Posi-pocalypse: Why You Should Start the New Year with An Apocalypse

This looks like it could just be a lovely travel photo but it’s important to me that you know this is from the new year’s episode of the Syfy Channel’s zombie show.

Something about another year coming to a close–another ending of a chapter in your life–it can feel a little like the end of the world. Not a bad ending, necessarily, especially if the year in question has been a bad one. Growing up, my family always watched It’s A Wonderful Life on New Year’s Eve–a common occurrence in American families, since TV networks used to play it then as a cheap way to fill time slots. But since my teen years, I’ve had my own NYE media tradition; post-apocalyptic.

Not all–in fact I’d go so far as to say most–post-apocalyptic stories are just doom n gloom. Like most of science fiction, it simply gives us another reflection of the world we already live in–the bad, the good and the in between. Post-apocalyptic stories offer an examination on what aspects of our current society we might be better off preserving, and what parts we’d be better off without. Personally, I love what I call posi-pocalypse stories; ones that highlight the best of human nature, like our penchants towards community, survival, and storytelling. Stories that are about the end of the world, yes, but also love, which like a cockroach, seems able to withstand just about anything.

And, just to be clear, for the purposes of this list I’m not including stories where the event is very localized, instead focusing on…