The phrase "All Tomorrows" has become a powerful touchstone in modern speculative fiction, evoking a deep sense of cosmic dread and evolutionary wonder. It originated with C.M. Kosemen's groundbreaking work, All Tomorrows: The Myriad Species and Mixed Fortunes of Man, a book that chronicles a billion-year saga of human evolution and devolution at the hands of alien overlords. This seminal text didn't just tell a story; it created an entire genre of evolutionary horror, blending hard science with nightmarish imagination. Its influence is so profound that it has spawned discussions, analyses, and even inspired other creative works across various media. For a comprehensive look at this epic, you can explore the dedicated page for All Tomorrows.
Speculative Biology: From Dinosaurs to Distant Futures
Kosemen's vision is part of a broader movement in speculative biology. His earlier collaboration, All Yesterdays: Unique and Speculative Views of Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals, revolutionized paleoart by challenging conventional depictions of dinosaurs. While All Yesterdays looks back with creative liberty, All Tomorrows looks forward with terrifying logic. This pairing forms the twin pillars of modern speculative thought about life's past and potential futures. The contrast between these two masterpieces is a fascinating topic for any fan of biological fiction.
The Shadow of Cosmic Horror
The themes in All Tomorrows resonate strongly with the tradition of cosmic horror, pioneered by H.P. Lovecraft. The feeling of humanity's insignificance against vast, uncaring cosmic forces is central to both. This connection is made visually explicit in adaptations like H.P. Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu (Manga). The manga format brings a new dimension to Lovecraft's cosmic dread, much like the illustrations in All Tomorrows give form to its existential horrors. Exploring the intersection of these works reveals how evolutionary horror is a direct descendant of Lovecraftian fear.
Other works continue this tradition of existential threat. All the Fiends of Hell by Adam Nevill is a stark, modern take on apocalyptic fiction, while the visual legacy of horror finds its apex in the work of H.R. Giger. The HR Giger. 45th Ed. is an essential art book that showcases the biomechanical nightmares that have influenced everything from Alien to the aesthetic of All Tomorrows. Giger's art embodies the fusion of organism and machine, a theme that echoes the forced evolution in Kosemen's universe.
Gaming in the World of Tomorrow
The concepts of All Tomorrows have even penetrated the world of tabletop role-playing games. All Flesh Must be Eaten: All Tomorrows Zombies is a supplement for the popular horror RPG All Flesh Must Be Eaten from Eden Studios. This book allows players to experience the terror of the Star People's fate firsthand, bringing the evolutionary horror of the source material into a collaborative, narrative game setting. It's a perfect example of how a compelling speculative fiction concept can expand into interactive media.
Literary and Musical Echoes
The phrase "All Tomorrows" also appears in more traditional literary contexts. All the Tomorrows After appears to be a work of contemporary or literary fiction, perhaps a family saga or emotional novel, showing the title's versatility beyond genre boundaries.
In the realm of cyberpunk literature, William Gibson's All Tomorrow's Parties serves as the finale to his Bridge Trilogy. This novel explores a near-future of pervasive media and corporate control, a different kind of speculation about future humanity. On a completely different note, All Tomorrow's Parties: The Velvet Underground Story is a definitive music biography delving into the iconic 1960s band that epitomized counterculture and artistic innovation. The shared title across such disparate works—a dystopian fiction novel, a rock history book, and a speculative evolution epic—highlights its evocative power.
From the billion-year nightmare of All Tomorrows to the gritty futures of cyberpunk and the revolutionary sounds of the Velvet Underground, this simple phrase connects a web of ideas about change, time, and identity. Whether you're drawn to cosmic horror, speculative biology, immersive art books, or thrilling RPG supplements, the universe of "All Tomorrows" offers a rich and terrifying landscape to explore. Each related work, from the paleontology book All Yesterdays to the graphic novel adaptation of Lovecraft, adds another layer to our understanding of where we came from and the myriad, often frightening, possibilities of where we might be headed.