Books post-apocalyptic fiction Finally, a Unit of Measurement for a Certain Kind of Moral Depravity… We’ve all encountered this trope in post-apocalyptic fiction before. Let’s give it a name… By James Davis Nicoll | Published on June 5, 2026 Credit: American International Pictures / Amazon MGM Studios Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: American International Pictures / Amazon MGM Studios Remember this old essay? The morning after I finished writing the article below, Reactor published an article by Ruthanna Emrys titled “Ixnay on the Post-Apocalyptic Cannibals: Rebecca Solnit’s A Paradise Built in Hell.” Emrys’ column could have sent my mind down the path that led to the essay below… if I’d read it before writing the essay and not after. What a coincidence—I guess it’s “People Don’t Really Act Like Post-Apocalyptic Novel Protagonists” time! So, I recently became aware of the absence of a potentially useful unit of measurement, one I could use in review after review. It’s lack came to me as I was reading John Christopher’s 1956 The Death of Grass, which is rather counterintuitively about the death of grass and the consequences that follow. I don’t know how we’re supposed to get that from the title. The property being measured is temporal: how long does it take protagonists in an existential crisis to embrace war of all against all, to start murdering their way towards refuge—or, having refuge at hand, to aggressively prevent others from joining them? Obviously, crisis calls for resolute action. Imagine, for example, that you were on an escalator and that escalator halted. Provided you waited an acceptable time for the escalator to start up again or for rescue to appear—five or ten minutes—I don’t think anyone could reasonably criticize you for whipping out a machete to carve your way to freedom. Likewise, light cannibalism or establishing a Cosmic Circle commune working along proper Degleresque1 lines is just common sense under those circumstances. To quote A Mighty Wind’s Terry Bohner, “You would make that conclusion walking down the street or going to the store.” Even granting the above, fictional characters seem to make the jump from conventional middle-class grudging coexistence to homicide and warlordism astonishingly quickly. For example, The Death of Grass’s heroes… well, no. Protagonists… conclude that impending famine means it’s every man for himself so quickly one might suspect they’ve been dying to hoist the Jolly Roger all along, and only waited for a pretext. This is almost certainly true for gunsmith Pirrie, who allies with the central characters early on. Pirrie brings his wife Millicent along not because he loves her, but because he is afraid she might thrive without him. As soon as opportunity presents itself, he murders Millicent and replaces her with Jane, whose parents he has just helped murder. I would be in no way surprised to discover Pirrie was a serial killer (or worse) pre-famine. While Grass’s characters might seem a bit hasty, an objective survey of works such as Varley’s Slow Apocalypse, Ward Moore’s “Lot,” Ing’s Pulling Through, Niven and Pournelle’s Lucifer’s Hammer, Tucker’s The Long Loud Silence, and others—too many to list here—suggests that in fact these characters are not really all that exceptional. Survival-oriented pragmatists abound! DO NOT BOARD ESCALATORS WITH THESE PEOPLE. The lack of a formal measuring system makes it more difficult to compare works along that specific axis. Happily, I am here for you. More accurately, Ray Milland and Ward Moore were here for you, but I am going to steal their credit. In Ray Milland’s film Panic in the Year Zero! (Based on Moore’s “Lot” and “Lot’s Daughter”), Los Angelinos Harry Baldwin and family set out on a camping trip. The Baldwins become aware something is wrong about 2 minutes, 45 seconds into the film. By about the 3-minute, 30-second mark, they see ominous flashes. At about the 6-minute mark, they witness a mushroom cloud rising over Los Angeles. At the 7-minute mark, emergency broadcast radio confirms atomic attack. At the 9-minute mark, Harry sees another man2 assault a gas station attendant. 10 minutes in, Harry abandons any thought of returning to rescue his mother-in-law. Over the next minute, Harry convinces himself civilization may have collapsed. At minute 13, Harry asserts survival will have to be on an individual basis. Finally, at just under the 23-minute mark, Harry commits his first survival-related crime. Now, Panic was not filmed in real time. The 10 minutes between the Baldwins suspecting something is up and Harry concluding it is every man for himself is probably somewhat longer. An hour seems like a reasonable guess. Therefore, I suggest one hour as the basic unit of measurement for the interval between characters discovering there is a crisis and them deciding to chuck every civilized value overboard in the name of survival. I further propose this unit be henceforth be known as “the Baldwin,” in honour of Harry, who with his family contributed absolutely nothing to the (entirely successful) US war effect in the course of the Baldwins’ post-apocalyptic crime spree.I don’t know if the Baldwin will be useful to you all, as a concept, but I suspect I will get considerable use out of it.[end-mark] Researching “Cosmic Circle” and “Claude Degler” can only surprise and delight you. ︎Who also witnessed the attack and its effects. ︎ The post Finally, a Unit of Measurement for a Certain Kind of Moral Depravity… appeared first on Reactor.