For whatever reason, popular literature is positively obsessed with the apocalypse, and has been for the past decade. On the pop end of the spectrum that results in works of entertaining fluff like The Walking Dead and on the more high-minded literary end we end up with a singular work of genius like Cormac McCarthy’s stark The Road. For the reader these stories allow a safe vicarious thrill, a game of “what-if”, in which we can place ourselves in danger and imagine that we’d react heroically.