”People were always getting ready for tomorrow. I didn’t believe in that. Tomorrow wasn’t getting ready for them. It didn’t even know they were there.

Ely, from Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

And so the essence of great post-apocalyptic literature is captured. Set people in a world stripped of comforts and social norms, and see how they respond. It’s not that the world is evil, but that it is indifferent to the plight of people. The best in the genre never makes the world a malicious place, but makes it unthinking. Malice is a property of (hu)man. The best in the genre makes it believable (that is, doesn’t ask the reader to suspend their disbelief about human nature) and sees where people succumb to the worst parts of themselves, and where they can still demonstrate the best of themselves. Push people to the edge - push them to the place where (to steal another line from Ely) nobody wants to be here and nobody wants to leave - and see the battle between Rousseau’s and Hobbes’ human natures play out.

That is post-apocalyptic fiction at it’s finest.