Good Post Apocalyptic Books Wanted

[Munkeygames]

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson certainly qualifies, although it is as much horror as sf. If you like Wyndham's books, it seems you'd like the Matheson one too. Through Darkest America by Neal Barrett, Jr is another good post-apocalyptic novel. Walter M Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz is a true gem of its kind and essential sf reading in general, too.

Yep, I am Legend is a fantastic book - I started reading and couldnt stop until I had finished it

 

[idioteque04]

Z for Zachariah by Robert O'Brien

I saw the film or tv show with Anthony Andrews... Very interesting idea...

***SPOILER ALERT***

This is information from memory of reading the book and watching the tv... So apologies if some information is wrong

The people on a farm, that is situated in a valley, see a flash in the sky one night and then all the tv and radio signals go dead...

Several days later, they realise that no post has been delivered and there is no phone line... So a couple of them go out of the valley, leaving one or two kids behind...

Some time goes by and the girl, left behind, gets a little worried but carries on caring for the animals...

A little while longer, and a stranger in a contamination suit appears in the valley...

yeah great one.....lets pick all the most obvious ones that everyone has read great forum this is.

 

[High Eight]

One of my favourite post-apcalyptic fictions: -

[FONT=Courier,sans-serif]The Horses[/FONT]

[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]Barely a twelvemonth after[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]The seven days war that put the world to sleep,[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]Late in the evening the strange horses came.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]By then we had made our covenant with silence,[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]But in the first few days it was so still[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]We listened to our breathing and were afraid.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]On the second day[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]The radios failed; we turned the knobs, no answer.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]On the third day a warship passed us, headed north,[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]Dead bodies piled on the deck. [/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]On the sixth day[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]A plane plunged over us into the sea. T[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]hereafter[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]Nothing. The radios dumb;[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]And still they stand in corners of our kitchens,[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]And stand, perhaps, turned on, in a million rooms[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]All over the world. [/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]But now if they should speak,[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]If on a sudden they should speak again,[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]If on the stroke of noon a voice should speak,[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]We would not listen, we would not let it bring[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]That old bad world that swallowed its children quick[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]At one great gulp. [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]We would not have it again.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]Sometimes we think of the nations lying asleep,[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]Curled blindly in impenetrable sorrow,[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]And then the thought confounds us with its strangeness.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]The tractors lie about our fields; at evening[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]They look like dank sea-monsters crouched and waiting.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]We leave them where they are and let them rust:[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]"They'll molder away and be like other loam."[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]We make our oxen drag our rusty ploughs,[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]Long laid aside. We have gone back[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]Far past our fathers' land.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]A[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]nd then, that evening[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]Late in the summer the strange horses came.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]We heard a distant tapping on the road,[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]A deepening drumming; it stopped, went on again[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]And at the corner changed to hollow thunder.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]We saw the heads[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]Like a wild wave charging and were afraid.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]We had sold our horses in our fathers' time[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]To buy new tractors. Now they were strange to us[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]As fabulous steeds set on an ancient shield[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]Or illustrations in a book of knights.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]We did not dare go near them. Yet they waited,[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]Stubborn and shy, as if they had been sent[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]By an old command to find our whereabouts[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]And that long-lost archaic companionship.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]In the first moment we had never a thought[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]That they were creatures to be owned and used.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]Among them were some half a dozen colts[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]Dropped in some wilderness of the broken world,[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]Yet new as if they had come from their own Eden.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]Since then they have pulled our ploughs and borne our loads,[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]But that free servitude still can pierce our hearts.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]Our life is changed; their coming our beginning. [/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier,sans-serif][FONT=Courier,sans-serif]-- Edwin Muir[/FONT][/FONT]

 

[Connavar]

I saw Fritz Lieber's The Wanderer in the library is it one of his good stories?

 

[stellarexplorer]

Thank you for that wonderful poem High Eight!

 

[swish]

I like to recommend Vonda McIntyres Dreamsnake.
I do not belive anyone have mentioned it in this thread before.

 

[j d worthington]

Yes, Dreamsnake is a very good piece indeed. (And welcome to the Chronicles!)

Con: I don't feel The Wanderer is one of Leiber's best -- for me, it's one of the very few times when Leiber's work seems a bit attenuated at times; though it does have some magnificent stuff in it, I'd say it's an uneven performance.

And George Allan England -- haven't seen that name for quite a while, but the Darkness and Dawn stories are classics in the field. Good to see someone bring them up....

 

[Connavar]

Not good for my first by Lieber then?

 

[brsrkrkomdy]

Here are some (most you knew already):

The Purple Cloud by M.P. Shiel
The Last Man by Mary Shelley (yes, she wrote Frankenstein)
The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Postman by David Brin
Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
Alas Babylon by Pat Frank
Earth Abides by George Stewart
War Day by Whitley Strieber & James Kunetka
Nature's End by Whitely Strieber & James Kunetka
Day Of the Triffids by John Wyndham
The Chrysalids by John Wyndham
The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard
The Chrystal World by J.G. Ballard
Drought by J.G. Ballard
Hello America by J.G. Ballard
Day Of Creation by J.G. Ballard
The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner
Night Of Power by Spider Robinson
Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
On The Beach by Nevil Shute
A Canticle For Liebowitz by Walter Miller Jr.
Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny
A Boy and His Dog by Harlan Ellison (novella)
The Conqueror Worm by Brian Keene
A Nature Of Balance by Tim Lebbon
Afterage by Yvonne Navarro
Red Shadows by Yvonne Navarro
Emergeance by David R. Palmer
Midnight Mass by F. Paul Wilson
The Stand by Stephen King
Cell by Stephen King
Swan Song by Robert McCammon
Death Lands series by "James Axler"
The Road by Cormac MacCarthy
Dahlgren by Samuel Delany
The Man Who Melted by Jack Dann
No Blade Of Grass by John Christopher
Chasm by Stephen Laws

That's about it for now.

