10 scariest plagues from sci-fi and fantasy

From zombies to alien parasites to plagues of childlessness, sci-fi and fantasy authors get very creative when investing diseases to ravage humanity.

As the world enters yet another month of lockdown courtesy of the coronavirus pandemic, it can be easy to feel like things couldn’t get any worse. This is an unprecedented moment in history that has upended the lives of many people.

However, while this is pretty much the first time anyone alive has experienced a global pandemic like this, plenty of us have read or watched plagues, monsters and ailments overtake the populace in fiction. Whether it’s science fiction, fantasy, blockbuster movies, high-end literature or comic books, there’s a plague story somewhere, and a lot of those diseases make COVID-19 look like the chicken pox.

So while things are tough, maybe we can take your mind off what’s happening in the real world by reading about how much worse it’s gotten in a variety of fake ones. I guarantee you that by the end of this article, you’ll feel a lot better about the state of the world.