The novel “Soft Apocalypse” by Will McIntosh was published for the first time in 2011.
Jasper is one of many who belonged to the middle class but found himself unemployed because his degree is no longer worth anything. In a period in which he’s unemployed and homeless, all he can do is travel with a tribe of people who are trying to survive the crisis that hit the USA and in particular some groups of inhabitants.
When Jasper manages to find a job, his life becomes more stable but the economic and social situation in the USA seems to continue in its deterioration. He maintains ties with his tribe even though his life is no longer nomadic because their chances of survival are greater if they support each other. However, the situation keeps on getting worse over time.
Apocalyptic stories are generally based on a catastrophic event that strikes human civilization to its very foundations, typically killing a substantial portion of the world’s population in a short time. From this point of view, “Soft Apocalypse” represents an exception because it tells a series of negative developments of some real economic and social trends that lead to a slow decline in American society.
Will McIntosh recounts the slow agony of a society in which environmental degradation causes problems whose severity progressively increases over time. Climate change causes not only direct problems such as extreme weather events but also a shortage of food resources. The struggle for control of the remaining resources exacerbates the tendencies towards tribalism with all the consequences on civil society and effects that are seen only after several years.
“Soft Apocalypse” begins in what was the near future when the novel was published. This contributes to the realism of a story that begins in a society very similar to that of the present and then explores its decay. The elements that are strictly science fiction are limited to certain biotechnology applications that we might really see in the next few years. Will McIntosh imagines a future in which the boundary between activism and terrorism is increasingly blurred and we can hope that it will remain science fiction given that the influence of biological attacks in the novel is considerable.
The realism of the narrative also concerns the mix between events that are important not only for Jasper but also at a national or even global level and other personal events concerning the protagonist that can even be trivial. For example, Jasper has some relationships with women who show the intertwining of what resembles a normal life and what, on the contrary, shows social degradation. Jasper is an ordinary person with strengths and weaknesses who finds himself in situations that become less and less normal and are sometimes really brutal.
The slow apocalypse told by Will McIntosh is even more depressing than the classic apocalyptic stories because it begins with a situation familiar to the reader and developments that hopefully are science fiction but you fear that they are not. The mention of scientists’ warnings about environmental degradation, ignored by the majority of the population, is a very realistic and disturbing basis.
The progressive social degeneration told by Will McIntosh may seem an exaggeration but it’s the possible consequences of the decline of a society unable to solve problems that arise gradually. Food scarcity, fossil fuel scarcity, wars, and disease are real problems that require real solutions in order not to end up like boiled frogs. “Soft Apocalypse” is depressing but offers a lot of very serious food for thought and for this reason I recommend reading it regardless of genre labels.
