Claim: The Hunger Games is placed in a time period.

Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of science fiction , science fantasy or horror fiction literature in which the Earth 's technological civilization is collapsing or has collapsed . The apocalypse event may be climatic , such as runaway climate change ; natural , such as an impact event ; man-made , such as nuclear warfare ; medical , such as a plague or virus , whether natural or man-made ; or imaginative , such as zombie apocalypse or alien invasion . The story may involve attempts to prevent an apocalypse event , deal with the impact and consequences of the event itself , or it may be post-apocalyptic , set after the event . The time frame may be immediately after the catastrophe , focusing on the travails or psychology of survivors , the way to maintain the human race alive and together as one , or considerably later , often including the theme that the existence of pre-catastrophe civilization has been forgotten -LRB- or mythologized -RRB- . Post-apocalyptic stories often take place in a non-technological future world , or a world where only scattered elements of society and technology remain .   Various ancient societies , including the Babylonian and Judaic , produced apocalyptic literature and mythology which dealt with the end of the world and of human society , such as the Epic of Gilgamesh , written ca. 2000 -- 1500 BC . And recognizable modern apocalyptic novels had existed since at least the first quarter of the 19th century , when Mary Shelley 's The Last Man -LRB- 1826 -RRB- was published . However , this form of literature gained widespread popularity after World War II , when the possibility of global annihilation by nuclear weapons entered the public consciousness .   As shown above , the apocalypse is also depicted in visual art , for example in Albert Goodwin 's painting Apocalypse -LRB- 1903 -RRB- .