Ancient and remote, Australia and its indigenous people remained isolated from the rest of the world for more than sixty thousand years, until the country was settled by white Europeans in the eighteenth century. All tragedies aside, from this rich blend of circumstances – a hostile and unique natural environment, an ancient culture that had existed in isolation long enough to evolve customs and concepts that seemed utterly alien to others, and European forms of storytelling, expression and perception – a sub-genre of science fiction eventually arose: Australian apocalyptic fiction.
Perhaps this sub-genre is so interesting because Australia already seems a fitting place for the end of the world – it’s the hottest and driest continent on Earth, is mostly empty of people, hosts an incredible range of dangerous animals, and frequently falls victim to a variety of natural disasters. Or perhaps it’s because of that particular ‘no worries’ attitude so common to Australians. In the end, it matters little why it’s such an individual niche – what really matters are the stories themselves.
And so here’s what I believe are the ten best works of Australian apocalyptic fiction.
The Mad Max Series (1979-1985; 2015)
The pinnacle of Australian apocalyptic fiction, each one its own kind of masterpiece thanks to director George Miller’s gleeful eye and kinetic style, the Mad Max series has influenced countless other apocalyptic fictions both at home and aboard. And yet it has rarely been bettered, and remains one of the most financially and critically successful Australian film franchises in history, if not the most successful.
Mad Max (1979) showed us the end of days, with the world teetering on the edge of collapse; The Road Warrior (1981), Beyond Thunderdome (1985) and Fury Road (2015) showed us the world after this collapse, with society reduced to a kind-of punk savagery in which “the gangs took over the highways, ready to wage war for a tank of juice, and in this maelstrom of decay ordinary men were battered and smashed.”
Things We Didn’t See Coming by Steven Amsterdam
A book that will return hope to your heart and make you cry, Things We Didn’t See Coming is an antidote to the bleak darkness that pervades so much apocalyptic fiction. But even so, Amsterdam still treats his apocalyptic environments and scenarios with great seriousness, infusing them with a sense of inevitability that is truly terrifying.
A small-scale post-apocalyptic story-cycle focussed on its unnamed narrator’s life, Things We Didn’t See Coming gives us a glimpse of a world wracked by cascading natural disasters presumably caused by climate change. I say ‘glimpse’ because said narrator is usually too busy surviving this world to bother detailing it. The story of someone who refuses to give up hope – who will always stop to help others if they can – Amsterdam’s incredible debut makes us think that a spark of light might still exist after all else is dark.
Underground by Andrew McGahan
Part alternate history, part political thriller and part dystopian/apocalyptic nightmare, Underground is darkly humorous, politically astute and “Australian” in a way that international audiences might best associate with Crocodile Dundee (1986). A first person narrative, told in a no-bullshit and undeniably Australian voice by a stereotypical ‘Okker,’ it engages with all manner of Australian clichés, from outback deserts to a love of drinking to dangerous animals to a laid-back attitude.
But Underground is no joke: it’s a deadly satire on the War on Terror and our post 9/11 world, in which Australia’s capital has been destroyed by Al-Qaeda, plunging the country into a dictatorship. As funny as it is frightening, it’s as relevant today as it was upon publication, serving as a warning about the dangers of authoritarianism, propaganda, xenophobia and intolerance.
On the Beach by Nevil Shute, and On the Beach (1959)
Both Shute’s novel and director Stanley Kramer’s film adaptation are perfect pacifistic works of the 1950s: sombre and serious and devoid of any Cold War hysteria, they take a realistic look at the folly of nuclear war between superpowers and the subsequent consequences for the rest of the world. Although there are some differences between versions – Shute’s detail on the day-to-day lives of his characters is more exacting; Kramer’s masterful black-and-white cinematography lends the film the timeless quality of a morality play – this is one of those rare occurrences in which the book and the film are as good as each other.
Set in Melbourne (one of Australia’s most southerly cities), both versions take their time in examining the emotional, personal and societal effects of waiting for certain death – the aforementioned global nuclear war has created a continent-spanning cloud of radioactive smoke, which is slowly drifting south and killing everything it touches. And yet despite this grim scenario, both Shute and Kramer somehow manage to find moments of hope in the human heart.
