# Ancient catastrophes reimagined in fiction **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 1, 2026, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-catastrophes-reimagined-in-fiction/1027287 "2026-02-01T23:43:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-catastrophes-reimagined-in-fiction/1027287/1 "2026-02-01T23:43:09Z")
I was reading the Great Debates thread [Did effects of the changes in climate as the glaciers receded result in highly distorted biblical accounts in the book of Genesis?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-effects-of-the-changes-in-climate-as-the-glaciers-receded-result-in-highly-distorted-biblical-accounts-in-the-book-of-genesis/1027246) and the discussion turned to the Zanclean Flood, as described here, for example: [The largest flood in Earth’s history burst through Gibraltar and Sicily and refilled the entire Mediterranean in just a few years](https://theconversation.com/the-largest-flood-in-earths-history-burst-through-gibraltar-and-sicily-and-refilled-the-entire-mediterranean-in-just-a-few-years-249242). There is disagreement about how long the flood event took to fill the Mediterranean basin; the linked article argues it was extremely, catastrophically rapid. This reminded me of the cataclysmic conclusion to _The Golden Torc_, part two of a four-part scifi/fantasy series, [The Saga of Pliocene Exile](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saga_of_Pliocene_Exile). If you’ve read it, you know what I’m speaking of; if you haven’t, the Strait of Gilbraltar is created by an unimaginably powerful, revenge-mad character, with horrific consequences for… But I’ll not venture into any further spoilers. The geologic period in which the actual flood occurred aligns with one timeline of the novel series and I have to wonder whether the author deliberately chose that era with that catastrophe in mind as part of the plotting. It’s one thing to take an event from history and use it to build a novel around, but how many authors have taken such a remote-in-time (and perhaps not widely known) event from before humans were around to experience it and to pass the knowledge down orally, and created a fictional world in which to place it? ETA: Reading down to the end of the Wikipedia article, yes, the Zanclean Flood was just one part of the research into several areas Julian May explored in creating this world. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-catastrophes-reimagined-in-fiction/1027287/2 "2026-02-01T23:53:26Z")
Well, you beat me to the Saga (which I’m sure @Frodo would have mentioned as well). On a semi-related note, consider the Gandalara cycle: > **[Gandalara Cycle Series by Randall Garrett](https://www.goodreads.com/series/42310-gandalara-cycle)** > > The Steel of Raithskar (Gandalara Cycle, #1), The Glass of Dyskornis (Gandalara Cycle, #2), The Bronze of Eddarta (Gandalara Cycle, #3), The Well of Dar... And even (a personal favorite) The Winter of the World series: > **[The Winter of the World Series by Michael Scott Rohan](https://www.goodreads.com/series/52622-the-winter-of-the-world)** > > The Anvil of Ice (The Winter of the World, #1), The Forge in the Forest (The Winter of the World, #2), The Hammer of the Sun (The Winter of the World, #... That’s off the top of my head (and bookshelf), I’m sure more will come to me later. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-catastrophes-reimagined-in-fiction/1027287/3 "2026-02-01T23:57:50Z")
Not quite sure I’m getting what you are after. The one that comes to mind, which might fit the bill is Harry Harrison’s _West of Eden_ series. In this series the Earth dodged the meteor at the end of the Cretaceous, allowing for an advanced reptilian civilisation to evolve in one part of the (configured as now, since plate tectonics just go on) Earth. But on another part of the Earth, a more standard evolutionary narrative unfolds so there is the inevitable encounter between a Homo sapiens type (but not quite since the precursor primates are different) with the lizard folk. As a sci-fi reader back then, I thought it was okay. Not earth-shattering (ironic, given the central premise). ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2026, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-catastrophes-reimagined-in-fiction/1027287/4 "2026-02-02T00:17:28Z")
I had considered those books but thought it might not qualify because the Extinction event is a pretty well known event, compared to many. And it keeps on getting adapted, including the snoozefest “65”. I loved the series when I first read it as a pre-teen in the 80s, but when I went back to it later it felt that it did the bio-tech (which for the time was a really rare option) really _well_, and society building for the dinos. The whole human character felt… unhelpful and unneeded actually on the re-read. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2026, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-catastrophes-reimagined-in-fiction/1027287/5 "2026-02-02T00:33:43Z")
Thinking back on _The Saga of Pliocene Exile_ reminds me that another catastrophe, the Tunguska event, is incorporated into the plot, although there the author unabashedly yanks it out of its historic time, at least as a template for an important plot sequence, with a very different posited cause. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2026, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-catastrophes-reimagined-in-fiction/1027287/6 "2026-02-03T02:47:35Z")
You mean the crash of the Tanu/Firvulag spaceship? That was based on a real asteroid impact site in Europe in prehistory (though May moved it from 14 million years ago to 3 million) ([Nördlinger Ries - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%B6rdlinger_Ries)). Or am I forgetting another incident? ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2026, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-catastrophes-reimagined-in-fiction/1027287/7 "2026-02-03T03:12:07Z")
No, you’re correct, and I misremembered. That’s one of many brilliant reimaginings May employed in the series. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2026, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-catastrophes-reimagined-in-fiction/1027287/8 "2026-02-03T03:16:31Z")
