Having recently re-read Mike Carey’s Lucifer comic book series, where the endgame is about the survival of not just the whole of creation, but two creations (really, really cool concept), I was wondering if any of you could recommend SF/Fantasy stories that are massive in scale.
Not just the survival of the kingdom, but the whole world, not just small battles between dozens of ships, but exploding suns, Gods fighting Gods, thousand-year battles and so on. (Hmm, Malazan Empire of the Fallen probably fits and was a really good series.) (I also should try to finally get Neil Patrick Harris’ “Make it bigger” out of my head…)
The Silmarillion comes to mind immediately. (J.R.R. Tolkien),
The Lensmen Series by E.E. “Doc” Smith. Was a steadily increasing in scale war.
The Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov qualifies.
I’m not sure if it’ll count but the Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson kind of fits it. They are fighting a God who will destroy all of the multiveruses. Of course, the stakes aren’t really spelled out until book 4 and book 1 is all about a small scale war that doesn’t even engulf one of the countries fighting. On the other hand a major character just became a literal God so maybe…
Armageddon Inheritance by David Weber, which is technically the middle book of three, but stands reasonable well on it’s own. I would honestly read the first book (Mutineer’s Moon) which is smaller in scope, but sets it up. The third book I wouldn’t bother with unless you’ve fallen in love with the characters and just want a bit more.
Kind of the opposite of The Final Question (Asimov) where, if memories from seventh grade are valid, the last line is (spoken by a computer since there are no humans left) “Let there be light.”
…
But I’ve got to say, I’ve lost patience with “this will mean the end of the universe” stories. So many SF stories, fantasy series, comic arcs, and Hot New Streaming Paranormal Super Teen Dramas feel like they need to show how important they are.
The Big Bad Guy isn’t just evil, he’s About-To-Destroy-The-World-Nay-The-Universe evil. The dorky nerd doesn’t just discover he’s a hero, he’s The Only One Who Can Save The World.
I started watching a cute story about a middle school loner who discovers she has a quirky power… but nope, we can’t keep it a story where she messes with school bullies and tries to keep her life together. We have to have a Big Baddy show up, then the Ancient Mentor who tells her that if she doesn’t “embrace her mysterious magical heritage”, then… you guessed it, the world will be destroyed.
Cue cliché training sequences, big fight scenes that are mostly special effects, and cardboard characters. I tried to keep watching, but sadly, I just couldn’t.
Sigh… sometimes it’s just lazy writing. I mean, if you’re not clear on what your antagonist’s motivation is, it’s too easy to say “Well, he wants to take over the world” or "destroy the earth, the galaxy, no, the whole universe… oh, wait, I know… the multiverse!"
I thought of that one, as well as a few others where the stakes are said to be cosmic. It struck me that, though there are fights and battles, the heroes are never seen literally flinging suns around. It is just that if they fail in their quest, the world as we know it will end.
Stephen Baxter’s “Xeelee Sequence” novels (Ring, Raft, Flux, Timelike Infinity) are literally about the effective destruction of the universe by “photino birds” that are suppressing energetic fusion in all stars so as to prevent supernovae, thus making stars too cool to support baryonic life, and the efforts by the enigmatic Xeelee race to actually go back in time, re-engineer themselves, and then build a massive structure made of rotating cosmic string to open an Einstein-Rosen bridge to another universe suitable for life, abandoning this one to the supersymmetric particle-based life. In the novels, future humanity is actively but ineffectually fighting against the Xeelee out of ignorance of their plan and motivations, and a few small groups of humans have managed to pass through the ring into universes with physics that is at least marginally compatible with Earth biochemistry. In Raft, for instance, the descendants of the crew of a ship that passed into a universe with similar atomic laws but a gravitational force a billion times greater than our universe struggle to survive.
So, end of the universe and escape to another…pretty epic stakes.
Not as high class as Stephen Baxter’s SF, but Jack Chalker’s book in his Well World series The Return of Nathan Brazil features a potentially universe-destroying superweapon that gets out of control and – well – threatens to destroy the universe:
I’m kinda with you there. It’s like crime dramas where they’re like, “The killer raped and tortured children! You’d BETTER care about the story I’m telling!”
Well, no. Just because you wrote some hackneyed story about something really, really bad doesn’t mean your story is compelling or important. Sure, the universe (or children) is in danger; but have you given me a reason to care?
At the point, it almost feels rarer to encounter a fantasy/SF novel where the universe isn’t in danger.
But some folks can make me care. So here are some examples of at least world-spanning danger where there are also compelling characters and an interesting plot and lovely writing. Spoilers ahoy:
The Farthest Shore: THe end to the original Earthsea trilogy. Death itself is on the verge of defeat, which will bring madness to the world of the living.
The Broken Earth: NK Jemisin’s series opens with the apocalypse and spends the rest of the series getting you to empathize the the wizard who wrought it. (Yeah, this is an oversimplification, but it’s not entirely wrong).
His Dark Materials War between heaven and hell, sort of, along with possible multiverse collapse.
I lost some of my appetite for “you must save reality” after watching an excellent Dr. Who episode (the Tenth Doctor, end of new Who Season 2).
The bad guys were winning, and if so the Earth would be destroyed. Same with Season 4 only the stakes were higher. So you know the bad guys cannot win.
(Kudos for Asimov for making the stars go out. It feels a little bit like George R. R. Martin not making knights in shining armor.)