The phrase "All Tomorrows" has become a touchstone in modern speculative fiction, evoking a profound sense of cosmic wonder and evolutionary dread. At its core lies C.M. Kosemen's seminal work, All Tomorrows: The Myriad Species and Mixed Fortunes of Man, a book that charts the bizarre and often terrifying future of humanity across millions of years. This narrative of forced evolution and alien intervention has captivated readers, establishing itself as a masterpiece of biological fiction and cosmic horror. Its influence, however, extends far beyond its own pages, resonating through a fascinating constellation of related books, art, and media that explore similar themes of transformation, dread, and the fragility of identity.
The Speculative Biology Universe
Kosemen's vision is part of a broader movement in speculative thought. His earlier collaboration, All Yesterdays: Unique and Speculative Views of Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals, applies the same imaginative rigor to the ancient past. While All Yesterdays re-envisions dinosaurs as living, breathing creatures beyond the familiar skeletons, All Tomorrows projects that biological creativity into a terrifying future. Together, they form speculative biology's twin pillars, challenging our perceptions of life's past and potential futures. For a deeper dive into this connection, the blog post All Yesterdays vs. All Tomorrows: Speculative Biology's Twin Masterpieces offers an excellent comparative analysis.
Threads of Cosmic Dread: From Lovecraft to Giger
The evolutionary horror of All Tomorrows finds a clear kinship with the works of H.P. Lovecraft. The existential terror of humanity's insignificance in a vast, uncaring universe is a shared foundation. This connection is made visually stunning in adaptations like H.P. Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu (Manga), which translates cosmic dread into powerful graphic novel form. Exploring the thematic links between these works is fascinating, as discussed in All Tomorrows & Lovecraftian Horror: Exploring Cosmic Dread in Manga.
Furthermore, the biomechanical body horror of the Star People and their descendants echoes the iconic art of H.R. Giger. The nightmarish fusion of flesh and machine in HR Giger. 45th Ed. provides a visual lexicon for the kinds of transformations described in Kosemen's work. The biomechanical aesthetic is a direct bridge between these two visions of horror. For enthusiasts looking to connect these dots, the guide All Tomorrows & HR Giger: A Guide to Sci-Fi's Evolutionary & Biomechanical Nightmares is an essential read.
Gaming the Apocalypse: All Tomorrows Zombies
The concepts of All Tomorrows have even infiltrated 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 by Eden Studios. This book allows players and Game Masters to incorporate the novel's bizarre post-human species—like the parasitic Saurosapients or the colonial Tool Breeders—as unique zombie threats or survivor factions in a apocalyptic fiction setting. It's a brilliant example of transmedia storytelling, turning readers into participants in a universe of cosmic dread. A comprehensive look at this supplement can be found in All Tomorrows Zombies: A Sci-Fi Horror RPG Supplement Review & Guide.
The Literary and Musical "Tomorrows"
Interestingly, the title All Tomorrows resonates in other creative realms. In literature, Nino Cipri's All the Tomorrows After is a poignant emotional novel and family saga that, while not sci-fi, explores the ripple effects of time and choice—themes not entirely alien to Kosemen's epic. Meanwhile, William Gibson's All Tomorrow's Parties concludes his Bridge Trilogy, a work of cyberpunk that deals with the convergence of technologies and futures, another form of speculative evolution. For fans of Gibson, the blog All Tomorrow's Parties: William Gibson's Bridge Trilogy Finale Explained provides crucial context.
The phrase also has deep roots in music history, famously used by The Velvet Underground in their song "All Tomorrow's Parties." All Tomorrow's Parties: The Velvet Underground Story is a definitive music biography that captures the essence of 1960s counterculture and rock history. The melancholic and transformative spirit of the song subtly mirrors the themes of change and loss in Kosemen's saga.
Why All Tomorrows Endures
The enduring power of All Tomorrows lies in its brutal, yet fascinating, exploration of future humanity. It forces us to confront questions of identity, resilience, and what it means to be human when both body and civilization are stripped away and remade by incomprehensible forces. It is more than a story; it's a thought experiment rendered in vivid, often unsettling detail.
From its origins as a cult bestseller in speculative fiction to its inspirations in art books like Giger's and its adaptations into graphic novel formats and horror RPG supplements, the world of All Tomorrows continues to expand. It invites us to look at the long arc of time—through paleontology books like All Yesterdays, the existential fears of Lovecraftian manga, and the dystopian visions of cyberpunk—and wonder not just about all our yesterdays, but about the myriad, unpredictable shapes of all our tomorrows.