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SFE: End of the World
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} }) </script> </div> </form> </fieldset> <article class="entryArticle content STeditorial"> <header class="entryHeader icon-theme"> <h1 class="entryTitle">End of the World </h1> </header><p class='tagLine'>Entry updated 11 March 2024. Tagged: Theme.</p><div class="browsingBtns"> <span> <input class="button PNI previous" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/next.php?id=p&entry=end_of_the_world'" value="Prev" /> </span> <span> <input class="button PNI next" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/next.php?&entry=end_of_the_world'" value="Next" /> </span> <span> <input class="button PNI incoming" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/incoming.php?entry=end_of_the_world'" value="About This Entry" title="What links to the entry; contributor initials explained; how to cite; other information" /> </span> <span style="cursor: pointer;" onclick="window.open('/gallery.php?link=end_of_the_world');"> <img alt="Icon made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com" style="margin: 0; position: relative; top:-2px;" src="/images/icon-gal.gif"></img></span> </div><p style='float:right; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:10px; position: relative; top: 3px;'> <a href='/gallery.php?id=Frenkel-Bangs.jpg' target='_blank'> <img src='https://x.sf-encyclopedia.com/gal/thumbs/Frenkel-Bangs.jpg' alt='pic'></a></p> <p>Together with <a href="/entry/utopias">Utopias</a> and cautionary tales, apocalyptic visions form one of the three principal traditions of pre-twentieth-century futuristic fantasy. Visions inspired by the religious imagination go back into antiquity (see <a href="/entry/mythology">Mythology</a>; <a href="/entry/religion">Religion</a>), and the artist John <a href="/entry/martin_john">Martin</a> depicted vast biblical catastrophes with particular relish from the 1820s to the 1850s; but the influence of the scientific imagination did not make itself felt in literature until the late nineteenth century, and the end-of-the-world theme maintained many of its religious overtones until more recently. The phrase itself has become looser in meaning; once the Comte du Buffon (1707-1788) had in <i>Epochs of Nature</i> (<b>1780</b>) popularized the notion that a whole series of "worlds" had occupied the Earth's surface, the finality of any particular end of the world became dubious. A wide spectrum, within which no firm dividing line can be drawn, extends from authentically apocalyptic visions to accounts of large-scale <a href="/entry/disaster">Disaster</a>; it would therefore be over-pedantic in this discussion to construe "world" as "planet".</p> <p>The earliest <a href="/entry/scientific_romance">Scientific Romances</a> of world's end were the products of Romanticism: the anti-progressive <i>The Last Man, or Omegarus and Syderia</i> (<b>1805</b>; trans <b>1806</b>) by Jean-Baptiste <a href="/entry/cousin_de_grainville_jean-baptiste">Cousin de Grainville</a> and Mary <a href="/entry/shelley_mary_wollstonecraft">Shelley</a>'s apocalyptic <i>The Last Man</i> (<b>1826</b>), which be the first fiction to describe a genuine planetary <a href="/entry/pandemic">Pandemic</a>. Thomas Campbell (1777-1844) also wrote a poem on the <a href="/entry/last_man">Last Man</a> theme, and Thomas Hood (1799-1845) parodied it. Pandemics were to remain one of the standard literary means of depopulating the world and destroying society, but the cosmic-disaster story rapidly became a particular favourite of scientific romance. Edgar Allan <a href="/entry/poe_edgar_allan">Poe</a>'s "The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion" (December 1839 <i>Burton's Gentlemen's Magazine</i>) is an early <a href="/entry/comets">Comet</a>-strike story, but many more followed Camille <a href="/entry/flammarion_camille">Flammarion</a>'s popularization