The NYTimes has a nice essay on a new genre: AST or apocalyptic systems thriller. As it defines AST:
The geopolitical epic is at least as old as “War and Peace,” but there’s a particular kind of novel that came into its own with globalization, taking on new life in recent years. Call it the apocalyptic systems thriller, or, because abbreviations and acronyms are crucial to its aesthetic, the A.S.T.Multi-stranded, terse, often anchored in character just enough to drive the action forward, these books invite us to take an elevated, panoramic view of events that extend too far in space and time to be grasped by a single narrative consciousness. Conflict, climate change, pandemics and natural disasters offer ways to contemplate our interconnection and interdependence. At its best, this kind of fiction can induce a kind of sublime awe at the complexity of the global networks in which we’re enmeshed: A butterfly flaps its wings in Seoul and the Dow crashes; a hacker steals a password and war breaks out.
The essay includes deeper analysis, multiple examples, and comparanda from predecessor genres. A good read.
AST particularly intrigued me because systemic collapse is one of the explanations for the relatively sudden end to the Greek Bronze Age (and lesser disruptions to other Eastern Mediterranean/North African/Southwest Asian Bronze Age civilizations). A good read on this is Eric Cline’s 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed. Ironically, perhaps, the NYTimes article starts with AST novels with year titles (2034; 2054). I don’t think we’re on the precipice of systemic collapse (though in the last few years, it has perhaps felt so at times), but it is interesting that the NYTimes notes:
So, while the A.S.T. is a form of entertainment, it’s also meant to enlighten the planners and decision makers who might grab a hardcover off the shelf at an airport bookstore.
This recalled to me Asimov’s Foundation (and sequels), where “psychohistorians tried to react to and shorten a systemic collapse, as if this genre is trying to do something similar: prepare for the best response to system failure of the complex systems upon which our current cultures rely.
Ramblings 