 

[j d worthington]

That's quite a nice list there... I'd have reservations about a couple of them, but de gustibus, as it were. However, I think I'd caution most modern readers where The Last Man is concerned. It's a wonderful novel, but it's very discursive; so be prepared for that. If you are, you're more likely to enjoy the journey... which is indeed worthwhile.

 

[brsrkrkomdy]

I forgot to mention NIGHT LAND by William Hope Hodgson. Technically I'd consider that post-apocalyptic and end of the world novel. This takes place ten thousand years or more from now where the dying sun has dimmed. This novel is couched in arcane language as with Mary Shelley's The Last Man. Still, if you could get thru that, it's a good one.

 

[tarifa]

Have had a quick scan thru the lists, can't see . . .

The city and the stars by Arthur C. Clarke, not ur typical post-holocaust novel but still deals with the remnant survivors of mankind.

Favourite has to be Earth Abides, just finished it again this afternoon, beautiful just beautiful

 

[chrispenycate]

Was rooting through my bookshelves recently (for something completely different) and unearthed "Davy", by Edgar Pangbourne, and started rereading it (search abandoned) Definitely deserves inclusion.
Others that marked me in my far-distant youth: does an apocylipse have to be violent? (My brain only associates the word with rhe bang, not the wimper, so all the plague based depopulations are eliminated) Anyway, with bang
Level seven by Mordecai Roshwald
The offshore island by Marghanita Laski.(that's a play, but since I worked with it it would stick in my mind. I had a devil of a job googling it, though, and suspect it's unfindable)

And if the whimper, Try "Mary's country", by Harold Mead

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

<Was rooting through my bookshelves recently (for something completely different) >

And the Spanish Inqusition popped out.

 

[chrispenycate]

<Was rooting through my bookshelves recently (for something completely different) >

And the Spanish Inqusition popped out.

With my bookshelves, I'd hardly be surprised; but I didn't expect them.

 

[Musky]

Hello. I'm new here. Just came across this site. Great stuff.

I really enjoyed reading through this thread. Found a few titles I definitely need to track down. I have read many of the books listed, and find many of the really good ones stand out for a lot of people, and for many of the same reasons I'm sure.

Earth Abides, A Canticle for Liebowitz, Alas, Babylon, Riddley Walker, On the Beach.

I'm a sucker for these classics. There's a reason they stand the test of time. I want to throw a couple into the mix. I'm not real big on post apocalyptic books that include an element of magic and fantasy. Here's two I haven't seen mentioned that are more standard post-nuclear society building type novels.

The Last Ship by William Brinkley, published in 1988.

A good portion of this book is set on a nuclear powered U.S. guided missile destroyer that at first appears to be the only survivor of a U.S./Soviet Union nuclear exchange. Some similarities to On the Beach.

A main part of the story is the absolute power of a Navy Captain while on board his ship. How he handles his hopeless crew and the disproportionate number of men and women in the crew is fascinating. It's a lonely job he does with dignity.

He and his crew eventually hook up with a survivor Soviet sub, and the two crews try to develop a society on a south Pacific island. Once on land, things change drastically not only for the U.S. Captain, but for everyone on both vessels. One of my favorites.

The second is Malevil, by Robert Merle, published 1972.

This book is set in France. The main character is a gentleman farmer that owns a castle/winery in France when a nuclear war takes place. His property is a tourist attraction, and a number of people survive the attack in the castle's wine cellar. The rest of the book chronicles how they build a new farming society not only for themselves, but also in conjunction with other small groups of survivors in the area. There are the prerequisite bad guys.

The main character is a strong leader, and religion begins to play a large part in the society they develop. How he handles the growing religious deference his people show him is the best part of the novel.

This book was made into a French movie in 1981 which I have not seen, but which won several awards.

One book that was briefly mentioned earlier is the latest book by Cormac McCarthy, The Road. One of the most powerful books of any kind I have ever read. Wow. Incredible crushing despair, balanced with an almost invisible hope the reader needs to be there. When my wife finished it one night in bed she was sobbing. Everyone should read it.

Sorry for the long first post. I don't think my descriptions should be spoilers. Both The Last Ship and Malevil offer much more than I've put forth here.

 

[j d worthington]

Hello, and welcome to the Chrons. I wouldn't worry about the length of the post; some of us posted veerrrrry long things when we started... and still do, betimes!

 

[Moogle]

With my bookshelves, I'd hardly be surprised; but I didn't expect them.

No one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition.

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

No one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition.

Ah Ha another Python fan who has just Snaked in.

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

Greybeard by Brian Aldiss, or Edmund Cooper has some good one's 5 to 12, Merry Christmas Ms Minerva,Who needs Men,Son of Cronk & All Fool's Day.check out some of his others.