Roberts suggests that people like apocalyptic plotlines because we’re used to stories having a beginning, middle, and end and we need to know how stories will end. (Note: As I read an ARC through NetGalley, passages quoted may not be in their final forms.) As both an author of science fiction and an English professor, Adam Roberts is incredibly knowledgeable about this subject and his tone veers from informed analysis to groanworthy jokes and it all worked for me. Turns out, It's the End of the World: But What Are We Really Afraid Of? was perfectly suited to my tastes and interests: I thought this was going to be an overview of the ways the world could end - and it is that - but even more intriguingly, it’s how these possible end-of-days scenarios have been portrayed in literature, song, art, and film throughout the ages and around the world, and what these portrayals suggest about human nature. This book was a lucky dip a more or less “this looks like something” pick from NetGalley’s assortment of ARCs. From religious doomsday and swarms of monsters to biological plague and technological doom, from the winding down of the universe to environmental catastrophe, in these pages we’ll explore not just our fear of death, but more importantly all the things we’re really afraid of in life. They can illustrate our dread of judgement, the importance we place on our societal connections, the darker side of our own human nature.

But if we look more closely at the way we tell our stories, we can see that how we portray the end can also tell us much about how we understand the world and the people around us, not just about how we think about our mortality. It is fertile territory for our imaginations. Fantasies of the end take many different approaches: funny, inventive, ghastly, far-fetched and scarily realistic.

The this by adam roberts