The Waterboys by Peter Docker
A hybrid of post-apocalyptic fiction, magic realism, historical fiction and indigenous peoples literature, The Waterboys is one of the few works of postcolonial post-apocalyptic fiction in existence. Set in a drought-stricken future Australia controlled in part by a racist, corrupt and dictatorial mega-corporation, it weaves together Indigenous Australian and non-Indigenous Australian conceptualisations of time, history and our connection to the environment, and offers up fresh solutions to the damage we’ve wrought on the natural world.
But don’t be fooled if all this makes it sound a bit heavy – despite these heavy and serious themes, The Waterboys is fast-paced and extremely engaging, with true-to-life characters that live in shades of grey, inhabiting a world that is all too real, and is told in a unique and undeniably Australian voice.
The Last Wave (1977)
Examining the cultural divide between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, and the apocalyptic consequences of a non-Indigenous Australian denial of an Indigenous Australian concept of people, spirit and land being intertwined, The Last Wave is a hallucinatory fever dream, a lurid police procedural and a clear-eyed look at race politics in modern Australian society. Telling the story of a non-Indigenous Australian lawyer defending five Indigenous Australians against charges of ritualized murder, and the connections between his apocalyptic premonitions and said murder, director Peter Weir’s startling and criminally underrated film is unsettling and ambiguous, and ripe for rediscovery.
Land of the Golden Clouds by Archie Weller
A grandly epic post-apocalyptic road novel a la Stephen King’s The Stand, Land of the Golden Clouds is a strange book (and face value aside, nothing like King’s tome). Dreamy, fantastical and often playful, it is set thousands of years in the future, after our world has fallen to myriad disasters and a new one has risen and replaced it.
In this new world, Australia has returned to its wild roots. Nomadic tribes of diverse cultural and racial backgrounds roam the country’s dry interior, fecund jungles, thick bush and rough coasts, all trying to survive on a land that seems to intentionally resemble its pre-settlement self. Through chance, a wide variety of people from different tribes band together and are thrust into adventure. Somewhat old fashioned in its structure, it’s nonetheless a true oddity that is always intriguing and frequently entertaining.
Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em (1988)
A VHS curio, director Ray Boseley’s surreal and edgy comedy concerns a group of over-the-top, 1980s-style misfits, drop-outs and punks who throw the party to end all parties after the fallout from a global nuclear war begins to slowly but surely kill everyone in the world. It’s an exemplary product of its time: a punk-styled, low budget, DIY trash-masterpiece that brings a frequently absurd Antipodean perspective to the kind of ‘no-future’ pessimism permeating the youth culture of Thatcher’s Britain and Reagan’s America. Sometimes sublime and sometimes ridiculous, it’s a glorious mess that’s as fascinating as it is funny.
Nightsiders by Sue Isle
A small-scale post-apocalyptic story-cycle in the vein of Things We Didn’t See Coming, Nightsiders contains the same emphasis on the importance of hope and is even more optimistic that Amsterdam’s work, telling the story of a new community that has risen in the ruins of a city on Australia’s isolated West Coast, which has been mostly abandoned after being devastated by climate change and war.
However, rather than focussing on the horror that eventuated in this ruin and destruction, or on a sense of communal grief caused by the loss of the old world, Isle instead depicts a people who have adjusted to their situation, and even begun to thrive. An all-too-infrequent gambit amongst writers of apocalyptic fiction, this results in a story that will soften all but the most hardened hearts.
The Rover (2014)
A grim film, beautifully shot and deliberately paced, David Michod’s second feature tells a small story, eschewing the hysteria of spectacle to focus instead on the lives of ordinary people in a world that’s falling down around them. To sum it up: a drifter, living in his car and incessantly moving from place to place, has his car stolen; capturing one of the thieves, he sets off in pursuit. And that’s pretty much it.
In many ways, The Rover can arguably be seen as a companion piece to the first entry in the Mad Max series, or even as existing within the same universe. In both, the world hasn’t ended yet, but the end is in sight – society is fraying, madness is in the air and survival is becoming increasingly uncertain. But unlike Mad Max, The Rover makes the scale even smaller: Guy Pearce’s Eric is no Max Rockatansky; he’s not a cop driven mad by vengeance and primed for the wasteland, but an ordinary man trying to stay alive in an unforgiving world and hold onto his few remaining possessions.
(Originally published on Speculative Fiction Australia, 24/6/2018)
Lachlan Walter 