of the idea in various magazine articles of the 1890s. Notable examples include George <a href="/entry/griffith_george">Griffith</a>'s <i>Olga Romanoff</i> (23 December 1893-4 August 1894 <a href="/entry/pearsons_weekly">Pearson's Weekly</a> as "The Syren of the Skies"; rev <b>1894</b>) and H G <a href="/entry/wells_h_g">Wells</a>'s "The Star" (December 1897 <i>The Graphic</i>). These are <a href="/entry/near_future">Near-Future</a> stories, but <a href="/entry/far_future">Far-Future</a> stories of the ultimate end of life on Earth began to appear in the same period. Flammarion's own apocalyptic <a href="/entry/scientific_romance">Scientific Romance</a> <i>La fin du monde – envoi de l'auteur</i> (1893 <i>La Science Illustrée</i> #182-189; <b>1894</b>; trans anon as <i>Omega: The Last Days of the World</i> <b>1894</b>) allows the Earth to survive its brush with a <a href="/entry/comets">Comet</a>, but leaps ahead to describe the freezing of the world when the <a href="/entry/sun">Sun</a> cools. Wells did likewise in <i>The Time Machine</i> (<b>1895</b>), and Gabriel <a href="/entry/tarde_gabriel">Tarde</a>'s <i>Underground Man</i> (<b>1896</b>; trans <b>1905</b>) imagines a much more rapid cooling. A similarly long-range view is taken in George C <a href="/entry/wallis_george_c">Wallis</a>'s "The Last Days of Earth" (July 1901 <i>The Harmsworth Magazine</i>). The visionary sequence in William Hope <a href="/entry/hodgson_william_hope">Hodgson</a>'s <i>The House on the Borderland</i> (<b>1908</b>) makes the death of the Earth a minor incident in a grander scheme – an implication of irrelevance which is also used with telling effect in J D <a href="/entry/beresford_j_d">Beresford</a>'s "A Negligible Experiment" (in <i>Signs and Wonders</i>, coll <b>1921</b>) and Olaf <a href="/entry/stapledon_olaf">Stapledon</a>'s <i>Star Maker</i> (<b>1937</b>).</p> <p>End-of-the-world stories are frequently ambivalent, their writers often taking delight in contemplation of the destruction of everything that they hate. Robert <a href="/entry/cromie_robert">Cromie</a>'s <i>The Crack of Doom</i> (<b>1895</b>) – one of many tales of threatened apocalypses which are aborted in the nick of time – gives the scientist who wants to put an end to the human story abundant space to present his case. Wells thought that large-scale destruction was a necessary prelude to utopian regeneration, and M P <a href="/entry/shiel_m_p">Shiel</a>'s <i>The Purple Cloud</i> (<b>1901</b>), in which Earth is depopulated by a cloud of cyanogen gas, contrives nevertheless to end with a triumphant affirmation of the progressiveness of <a href="/entry/evolution">Evolution</a>. John <a href="/entry/davidson_john">Davidson</a>'s "The Salvation of Nature" (1887) is far more cynical, as is James Elroy <a href="/entry/flecker_james_elroy">Flecker</a>'s <i>The Last Generation</i> (<b>1908</b> chap), in which mankind accepts extinction voluntarily. Twentieth-century religious apocalyptic fantasies – notable among them R H <a href="/entry/benson_robert_hugh">Benson</a>'s <i>Lord of the World</i> (<b>1907</b>) – tend to revel in the expectation that an imminent end of the world will put a well-deserved end to apostasy and decadence. There was a dramatic resurgence of apocalyptic scientific romance after World War One, among them many bitter parables arguing that modern men and women thoroughly deserved to lose all the gifts of civilization because of their stupid inability to refrain from warfare. Notable examples include Edward <a href="/entry/shanks_edward">Shanks</a>'s <i>The People of the Ruins</i> (<b>1920</b>), Cicely <a href="/entry/hamilton_cicely">Hamilton</a>'s <i>Theodore Savage</i> (<b>1922</b>; rev vt <i>Lest Ye Die</i> <b>1928</b>), Neil <a href="/entry/bell_neil">Bell</a>'s <i>The Seventh Bowl</i> (<b>1930</b> as by Miles), John <a href="/entry/gloag_john">Gloag</a>'s <i>Tomorrow's Yesterday</i> (<b>1932</b>) and J Leslie <a href="/entry/mitchell_j_leslie">Mitchell</a>'s <i>Gay Hunter</i> (<b>1934</b>).