In Spider Robinson’s Callahan’s Place stories the Tunguska Event was actually the unexpected result of Nikola Tesla’s experiments in wireless energy transmission; he deliberately created his reputation as a lunatic in order to discredit his research so nobody would duplicate it. In Larry Niven’s _The Green Marauder_ an ancient _(really_ ancient) alien traveler talks about the civilization that lived on Earth the last time she was there. A race that was destroyed two billion years ago when green plants oxygenated the atmosphere and killed nearly all existing life. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2026, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-catastrophes-reimagined-in-fiction/1027287/9 "2026-02-03T15:01:14Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > In Spider Robinson’s Callahan’s Place stories the Tunguska Event was actually the unexpected result of Nikola Tesla’s experiments in wireless energy transmission; he deliberately created his reputation as a lunatic in order to discredit his research so nobody would duplicate it. In a Sherlock Holmes pastiche Holmes and WAtson are lured to Siberia by a series of clues ingeniously laid down by Professor Moriarty so that they’d be at the point the Tunguska meteorite struck. Moriarty, of course, gained fame due to his paper _The Dynamics of an Asteroid._ Harry Turtledove’s novella _Down in the Bottomlands_ (which won a Hugo for “Best Novella” in 1994) describes an alternate history situation i which the Mediterranean does NOT flood, but it looks as if it’s about to. > **[Down in the Bottomlands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_in_the_Bottomlands)** > > "Down in the Bottomlands" is a novella written by Harry Turtledove, set in an alternate reality in which the Messinian salinity crisis continues to the present day. > It won the Hugo Award for Best Novella in 1994. The story takes place in an alternative history in which the point of divergence occurs 5.5 million years ago during the Miocene Epoch when the Atlantic Ocean did not reflood the Mediterranean Sea, as it did in our history. The Mediterranean Basin thus remains dry to the present day i... Somewhat similar, in that it deals with the flooding of Mediterranean lowlands, is Jules Verne’s _The Invasion of the Sea_ (_L’Invasion de la mer)_. It was published in 1905, but the first complete English translation didn’t appear until almost a century later, in 1901.It’s about the flooding of a small part of the Sahara to create an “inland sea”. This was something that was actually contemplated, an would probably have worked, but it was never carried out. It would’ve been a salt sea, of course, but it was felt that it would moderate the climate and encourage rainfall. > **[Invasion of the Sea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_the_Sea)** > > Invasion of the Sea (French: L'Invasion de la mer) is an adventure novel written by Jules Verne. It was published in 1905, the last to be published in the author's lifetime, and describes the exploits of Berber nomads and European travelers in Saharan Africa. The European characters arrive to study the feasibility of flooding a low-lying region of the Sahara desert to create an inland sea and open up the interior of Northern Africa to trade. In the end, however, the protagonists' pride in hum In... ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2026, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-catastrophes-reimagined-in-fiction/1027287/10 "2026-02-03T15:39:03Z")
L. Sprague de Camp wrote several sequels to his classic _A Gun for Dinosaur_ later in his life, and collected them in _Rivers of Time_, which includes a story about the dinosaur-killing meteor. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2026, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-catastrophes-reimagined-in-fiction/1027287/11 "2026-02-03T18:50:46Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > It was published in 1905, but the first complete English translation didn’t appear until almost a century later, in 1901. I think you meant > It was published in 1905, but the first complete English translation didn’t appear until almost a century later, in ~~1901~~ 2001. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2026, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-catastrophes-reimagined-in-fiction/1027287/12 "2026-02-03T19:23:45Z")
I don’t know if this is ancient enough to fit in with your question, but a major plot point in Mary Renault’s novel _The King Must Die_ is the volcanic eruption of Santorini (Thera) around 1500 BC, and its accompanying earthquake. The novel shows the beginning of the downfall of the Minoan civilization, partly caused by the earthquake.. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2026, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-catastrophes-reimagined-in-fiction/1027287/13 "2026-02-03T19:34:43Z")
Gary Jennings’ _Aztec_ is set just before and just after the Spanish arrived in Mexico. Not sure if that fits with the “before humans were around” part of the OP, but the historical fiction novel explores the Aztec world with some detail (based on real-world events and artifacts), as well as the characters of the event (Cortés, Moctezuma (AKA Montezuma)) as told from someone living thru that period. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2026, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-catastrophes-reimagined-in-fiction/1027287/14 "2026-02-04T01:17:59Z")
In classic _Doctor Who_, we learned that the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was actually a spaceship piloted by one of his companions who wasn’t quite as good at math as he thought he was. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2026, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-catastrophes-reimagined-in-fiction/1027287/15 "2026-02-04T08:03:59Z")
I can think of at least two stories where dinosaurs were apparently killed by overhunting rather than an asteroid. A short story where human time travelers found aliens hunting them from their spacecraft, and (apparently) in the novel _Mastodonia_ where hunting trips to the age of dinosaurs were a thing. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2026, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-catastrophes-reimagined-in-fiction/1027287/16 "2026-02-04T11:25:45Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > In classic _Doctor Who_, we learned that the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was actually a spaceship piloted by one of his companions who wasn’t quite as good at math as he thought he was. There’s also a David Tennant episode where they go back to Pompeii just in time for the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2026, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-catastrophes-reimagined-in-fiction/1027287/17 "2026-02-05T00:34:43Z")
That puts me in mind of [The Chronicles of St. Mary’s](https://www.joditaylorbooks.com/p/the-chronicles-of-st-marys-series) series by Jodi Taylor, about an organization of historians who study historical events by traveling back in time to witness them firsthand. Almost all of the stories are set in historical times, but do include such events as the eruption of Santorini in the Bronze Age.