'‘AFTER THE FALL’
Robert
Sheckley turned from writer to editor on ’After The Fall’,
‘a veritable feast of alternative visions of the way the world
will end’ according to the back flap of my 1980 Sphere edition.
In his introduction he writes of ‘variations on set themes’
resembling classical Greek drama and parallels could also be drawn
to concept albums in music with different artists each contributing
a song (and programs in classical music before that I suppose although
this was seldom done collaboratively).
First up is Sheckley himself with a rather insubstantial 5 page
story called ‘The Last Days of (Parallel?) Earth’. This
suggests from the outset an ending where it may doubt whether the
Earth survives or not. We’ve seen this trick used lots of times
in SF movies. However, the epic work the title demands cannot possibly
materialise in 5 pages! Instead we get a little sardonic humour,
a little scientific explanation of how the end could be imminent
as a selection of characters justify choices of how to spend their
last hours. Edward decides to continue work on his novel because
it might be of interest to historians in a world parallel to our
own. Despite the brevity of the story it does contain some classic
ideas and some classic lines:
“All of us were caught between the irreconcilable demands of
abandonment and caution.”
And what happens in the end? Well, we must await Harry Harrison’s
‘The Day After the End of the World’ to find out.
I thought of the Simpsons episode where Homer eats the poisoned
fish and incongruously decides to listen to the bible on tape before
his soul is given up. I also thought of the character in Douglas
Adams’ ‘The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’
who decides to order another pint of beer and a packet of crisps-
this has some more profound purpose of course!
These fleeting thoughts inevitably made me regret that RS had not
taken the opportunity to take a more humorous (and expansive) slant.
He alludes to considering the end with levity ‘since we are
only reading about it rather than undergoing it’.
Harrison use the well worked theme of man’s destructive and
hypocritical nature in his tale of a post apocalyptic Adam and Eve-
Frank and Gwen. The most telling line is:
“After we blow them up then we’ll teach the kids about
turning the other cheek.”
The rest you’ll just have to read for yourselves.