004, supernova causes cataclysmic climate change. 

Space-based (civilization collapse): Against the Fall of Night by Arthur C. Clarke ;Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda ;The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke ; The Dragon Masters, by Jack Vance

Volcanic eruption: The Purple Cloud by M.P. Shiel, 1901.

Windstorms: The Wind from Nowhere by J.G. Ballard, 1961.

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