The Post-Apocalyptic Present

Post-apocalyptic fiction used to be disreputable, a source of pulpy thrills and nuclear terror. Flourishing in the post-World War II period, works like Leigh Brackett’s The Long Tomorrow (1955), John ...

No Man Is an Island

Early on, Andy Weir’s novel The Martian—about an astronaut left to fend for himself on Mars when his team thinks he has died during a crisis—falls into a reliable pattern. Mark Watney, the team’s ...