![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Save one pet dog that returns home only to die of starvation (symbolically representing the colonizers who return to Earth), the story has no living characters. The harrowing “There Will Come Soft Rains” is set on the planet Earth following the nuclear holocaust. However, it is the post-apocalyptic nightmare on Earth-not Mars-that evokes the strongest, most haunting imagery in The Martian Chronicles. The survivors wander an empty world, scrabble for resources, contend with isolation, and face the existential crisis that comes with living in scraps. Also, countless films: Danny Boyle‘s 28 Days Later (2002), Patricia Rozema’s Into the Forest (2015, see also PopMatters’ interview with Rozema), Sang-ho Yeon’s Train to Busan (2016), Engler and Etter’s Cargo (2017), John Krasinksi’s A Quiet Place (2018), and George Miller’s Mad Max trilogy, to name just a few. The setting and circumstances are well-known, mimicked in so many 21 st century apocalyptic fictions: McCarthy’s The Road, Colson Whitehead’s Zone One (2011), and Emily St. These are stories about last survivors, akin to Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) and those who navigate a desolated wasteland like Shelley’s The Last Man. “The Silent Towns” and “The Long Years”, two post-apocalyptic Earth Men stories set on the abandoned Mars, feel very familiar. ![]()
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