Are you ok with vague, post-apocalyptic settings

John Chambers said:

i don't mind vague at the start but if the book ends without an explanation then i feel cheated. It would take great writing for me to overlook it

Click to expand...

This is interesting. Can I clarify - does this go for books that aren't about the apocalypse, exactly, but are just things that are happening in a post-apocalyptic world?

AHunter3 said:

My only problem with post-apocalyptic (and other dystopian) futures is that they've become trendy to the point of de rigeur, much the same way that abundantly cheerful technologically advanced optimistic tales of the future were the canonical SF future for so long before the dystopias became trendy.

It wouldn't make me toss the book aside though, not in and of itself.

Click to expand...

I agree, but I think the thing about the trendiness is that it conceals a useful bump for the imagination that needs to be concealed: an unimaginable set of changes happens -- go from there. So a vague apocalypse supported by nothing more than trendiness is not quite the bad idea it seems to be. The problem might be in invariably joining "unimaginable change" with an all-too-easily imagined dystopian lack of thought about what people might be like in a very changed world. Would they (for example) all be human? After unimaginable change some "people" might be cyborgs or machines or machine networks or genetically engineered creatures of some kind. Putting all that into a dystopia or a utopia or anything in between seems interesting and challenging.

Maxx said:

...an all-too-easily imagined dystopian lack of thought about what people might be like in a very changed world. Would they (for example) all be human? After unimaginable change some "people" might be cyborgs or machines or machine networks or genetically engineered creatures of some kind.

Click to expand...

They might all be dead.

What happens when someone else stumbles across that post-apoc society, or lack of same (alive or dead) ??

rwm4768 said:

I think I might also prefer it vague, at least at first. I also like it, though, when figuring out how the world got this way is part of the mystery at the heart of the plot. Maybe no one knows anymore, and they slowly figure out what happened.

Click to expand...

This exactly. I think it's nice to have it vague, but I believe cultures are defined by their history. If there was a way to develop the history to be apart of the plot, that could be incredible.

Infodumps in any form are just a snooze fest, in my humble opinion.

Reziac said:

They might all be dead.

What happens when someone else stumbles across that post-apoc society, or lack of same (alive or dead) ??

Click to expand...

Back when I was an archaelogist, we called that archaelogy, though we were supposed to have more of a methodology than stumbling, stumbling would do for a start.

I do not like infodumps. I do like to know what has happened. If I have no idea, I am generally more frustrated with a novel. However, I am one of those people who likes to invest in not just the characters, but the whole world. Thus, if something big has happened, I like to have an idea of what things were like before. The more vague a situation is the less attached I am to a story.

If characters know, it can be hinted at throughout the text without having a big info dump. It's just not that difficult. The problem is, info dumps are easier.

Xanthe said:

I was reading a dystopian sci-fi book recently and started to dislike it a lot because of the ridiculous exposition about how the world ended up getting destroyed..the author actually spelled everything out like "The US went to war with China and nuclear fallout etc, etc, etc"

I love how some dystopian books say very little about what happened to the world (Hunger Games) and leave it up to the reader to fill in the blanks. Do you prefer vague post-apocalyptic background or explicitly explained ones?

Thanks for your help. I was thinking about writing a dystopian story.

Click to expand...

I like to have some reasonable level of explanation... but a detailed history isn't needed. "Before the war..." is fine so long as there's not a story or character issue so far out in left field that relies on the vagueness as a device.

I really enjoy settings where there's a basic level of background given out... war, natural disaster, plague... and relevant details are sprinkled as worldbuilding throughout the work. I confess, I'm a sucker for ancient secrets being quietly relevant to the current story.

Depends on how well it's thought out and delivered. For one thing, if it's an infodump that outlines the history then no, that's stupid, especially of done by a character who isn't into history.

Also depends on relevance. If its a story of America getting into a war with Russia and/or China, and the resulting politics don't impact the story, then I just do not care.

So, for the most part, I like my apocalypse vague unless it's plot relevant.

I'm a touch sick of post apocalyptic stuff generally, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but I find long history lessons about why things are how they are boring. If I must know, tell me through the story. If not? So much the better for you.

My problem with some dystopian novels is that it is vague. I realize that The Hunger Games and Divergent wouldn't have done well if the author's wrote for me, but the lack of incite into the world and how it came to be is a sore spot for me, and it happens a lot in a few novels I read, but those two are the more recent examples. I still profess there should be an adult version of The Hunger Games.
Less kissing scenes and more world-building!

Well, a vague post-apocalyptic setting written down is different than one in the author's head. The author should know what's happened even if they never write it down. It's possible for the author to write so that none of the viewpoints know what's happened to their world while it's interpretable to someone who knows the history of the area they lived.

Also post-apocalyptic is not dystopian, they can be entirely separate things. A significant number of dystopias have no "apocalyptic" inciting event and I'm sure there's some post-apocalyptic books that are not dystopic (though I'm having a hard time thinking of any right now).

My preferred genre is post apocalyptic and I've read quite a few when it goes either way. So I think it depends on the story also.
That being said, I prefer to know at least a little of what's going on.
The Road was mentioned upthread and, while I found it to be a good read, I also found it left me feeling unsatisfied for some reason.
I guess there are times, for me at least, when vagueness can actually detract from the story. I mean, if your not going to tell me what happened, show me what happened or give me enough clues/hints/etc. for me to figure it out for myself, it leaves me with unanswered questions.
Unsatisfying at best and maybe annoying at worst.
Depends on how it's written, walk the tightrope between infodump and vagueness and write what you like to read.

Adrian

Vague is fine. I also don't mind knowing what happens, but if its given as an info dump it makes me want to put the book down.

You gotta hook me real good to have me read through an info dump...

We should only know how it happens if we need to know.

We should only not know how it happens if it makes sense not to know.

I prefer if they tell us as we're going along. Like a mystery of sorts, or the story has to be good enough for me to ignore that.

It really varies for me. I liked The Hunger Games and The Road, but when I read Oryx and Crake recently I had a lot of questions about the apocalypse and how it came to be that weren't quite answered for me, at least not in the way I wanted (eg more in the way of human motivation).

Vague post-apocalyptic settings have always intrigued me. While I would to know how things got to be the way they are now, for me it's more attractive to find out how society/people get by after "The Accident".

I don't need blow by blow, but I do prefer to know that the author thought it event through.

The closer in time the story is to the collapse, the clearer I expect the events to be, even if it is just "I told everyone that field testing DNA modifying GM bacteria on humans in India was a bad idea".

Plus a decent reason why the people of the story's "today" are not still affected by the radiation/germs/zombies/floods/vampire pigs etc.

I actually think it's fine if the author doesn't know. If it's not important.

V.W.Singer said:

I don't need blow by blow, but I do prefer to know that the author thought it event through.

The closer in time the story is to the collapse, the clearer I expect the events to be, even if it is just "I told everyone that field testing DNA modifying GM bacteria on humans in India was a bad idea".

Plus a decent reason why the people of the story's "today" are not still affected by the radiation/germs/zombies/floods/vampire pigs etc.

Click to expand...

This is such a good point. I'm mostly okay with something cliche like they're immune, but it should be at least addressed at some point.