</p> <p>In fictions of this subgenre the impending end of the world is often foreseen (sometimes mistakenly) by the characters involved, and there are many stories in which those armed with foresight set out to make what preparations they can (usually derided by their neighbours – but they laughed at Noah, too). Examples include <i>The Second Deluge</i> (<b>1912</b>) by Garrett P <a href="/entry/serviss_garrett_p">Serviss</a>, <i>Nordenholt's Million</i> (<b>1923</b>) by J J <a href="/entry/connington_j_j">Connington</a>, <i>When Worlds Collide</i> (September 1932-February 1933 <a href="/entry/blue_book_magazine_the">Blue Book</a>; <b>1933</b>) by Philip <a href="/entry/wylie_philip">Wylie</a> and Edwin <a href="/entry/balmer_edwin">Balmer</a> and "Ark of Fire" (3 April 1938 <i>American Weekly</i>) by John Hawkins. There are many stories in which only a few people are able to escape atomic war, in shelters, or to escape into space when the <a href="/entry/sun">Sun</a> goes nova; examples include T C <a href="/entry/bridges_t_c">Bridges</a>' <i>The Death Star</i> (<b>1940</b>), where a devastated Earth is fought over by two savants, one of them a <a href="/entry/mad_scientist">Mad Scientist</a>; <i>Death of a World</i> (<b>1948</b>) by J Jefferson <a href="/entry/farjeon_j_jefferson">Farjeon</a>; and <i>One in Three Hundred</i> (February 1953 <a href="/entry/fsf">F&SF</a>; exp <b>1954</b>) by J T <a href="/entry/mcintosh_j_t">McIntosh</a>. A more subtle version explores the effect on various characters of the knowledge (again sometimes mistaken) that the world will end. Early examples are William <a href="/entry/minto_william">Minto</a>'s <i>The Crack of Doom</i> (<b>1886</b>) and Hugh <a href="/entry/kingsmill_hugh">Kingsmill</a>'s "The End of the World" (in <i>The Dawn's Delay</i>, coll <b>1924</b>); more recent ones are "The Last Night of the World" (February 1951 <i>Esquire</i>) by Ray <a href="/entry/bradbury_ray">Bradbury</a>, "The Last Day" (April/May 1953 <a href="/entry/amazing">Amazing</a>) by Richard <a href="/entry/matheson_richard">Matheson</a> and <i>On the Beach</i> (<b>1957</b>) by Nevil <a href="/entry/shute_nevil">Shute</a>.</p> <p>The early sf <a href="/entry/pulp">Pulp</a> magazines featured numerous luridly bleak visions of the end of the human race, and of the Earth itself, including Donald <a href="/entry/wandrei_donald">Wandrei</a>'s "The Red Brain" (October 1927 <a href="/entry/weird_tales">Weird Tales</a>), Amelia Reynolds <a href="/entry/long_amelia_reynolds">Long</a>'s "Omega" (July 1932 <a href="/entry/amazing">Amazing</a>) and Lowell Howard <a href="/entry/morrow_lowell_howard">Morrow</a>'s "Omega, The Man" (January 1933 <a href="/entry/amazing">Amazing</a>), but such stories appeared alongside others which were confident that mankind could outlast the Earth, if necessary, and need not be unduly troubled by the prospect of its end – a notion rarely met outside the magazines, although a notable exception is J B S <a href="/entry/haldane_j_b_s">Haldane</a>'s "The Last Judgment" (in <i>Possible Worlds</i>, coll <b>1927</b>). Humanity lives on beyond the death of Earth in John W <a href="/entry/campbell_john_w_jr">Campbell</a> Jr's "The Voice of the Void" (Summer 1930 <a href="/entry/amazing_stories_quarterly">Amazing Stories Quarterly</a>) and Arthur C <a href="/entry/clarke_arthur_c">Clarke</a>'s supremely smug "Rescue Party" (May 1946 <a href="/entry/asf">Astounding</a>) – but Campbell also wrote stories in which mankind became extinct and Clarke's "The Nine Billion Names of God" (in <i>Star Science Fiction Stories 1</i>, anth <b>1953</b>, ed Frederik <a href="/entry/pohl_frederik">Pohl</a>) makes an apocalyptic joke out of the smugness of Western Man. The theme continued to evoke mixed emotions no matter what new twists were given to it. Edmond <a href="/entry/hamilton_edmond">Hamilton</a>'s "Requiem" (April 1962 <a href="/entry/amazing">Amazing</a>) is a poignant story which regrets the commercial exploitation of the Earth's death as a spectacular <a href="/entry/television">Television</a> show for a Galaxy-wide audience.