Imagining the end of the world: Writing the polycrisis through zombie fiction

This article examines zombie fiction as a subgenre of horror and considers its relationship to the broader category of speculative fiction. It argues that zombie stories can provide writers with an appropriate metaphor to address the polycrisis, noting the challenges of scope and scale often raised in writing climate fiction and adequately addressing grand challenges. It observes how, unlike other monster stories, zombie narratives reflect a change in the story world and in turn focus on the nature and adaptability of humanity within a state of existential crisis. This work draws on academic literature and narratives within the zombie genre (across several mediums), as well as climate fiction, to create a parallel between these two modes of storytelling. Finally, the author provides a reflection on how he applies these ideas within his forthcoming novel, The Garden.