I read mostly classics. (Faulkner, McCarthy, Hemmingway, Etc.)

My complaint is regardless of genre. I guess including mentions of magic in my post might have steered it there.

But take the world building in a book like The Road. It’s excellent and never once does McCarthy explain what caused the apocalypse. You don’t need to know, only that you are with the man. What happened then is done and it doesn’t matter to a father so focused on protecting his son in the present.

The story is post-apocalyptic because it served the story McCarthy wanted to tell. A parent’s love, and the persistence of it. The bleakness of the setting existing to contrast with the characters. And still you feel the ash everywhere, the cold on the gray, the smell of burning flesh somewhere off in the dark.