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Notes -
Does anyone have any recommendations for sci-fi works involving population decline? I ask because most late 20th century — and even early 21st century — works I'm familiar with assume continual population growth, and frequently an overpopulation crisis. (Even the grimiest dystopian cyberpunk seems to take for granted that people will somehow keep popping out kids, enough to more than replace all the people getting gunned down by megacorp hit squads or torn apart by psychotic cyborgs.)
The only exceptions I can think of are works involving sudden plagues of infertility (Handmaid's Tale, Children of Men) or are Japanese (Yokohama Shopping Log). Anything else out there?
Edit: I'm talking less the "post-apocalyptic" genre, where the collapse has already occurred and the focus is rebuilding, but during the decline — particularly a slower one like Yokohama Shopping Log.
There’s the post-collapse genre exemplified by Foundation. It shifts back to focusing on recovery pretty fast, but the idea of planning for population decay and instability is there. Dune flirts with the subject for similar reasons. I haven’t read past God-Emperor, but I hear the last couple Frank novels are weirdly desolate.
For more modern stories which play around in the post-apocalypse, maybe Revelation Space? Or influenced works like the sandbox space game Starsector. These are settings where humanity has not coped well with the collapse of major technologies. You really get a sense that humanity is limping along even when there are insane accomplishments in the setting.
You might appreciate an explicit (if minor) theme in A Fire Upon the Deep.The sympathetic alien leader of Woodcarvers is specifically struggling with the eugenics required to keep continuity of consciousness in an organism made of multiple separate brains . Shit’s wild. The whole book is great, and straddles the line between bleak and triumphant. I suspect the sequel, featuring a few humans marooned on a primitive planet, would hit similar themes.
On the fantasy side, Prince of Nothing. It’s also post-apocalyptic, and it’s very clear that the squabbling institutions of men are losing ground. The first apocalypse was triggered by summoning an entity which prevented live births so long as it remained in the world, and the group which summoned it is still around. Great series. Absolutely horrible.
So yeah, good question.
I second the Starsector recommendation, although do note that the game is still in development and the main storyline is currently only half-finished.
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