“Writing for the End of the World” is Up at Nature

My story, “Writing for the End of the World” is up at Nature today.

This was a lot of fun to write. From the inspiration for the story, to being able to integrate one of my favorite jokes as a type of parallel to the main story, everything came together in delightful fashion. The initial inspiration came from reading Beth Cato’s wonderful little story, “The Library Is Open” over at Daily Science Fiction. It’s not the first story of Beth’s that deals with a post-apocalyptic world (she has at least two others I know of in the pages of Nature, as well), and what with all the types of apocalypses out there in books, movies and TV, I wondered where the modern end-of-the-world story came from.

It’s not a very well-kept secret certain more secretive government agencies invite science fiction authors to speak as “futurists” (to which I say: great gig if you can get it). I imagined a similar Cold War Era program, inviting authors to write post-apocalyptic stories as a type of warning. My main character survives from such a program, even though he wonders how effective his efforts have been.

Enjoy!

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