It's the End of the World

My 1000th review on Goodreads!!!!!!!!!

Like any sane person I have fantasized about the end of the world….anything to not have to get out of bed and go to work….I even have plans in place of the places I’d hit first once I know I’ve survived, in order of being hit is The Library, a Supermarket, a Garden Centre and then the Hospital, finally I would then rummage around in the neighbours houses to see what they got there. One thing the pandemic of 2020 and this book have shown me is that things ain’t gonna play out like that, mostly because too many will survive, so I’d have to hit the Supermarket first….gotta get me as much bog roll and pasta as I can seeing as it will be the currency of the New World.

When picking up this book I was expecting it to be very tongue in cheek, but it is much more serious than expected, Roberts does include the odd joke and pun to try and keep things light and stop the reader from spiralling into depression. There is a lot of science here and Roberts’ excellent writing keeps it simple and interesting, I’ve learnt loads, one of the most interesting was about the Big Bang and “The Big Crunch” (Read the book to find out what that is). Zombies, aliens, meteors, climate change and nukes are all stuff I know about from movies, but to read about how the Sun will die and what the future holds was mesmerising, Roberts takes the reader to that bleak abyss of nothingness and leaves you standing there for a while.

One problem with this type of book is finding any reference material, there ain’t many apocalypses to draw info from so Roberts has to delve into literature, film & TV and video games to base the chapters around the common methods of apocalypse. This was almost a trip down memory lane, remembering past episodes of Star Trek and books like World War Z, this left me wanting to re-read and re-watch many things, it also mad me realise that the book could do with an additional section, a list of books and movies mentioned in the book, I’d work my way through them.

I think Roberts has done a good job with this book, he has covered all areas of the apocalypse and tries to figure out just what our fascination is with the total destruction of everything, I pretty much agreed with all the points he made. The arguments were well structured and he tries to keep his distance from putting over his own opinion, especially in matters of religion. He started this book before Covid 19 arrived and continued writing whilst it was all going on and he does a good job weaving that experience into the book.

A very good read that I would highly recommend to anybody with an interest in science, books and movies and that like me hears a voice telling them to kill all humans.

Blog review (including a video): felcherman.wordpress.com/2020/12/08/its-the-end-of-the-world-but-what-are-we-really-afraid-of-by-adam-roberts/