![]() ![]() ![]() Power plants are calmly switched off by the last of the surviving adults. The slow motion death of civilization as the disease/curse gradually wipes out adults allows for a winding down of the gears of modernity. While the central concept of “only children survive” has been done before, Monk’s take on an apocalypse where children literally inherit the earth presents a vision with an extraordinary level of detail that goes far beyond most of it progenitors. ![]() ![]() Children fight off the poison/disease/curse, with increasing age reducing one’s chances of survival until the age of roughly 17, when the mortality rate reaches zero. It’s no spoiler to reveal that the end of the world as the characters in This Dark Age know it comes about due to a mysterious ailment that eventually afflicts everyone. Monk’s This Dark Age Series the end of the world kicks off with a vaguely defined whimper, and the ramifications of the method by which civilization dies informs every aspect of the narrative – an important aspect of doomsday literature not always present. As technology changes, the instrument of the death of Western Civilization has also changed. From the Egyptian drowning of the world in the seas of chaos to the pagan world eating wolf of Ragnarok to alien and kitchen-sink approach of the Biblical Apocalyptica, wondering about the death of the world is as natural as wondering about the death of one’s self. Post-apocalyptic literature has a tradition almost as old as literature itself. ![]()
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