</p> <p>The idea that we might easily destroy ourselves and our world as our <a href="/entry/weapons">Weapons</a> of war become ever more powerful gained ground steadily throughout the 1920s and 1930s. The atomic bomb in H G Wells's <i>The World Set Free</i> (<b>1914</b>) is fairly feeble, but the one in Harold <a href="/entry/nicolson_harold">Nicolson</a>'s <i>Public Faces</i> (<b>1932</b>) is more like the real thing. The "ultimate deterrent" or "Doomsday weapon" was introduced (and used) in <i>The Last Man</i> (<b>1940</b>; vt <i>No Other Man</i> <b>1940</b>) by Alfred <a href="/entry/noyes_alfred">Noyes</a>. Such anxiety became extreme in Alfred <a href="/entry/bester_alfred">Bester</a>'s "Adam and No Eve" (September 1941 <a href="/entry/asf">Astounding</a>), in which atomic destruction requires evolution to begin all over again in the sea. After Hiroshima the possibility of imminent atomic holocaust was clear to everyone, and lent new pertinence to apocalyptic thinking. It seemed entirely likely that the world would end with a bang and not a whimper after all, despite the broad sexual pun in the title of Damon <a href="/entry/knight_damon">Knight</a>'s last-man-meets-last-woman story, "Not With a Bang" (Winter/Spring 1950 <a href="/entry/fsf">F&SF</a>). Notable examples of atomic-<a href="/entry/holocaust">Holocaust</a> stories include <i>Shadow on the Hearth</i> (<b>1950</b>) by Judith <a href="/entry/merril_judith">Merril</a>, <i>The Long Loud Silence</i> (<b>1952</b>) by Wilson <a href="/entry/tucker_wilson">Tucker</a> and <i>Level 7</i> (<b>1959</b>) by Mordecai <a href="/entry/roshwald_mordecai">Roshwald</a>. The depth of the anxiety is perhaps better reflected by <a href="/entry/satire">Satires</a> and black comedies than by earnest speculation; notable examples of bitterly ironic apocalypses include Ward <a href="/entry/moore_ward">Moore</a>'s <i>Greener than You Think</i> (<b>1947</b>), L Sprague <a href="/entry/de_camp_l_sprague">de Camp</a>'s "Judgment Day" (August 1955 <a href="/entry/asf">Astounding</a>), Kurt <a href="/entry/vonnegut_kurt_jr">Vonnegut</a> Jr's <i>Cat's Cradle</i> (<b>1963</b>) and Peter <a href="/entry/george_peter">George</a>'s <i>Dr. Strangelove</i> (<b>1963</b>). Fritz <a href="/entry/leiber_fritz">Leiber</a>'s ironically despairing vignettes, including "A Pail of Air" (December 1951 <a href="/entry/galaxy">Galaxy</a>), "The Moon is Green" (April 1952 <a href="/entry/galaxy">Galaxy</a>) and "A Bad Day for Sales" (July 1953 <a href="/entry/galaxy">Galaxy</a>), are particularly effective in combining poignancy with irony. The urgency of the anxiety is reflected also in bleakly downbeat stories whose nihilistic temper is most unusual for a pulp-descended genre; examples include Robert A <a href="/entry/heinlein_robert_a">Heinlein</a>'s "The Year of the Jackpot" (March 1952 <a href="/entry/galaxy">Galaxy</a>), E C <a href="/entry/tubb_e_c">Tubb</a>'s "Tomorrow" (1954 <a href="/entry/science_fantasy_magazine">Science Fantasy</a> #8) and Robert <a href="/entry/silverberg_robert">Silverberg</a>'s "Road to Nightfall" (July 1958 <a href="/entry/fantastic_universe">Fantastic Universe</a>). The post-World War Two decade also produced sf's boldest novel about the end of the Universe: James <a href="/entry/blish_james">Blish</a>'s <i>The Triumph of Time</i> (<b>1958</b>; vt <i>A Clash of Cymbals</i> <b>1959</b>).