Books › Man after Man
Man after Man
an anthropology of the future
First published 1990 · 128 pages
A deeply unsettling, illustrated field guide to the grotesque and fascinating deep-time future of human evolution.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like unearthing a cursed biology textbook from a million years in the future. It moves at a steady, encyclopedic pace, presenting a sprawling timeline of human evolution that is as fascinating as it is deeply unsettling. The prose is clinically detached, describing horrifying genetic modifications and bizarre evolutionary adaptations with the dry authority of a nature documentary. This stark contrast between the academic tone and the grotesque, haunting illustrations creates an atmosphere of profound existential dread. It is a bleak, awe-inspiring journey through deep time that strips away our modern hubris. Fans of speculative biology, weird sci-fi, and body horror will find themselves mesmerized by this macabre and wildly imaginative vision of post-humanity.
- Mood
- unsettling
- eerie
- bleak
- bizarre
- fascinating
- Tone
- clinical
- detached
- speculative
- macabre
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- deep time · malleability of the human form · ecological collapse · survival and adaptation · post-humanism
- The writing
- Adopts the dry, authoritative, and detached voice of a biological textbook, making the horrifying subject matter feel chillingly plausible.
- The arc
- Begins with scientific curiosity and descends into profound existential dread as the human form becomes increasingly alien and grotesque.
- Who it's for
- Readers fascinated by speculative biology, deep-time sci-fi, and unsettling concept art who don't mind a healthy dose of existential body horror.
Content notes
- body horror
- genetic manipulation
- grotesque illustrations
- extinction
- loss of humanity
About the book
Man After Man is an ambitious attempt to view the future as far distant from us as those ramapithecine creatures whose fragmentary remains turn up in African fossil beds. What is our future? Will the human race exist in a 1,000 years time? In 10,000 years? In a 100,000 years time? If so, what will we look like and how will we behave? How will we have developed or adapted,, and why? What will be the effect of that change on other animals? Man After Man is an illustrated anthropology of the future. It shows how the human race might evolve naturally or be adapted to face life under the sea or in space. And how the descendants of Homo sapiens might meet the harsh challenge of a new ice age or the adverse conditions imposed by the greenhouse effect, ozone depletion or magnetic reversal.
Description from Open Library.
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