Daily chartApocalyptic fiction and the Doomsday Clock

THE apocalypse is fertile ground for writers. From the popular fiction of John Wyndham and Stephen King to the work of Pulitzer- and Booker-prize winners like Cormac McCarthy and Margaret Atwood, the apocalypse and its aftermath have been reimagined in various ways.

The Doomsday Clock is another touchstone of apocalyptic fear. A countdown to global catastrophe devised by scientists in 1947, in the wake of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was conceived as a representation of the threat of global nuclear war. The clock started at seven minutes to midnight, with midnight symbolising the end of life as we know it. The hands have been adjusted 22 times, fluctuating between two and 17 minutes to midnight.

The chart maps the publication of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic literature over the course of the clock’s 70-year history. Each time the hands edge closer to midnight, writers seem to start scribbling about the extinction of the human race. In January the hands of the Doomsday Clock were adjusted to two and a half minutes to midnight, the closest they have come to catastrophe since 1953. The fears of scientists are often echoed in fiction. Another wave of end-of-days literature may be on its way.

*A note on titles. To assemble the list of novels used in our chart we cross-referenced dozens of databases and lists of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic literature, weeding out those with aliens and supernatural triggers for the apocalypse, as well as short stories, novels not originally penned in English and self-published titles. In the absence of a comprehensive database of every such book published since 1947, we hope we have successfully identified the bulk of the titles published during this period, but please add a comment if you feel we have missed something.