"I know not with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones."

The whole prospect of the apocalypse is fascinating to me. Stories of the people that experience the event and life after the "end of the world", or really the end of modern human civilization, are so incredible; there are an endless variety of causes for the end, but all these stories regard those stronger than 99% of the population, those stronger than society itself - the ones that survive. As such, in general my favorite stories are all of the people that exist to prevent the apocalypse, survive the apocalypse, or live in the aftermath of it.

One of my favorite movies is Terminator 2, where the apocalyptic arrival of self-aware supercomputers starts a war, beginning with nuclear judgement day and continuing with the rule of the earth's surface by robots and the hiding of the now-refugee humans throughout barren wastelands, and their defiant fight to rid the earth of its new kings; sparking the need for time-travelling assassins and guardians and whatnot.

My favorite book is World War Z by Max Brooks. It involves the sudden outbreak of zombies and the apparent apocalypse: the stories all revolve around various survivors, from all places and cultures as they survive the zombie outbreak and eventually prevent the total destruction of society as they drive back the zombie outbreak.