It’s not hard to see that the future is getting bleaker. Science fiction and speculative fiction, as responses to present circumstances, are increasingly darkening to match the world as is. Consider the difference between, say, Star Trek – which had the prime directive, the innate and vital goal of exploration and intergalactic diplomacy – and Interstellar, the driving conceit of which is that Earth has run out of food. Across subgenre boundaries, and even languages, we’re bombarded with images straight out of that quintessential British apocalypse novel The Day of the Triffids.