The Blood Artists (1998) novel

Chuck Hogan's 1998 novel The Blood Artists is about a virus that takes on human form and has the capability of destroying humanity. In 2009 co-authored the first volume of The Strain Trilogy with Mexican motion picture director Guillermo del Toro, the subject matter of which is very similar to his earlier novel.

The Strain (2009) novel, Book 1 of the Strain Trilogy

Mexican superstar motion picture director Guillermo del Toro, who lives in Los Angeles, California, USA, and novelist Chuck Hogan, who published a similar work in 1998, The Blood Artists, have teamed up to kill off the world with a vampirism virus in their Strain Trilogy:

• Book 1, The Strain (2009)



• Book 2, The Fall (2010)



• Book 3, The Night Eternal (2011)

In Book 1 that favorite target of doomsday scenarios, New York City, is ground zero for this virus, the likes of which have been seen before.

Category 7 (2007) novel

Bill Evans, a real-life meteorologist (weatherman, not an expert in meteors), and collaborator Marianna Jameson, bring their combined expertise to the novel Cateogry 7 (2007), in which a killer hurricane destroys New York City.

Life After People (2008) documentary

The History Channel documentary Life After People (2008) may be based on Alan Weisman's 2007 book The World Without Us. The computer graphics in this TV account, imagining how ecosystems will recover and weather and lifeforms will break down humanity's greatest and strongest structures, are excellent.

The World Without Us (2007) book

Alan Weisman's non-fiction book The World Without Us (2007) either spawned a mini-industry of imagining Earth without humans or it tapped into a meme that's probably been floating around for a while, taking the popular science fiction theme of the last person on Earth to its ultimate conclusion. Weisman does not impose a doomsday scenario, rather his work is based on a thought experiment, examining how ecosystems would recover should humanity suddenly and totally disappear. He is not concerned with how or why this might happen, just that it does and how the world would move on and over the remains of a human-populated globe.

Kim Stanley Robinson doomsday ecothrillers (2004-2007)

Kim Stanley Robinson published this triology of doomsday ecothrillers between 2004 and 2007:

1. Forty Signs of Rain (Bantam Books, 2004)


2. Fifty Degrees Below (Bantam Books, 2005)


3. Sixty Days and Counting (Bantam Books, 2007)

Have a Nice Doomsday (2007) book

Former Simon Fraser University history professor Nicholas Guyatt, published Have a Nice Doomsday: Why Millions of Americans Are Looking Forward to the End of the World in 2007. He examines the Christian obsession with The Rapture and an apocalyptic viewpoint inspired by a literal interpretation of the last book of the Bible's New Testament, the Revelation of St. John.

I Am Legend (1954) novel

Richard Matheson's 1954 horror novel I Am Legend so scared me just from its description that I never read it. It was adapted into three film versions: The Last Man on Earth (1964) starring Vincent Price, The Omega Man (1971) starring Charlton Heston, which I have seen and I Am Legend (2007) starring Will Smith, which I have also seen.

Three Rapture sites from 2009 newpaper article

A local newspaper article published December 2, 2009 described these three Rapture sites. According to the article, "basic Rapture doctrine says Jesus will unexpectedly return and will bring faithful Christians to Heaven, leaving non-believers and followers of other faiths to face a prolonged period of global strife."

RaptureReady.com, founded by Todd Strandberg of Benton, Arkansas, in 1987, features the weekly Rapture Index. How, if Jesus is returning unexpectedly, this index is supposed to have any predictive value is beyond me. Maybe Jesus will return when the index is at its lowest value rather than its highest.

YouveBeenLeftBehind.com, a subscription-based service, lets its members store messages and e-mail addresses of those they want to reach after the Rapture. But if there's global strife, especially if the time of Tribulation immediately follows the Rapture, would those messages even get delivered?

The atheist-run site Eternal Earthbound Pets is committed all those pets from Christian homes where the owners have ascended to be with Jesus. Poor Spot and Fluffy. But those who think they are bound for Heaven can keep their pets safe by subscribing to this service. What's $110 a pet for peace of enraptured mind?