Dying Earth

The Dying Earth subgenre is a sub-category of science fiction or science fantasy which takes place in the far future at either the end of life on Earth or the End of Time, when the laws of the universe themselves fail. Themes of world-weariness, innocence (wounded or otherwise), idealism, entropy, (permanent) exhaustion/depletion of many or all resources (such as soil nutrients), and the hope of renewal tend to pre-dominate.

The apocalyptic sub-genre is nearly as old as literature itself. The Dying Earth genre differs in that it deals not with catastrophic destruction, but with entropic exhaust The Dying Earth subgenre is a sub-category of science fiction or science fantasy which takes place in the far future at either the end of life on Earth or the End of Time, when the laws of the universe themselves fail. Themes of world-weariness, innocence (wounded or otherwise), idealism, entropy, (permanent) exhaustion/depletion of many or all resources (such as soil nutrients), and the hope of renewal tend to pre-dominate.

The apocalyptic sub-genre is nearly as old as literature itself. The Dying Earth genre differs in that it deals not with catastrophic destruction, but with entropic exhaustion of the Earth. The genre was prefigured by the works of the Romantic movement. Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville's Le Dernier Homme (1805) narrates the tale of Omegarus, the Last Man on Earth. It is a bleak vision of the future when the Earth has become totally sterile. Lord Byron's poem "Darkness" (1816) shows Earth after the Sun has died.

Another early example is La Fin du Monde (The End of the World, aka Omega: the last days of the world), written by Camille Flammarion and published in France in 1893. The first half of the novel is dealing with a comet on a collision course with earth in the 25th century. The last half focuses on earth's future history, where civilization rise and fall, humans evolve and finally, its end as an old, dying and barren planet.

Another early and more famous science fiction work to utilize the familiar Dying Earth imagery was H. G. Wells' famous novella "The Time Machine" (1895). At the end of this work, the unnamed time traveller travels into the far future where there are only a few living things on a dying Earth. He then returns to his own time to relate his tale to a circle of contemporaries.

Two brooding works by William Hope Hodgson would elaborate on Wells' vision. The House on the Borderland (1908) takes place in a house besieged by unearthly forces. The narrator then travels (without explanation and perhaps psychically) into a distant future in which humanity has died and then even further, past the death of Earth. Hodgson's later The Night Land (1912) describes a time, millions of years in the future, when the Sun had gone dark. The last few millions of the human race are gathered together in a gigantic metal pyramid, the Last Redoubt (probably the first arcology in literature) under siege from unknown forces and Powers outside in the dark. ...more

Dying Earth Books

The Shadow of the Torturer (The Book of the New Sun, #1)

The Eyes of the Overworld (The Dying Earth, #2)

Shadow & Claw (The Book of the New Sun, #1-2)

The Claw of the Conciliator (The Book of the New Sun, #2)

Sword & Citadel (The Book of the New Sun, #3-4)

Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honour of Jack Vance

The Sword of the Lictor (The Book of the New Sun, #3)

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Lists

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

SFF: Best Plot

27 books — 13 voters

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

SFF: Best Prose

34 books — 12 voters

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own M... by Catherynne M. Valente

The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers

SFF: Best Settings

36 books — 8 voters

Best Science Fantasy Books

46 books — 78 voters

Far Future Science Fiction and Fantasy

79 books — 23 voters

In Yana, the Touch of Undying by Michael Shea

Authors To Read If You're A Fan of Jack Vance

39 books — 21 voters

Related Genres

Fiction
Science Fiction
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Quotes Tagged “Dying Earth”

“ I need to fight for the preservation of the Earth type planets and its coexistence with worlds after death.-Banyan ”
― Carolina Cody Aldaz, The Guardians of the Earth Type Planets

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