British Monsters vs. American Monsters

What’s interesting, to my mind, is the manner in which these images are identifiably part of an English – or perhaps British – tradition. Since Wells at least, British speculative fiction has tended to imagine our end in similarly muted terms . . . This vision stands in stark contrast to American visions of world’s end, and their apocalyptic fervour . . . Perhaps not surprisingly for a country in which religion looms so large, America is haunted by the apocalyptic imagination of fundamental Christianity, a cultural belief that has not been supplanted by science, but simply mutated into the sort of apocalyptic fantasies which are given shape in The Road or even Battlestar Galactica if you’re interested in this question I’ve posted an article I wrote for The Age back in 2007 here.

via Are the Triffids A Uniquely British Monster?