</p> <p>This pattern of ironic despair, bitter satire and grimly pessimistic "realism" extended into the 1960s and 1970s, when many more causes for the sense of imminent doom were popularized, including <a href="/entry/overpopulation">Overpopulation</a> and <a href="/entry/pollution">Pollution</a>. Notable apocalyptic black comedies from this period include <i>The Genocides</i> (<b>1965</b>) by Thomas M <a href="/entry/disch_thomas_m">Disch</a> and "The Big Flash" (in <i>Orbit 5</i>, anth <b>1969</b>, ed Damon <a href="/entry/knight_damon">Knight</a>) by Norman <a href="/entry/spinrad_norman">Spinrad</a>. "When We Went to See the End of the World" (in <i>Universe 2</i>, anth <b>1972</b>, ed Terry <a href="/entry/carr_terry">Carr</a>) by Robert Silverberg is more slickly ironic. A savage sense of despair is evident in "We All Die Naked" (in <i>Three for Tomorrow</i>, anth <b>1969</b>, ed Robert <a href="/entry/silverberg_robert">Silverberg</a>) by James <a href="/entry/blish_james">Blish</a> and in <i>The End of the Dream</i> (<b>1972</b>) by Philip Wylie. A note of ironic innovation was struck by Poul <a href="/entry/anderson_poul">Anderson</a>'s <i>After Doomsday</i> (<b>1962</b>), the first ever whodunnit in which the Earth itself is the murder victim; equally ironic in its own way is the ingenious "Inconstant Moon" (in <i>All the Myriad Ways</i>, coll <b>1971</b>) by Larry <a href="/entry/niven_larry">Niven</a>, in which a sudden increase in the Moon's brightness reveals to those who can deduce its meaning that the Sun has gone nova and that dawn will bring destruction.</p> <p>The increasing familiarity and plausibility of the idea of an imminent apocalypse has promoted the production of surreal apocalyptic visions both inside and outside the genre. Examples include the title story of <i>Up and Out</i> (coll <b>1957</b>) by John Cowper <a href="/entry/powys_john_cowper">Powys</a>, <i>Ice</i> (<b>1967</b>) by Anna <a href="/entry/kavan_anna">Kavan</a>, both stories in <i>Apocalypses</i> (coll <b>1977</b>) by R A <a href="/entry/lafferty_r_a">Lafferty</a>, <i>God's Grace</i> (<b>1982</b>) by Bernard <a href="/entry/malamud_bernard">Malamud</a> and <i>Galápagos</i> (<b>1985</b>) by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. A similar spirit is detectable in those <a href="/entry/cyberpunk">Cyberpunk</a> stories which use the obliteration or radical metamorphosis of Earthly civilization almost as a throwaway idea; examples include Bruce <a href="/entry/sterling_bruce">Sterling</a>'s <i>Schismatrix</i> (<b>1985</b>) and Michael <a href="/entry/swanwick_michael">Swanwick</a>'s <i>Vacuum Flowers</i> (<b>1987</b>). The end of the Universe is similarly relegated to throwaway status in Charles <a href="/entry/sheffield_charles">Sheffield</a>'s <i>Between the Strokes of Night</i> (<b>1985</b>). An authentic emotional depth is, however, conserved by such poignantly bitter accounts as Hilbert <a href="/entry/schenck_hilbert">Schenck</a>'s <i>A Rose for Armageddon</i> (<b>1982</b>), Frederik <a href="/entry/pohl_frederik">Pohl</a>'s "Fermi and Frost" (January 1985 <a href="/entry/asimovs">Asimov's</a>) and James K <a href="/entry/morrow_james">Morrow</a>'s heart-rending description of <a href="/entry/world_war_three">World War Three</a> <i>This Is the Way the World Ends</i> (<b>1986</b>).</p> <p>The end of the <a href="/entry/cold_war">Cold War</a> soothed anxieties about nuclear war, and the anticipated hysteria which formed the basis of such sardonic millennarian fantasies as Russell M <a href="/entry/griffin_russell_m">Griffin</a>'s <i>Century's End</i> (<b>1981</b>) and John <a href="/entry/kessel_john">Kessel</a>'s <i>Good News From Outer Space</i> (<b>1989</b>) is not to be taken seriously, but there was a late-twentieth-century boom in cosmic-disaster stories occasioned by the fashionability of the celebrated question: "If we're not alone in the Universe, where <i>are</i> they?" (see <a href="/entry/fermi_paradox">Fermi Paradox</a>) Apocalyptic "explanations" of this presumed enigma include <i>Across the Sea of Suns</i> (<b>1984</b>) by Gregory <a href="/entry/benford_gregory">Benford</a> and <i>The Forge of God</i> (<b>1987</b>) by Greg <a href="/entry/bear_greg">Bear</a>, the latter climaxing with the very comprehensive destruction of our planet. The "Agent" whose impact breaks up the <a href="/entry/moon">Moon</a> in Neal <a href="/entry/stephenson_neal">Stephenson</a>'s <i>Seveneves</i> (<b>2015</b>) is never clearly identified – it may be a tiny <a href="/entry/black_holes">Black Hole</a> – the result is the annihilation of all surface life on Earth by a "Hard Rain" of fragments that is set to continue for 5000 years.