Russian artist Andrew Tarusov's apocalyptic pin-up calendar

There’s an elephant in the room, or shall we say, an apocalypse. We’ve managed not mention the (possible) impending doom for the past month, but we just can’t hold off any longer. Whether you believe that the end is coming, compliments of one pesky Mayan calendar prediction, or that we’ll safely skate past this potential catastrophe the same way we did 2011’s two purported doomsday events, there’s no denying that “the end” is a popular topic of conversation these days.

The apocalypse isn’t just something we’re talking about — it’s what we’re reading about. Now we could come up with some deep, quasi-philosophical hypothesis about how we read these stories as a way of rationalizing our fears and looking for hope in an uncertain world. But the truth is, we just love stories about the hero and heroines who triumph in a world gone haywire! So today we are serving up some of our favorite books and series that feature postapocalyptic settings.

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Clear your September schedule, friends, because you're going to be busy reading Jasper Fforde's debut YA, The Last Dragonslayer. That's right: Jasper Fforde — whom you already love from his Thursday Next series, where he introduces readers to an alternate reality where people keep dodos as pets, cavemen are second citizens and people fall in and out of books — is writing YA. And it sounds amazing. We can't wait.

The series stars Jennifer Strange, a teen who runs Kazam Mystical Arts Management, a company which, according to the author's website, uses "the now-failing power of wizards to do such mundane jobs as installing domestic electrical circuits by telepathy or delivering live organs by flying carpet." See, the magic in Jennifer's world is fading, until suddenly it's not.

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Fans of George R.R. Martin’s bestselling fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, and the TV series it spawned, HBO's Game of Thrones, will be thrilled to learn that another one of Martin’s series, Wild Cards, will soon be heading to the big screen. Producers of the movie are SyFy Films and Universal Pictures, and Martin himself will have a hand in the film as executive producer, which leaves me feeling that the film will stay true to the phenomenal books.

Wild Cards is a series of anthologies edited by Martin and includes several stories by the author. The series was started in the ‘80s and has recently been revived by Tor. Each book is an anthology of collected stories, and the entire series is tied together by an over arcing plot. The series spans decades and follows a community of mutant characters as they fight over control of the city, encounter aliens and endure a slew of adventures that span the entire series.

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I have to admit, I’ve never really been into dragons. Book, film, or otherwise, the fire-breathing serpentine creatures just didn’t do it for me. Generally I choose science fiction over fantasy, so there aren’t many fantasy creatures on my bookshelf to begin with. However, my dragon aversion ended when I picked up His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik after her book signing at last year’s New York Comic Con. (That’s a solid five years after the book was published.)

Let me tell you, I absolutely adored the book. I was enthralled by Captain Laurence and his talking dragon Temeraire. Since then, I have been swept up in the author's universe, which weaves dragons into the Napoleonic era. Novik skillfully mixes fantasy and history to create a believable world. And all my hours of enjoyment are thanks to the excellent job that the first story did of winning over this sci fi reader.

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Rod Rees' sci fi debut The Demi-Monde: Winter transports readers to what a RT reviewer calls "a place that is part Matrix, part Star Trek holodeck and highly entertaining", a place known as the Demi-Monde. A virtual space created to train soldiers for combat, this world contains a myriad of secrets, twists and turns, which heroine Ella must navigate in order to save the president's daughter from the dangers that lurk here. Today, the author shares a look at this virtual reality and gives RT readers insight into this world with a piece of original artwork that includes several essentials for surviving the Demi-Monde.

Enlarged View Of "Surviving The Demi-Monde" Infographic >>

Rod Rees Explains the Demi-Monde:

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