</p> <p>In the narrative grammar of Hollywood <a href="/entry/cinema">Cinema</a>, it is generally preferred that the End of the World should be narrowly averted or that the focus should shift to those who survive as in <a href="/entry/when_worlds_collide">When Worlds Collide</a> (<i>1951</i>), <a href="/entry/2012">2012</a> (<i>2009</i>) and <a href="/entry/noah">Noah</a> (<i>2014</i>); <i>The</i> <a href="/entry/day_the_earth_caught_fire_the">Day the Earth Caught Fire</a> (<i>1961</i>) ends on a note of cliffhanger suspense. Thoroughgoing and unrelenting treatments include <a href="/entry/testament">Testament</a> (<i>1983</i>), <a href="/entry/miracle_mile">Miracle Mile</a> (<i>1988</i>), <a href="/entry/last_night">Last Night</a> (<i>1998</i>) and <a href="/entry/melancholia">Melancholia</a> (<i>2011</i>). Approaching apocalypse provides a background for office-life comedy in the animated <a href="/entry/television">Television</a> series <a href="/entry/carol_and_the_end_of_the_world">Carol and the End of the World</a> (<i>2024</i>).</p> <p>A relevant theme anthology is <i>The End of the World</i> (anth <b>1956</b>) edited by Donald A <a href="/entry/wollheim_donald_a">Wollheim</a>. A notable collection of essays on apocalyptic literature is <i>The End of the World</i> (anth <b>1983</b>) edited by Eric S <a href="/entry/rabkin_eric_s">Rabkin</a>, Martin H <a href="/entry/greenberg_martin_h">Greenberg</a> and Joseph D <a href="/entry/olander_joseph_d">Olander</a>. [BS/DRL]</p> <p><b>see also:</b> <a href="/entry/end_of_time">End of Time</a>; <a href="/entry/entropy">Entropy</a>.</p> <p><b>further reading</b></p> <ul class="x"> <li>Donald A <a href="/entry/wollheim_donald_a">Wollheim</a>, editor. <em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=The+End+of+the+World&field-author=Wollheim+Donald+A" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">The End of the World</a></em> (New York: Ace Books, <b>1956</b>) [anth: pb/]</li> <li>Martin H <a href="/entry/greenberg_martin_h">Greenberg</a>, Joseph D <a href="/entry/olander_joseph_d">Olander</a> and Eric S <a href="/entry/rabkin_eric_s">Rabkin</a>, editors. <em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=The+End+of+the+World&field-author=Greenberg+Martin+H" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">The End of the World</a></em> (Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, <b>1983</b>) [nonfiction: anth: hb/]</li> <li>Patrick <a href="/entry/moore_patrick">Moore</a>. <em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=Countdown+or+How+Nigh+Is+the+End&field-author=Moore+Patrick" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">Countdown! or How Nigh Is the End?</a></em> (London: Michael Joseph, <b>1983</b>) [nonfiction: hb/photographic]</li> </ul> <p><b>links</b></p> <ul class="x"> <li><a target="_blank" href="https://sf-encyclopedia.com/gallery.php?link=end_of_the_world">Picture Gallery</a></li> </ul> <p><b>previous versions of this entry</b></p> <ul><li><a href='https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/end_of_the_world' target='_blank'>Internet Archive</a></li></ul><br /><br /></article></div> <div class="sideBarsWrapper"> <div class="sideBarsColsWrapper clearfix"> <div class="column sideBar12 clearfix"> <div class="columnForm"><aside id="blogFeed" class="widget"> <div class="content STeditorial clearfix"> <h2>Recently visited entries<span style="background:url(/images/thingSFE2.png) !important"></span></h2><ul style='width: 50%; 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