Best Postapocalyptic Worldbuilding

[Danny McG]

I've just now downloaded an ebook by Benjamin Percy...
'The Deadlands',

The blurb states it's set after nuke war and an epidemic. The survivors are living in a dystopian St Lois and they keep strangers away at gunpoint.
I need to read it before I can opine about it!

 

[Peter V]

It was a long time ago that I read it but I was impressed with Lucifers Hammer at the time.

 

[svalbard]

I've just now downloaded an ebook by Benjamin Percy...
'The Deadlands',

The blurb states it's set after nuke war and an epidemic. The survivors are living in a dystopian St Lois and they keep strangers away at gunpoint.
I need to read it before I can opine about it!

It is pretty good. It can be grim reading at times. I would give it a 7/10 rating.

 

[-K2-]

Here might be a good time to urge folks to refresh/revisit the definitions regarding 'post apocalyptic' and 'dystopian.' It can be both at the same time, but need not be.

K2

 

[Extollager]

Don't miss When the English Fall by David Williams, which I think some sf readers have overlooked because it's not be "one of our own."

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01JKHTN8I/?tag=id2100-20

 

[BAYLOR]

Earth Abides by George R Stewart One the best end of civilization novels of all time. IT convincingly shows the decay and decline of the community of survivors.

 

[Pedro Del Mar]

The second half of The Passage by Cronin is one of my all time favourite examples of post apocalyptic settings. It’s my favourite genre and I’ve read a lot of books with this theme but this one in particular really stands out

 

[svalbard]

Don't miss When the English Fall by David Williams, which I think some sf readers have overlooked because it's not be "one of our own."

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01JKHTN8I/?tag=id2100-20

That looks really interesting.

 

[Rodders]

Don't miss When the English Fall by David Williams, which I think some sf readers have overlooked because it's not be "one of our own."

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01JKHTN8I/?tag=id2100-20

Very interesting indeed. I might download this when I get paid.

 

[Danny McG]

The Hunger Games series?

 

[biodroid]

@dannymcg - I've only read the first book which was good. But then the films came out so I watched them and haven't bothered with the rest of the books sadly.

 

[Rodders]

Any love for Patrick Tilley's Amtrak Wars?

I read this in the nineties and rather enjoyed it. (although I would say that I thought the series went down hill the longer it went on.)

 

[SilentRoamer]

@BAYLOR Earth Abides is great. Ish is a flawed but convincing character - I love how the idea of "saving" civilization becomes completely irrelevant as time moves on. The ending is very sad however - when Ish is just that crazy old man wanting the good old days.

Seen as we have wandered onto older post apocalyptic threads - E.M. Forsters The Machine Stops (1909) has to be one of the earliest novels (its actually a novella) to depict a post apocalyptic man made world. It's a very prescient book and due to it's length I would recommend it to most SF fans - very prophetic.

I actually like LACK of worldbuilding in post apocalyptic stories, for example The Road gave you so much by telling you so little.

 

[picklematrix]

@BAYLOR Earth Abides is great. Ish is a flawed but convincing character - I love how the idea of "saving" civilization becomes completely irrelevant as time moves on. The ending is very sad however - when Ish is just that crazy old man wanting the good old days.

Seen as we have wandered onto older post apocalyptic threads - E.M. Forsters The Machine Stops (1909) has to be one of the earliest novels (its actually a novella) to depict a post apocalyptic man made world. It's a very prescient book and due to it's length I would recommend it to most SF fans - very prophetic.

I actually like LACK of worldbuilding in post apocalyptic stories, for example The Road gave you so much by telling you so little.

Agreed, the Road was the first Mccarthy novel I read. The prose conveys the world perfectly l. I can't really emulate his style myself, but it is brilliant to read.

Unlike a lot of post-apocalyptic books, there is nothing implausible or fantastical about it.

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

I now await 50 examples that you all know of that precede it.

Challenge accepted!

I recently finished (well this time last year) The Deluge by Sidney Fowler Wright - Deluge (novel) - Wikipedia first published 1928
What impressed me was how relevant it feels, nearly 100 years later. (Global warming, melting icecaps and all that) He also really sticks it to the ruling classes and politicians in a couple of passages. I knew I should have made a note of the page numbers

Another I would like to mention is The Purple Cloud by MP Shiel (published 1901) The Purple Cloud - Wikipedia - a last man alive story who sets about searching the world looking for other survivors and which can boast amongst its fans HG Wells and HP Lovecraft! (According to Wikipedia anyway)

I would also like to second @hitmouse's suggestions of JG Ballard's The Drought (AKA The Burning World) The Burning World (novel) - Wikipedia and The Drowned World The Drowned World - Wikipedia

By the way, @dannymcg , do I win the prize for finding the earliest post-apocalyptic story so far?

 

[vanye]

Any love for Patrick Tilley's Amtrak Wars?

Nope. Read the first one and found it very much middle-of-the-road. And unconvincing.

 

[BAYLOR]

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller World War III salted the world back too the Dark ages. In The Roman Catholic Church hld say of the world, and d dedicated to rediscovering all lost knowledge. Its great book. Babylon 5 in the series finale did a wonderful l homage to Canticle .

 

[Randy M.]

If we're talking old post-apocalypse, there's one I haven't read, The Last Man by Mary Shelley (1826), but have heard interesting things about.

How about a sort of bucolic post-apocalypse? Davy by Edgar Pangborn. (Keep thinking I should reread this.)

About Ballard's The Crystal World, it's beautifully written and engrossing. Also deeply sad and, I think, quite English -- something about it felt like a lament for England's lost power and influence, or at least for the loss of the world as it was when England was ascendant.

Randy M.

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

Another classic British story is John Chrisopher's The Death Of Grass The Death of Grass - Wikipedia which has left an impression me, not only because it is mainly set in Westmoreland and the Lake District. but also because it raises the point of how mankind is so reliant on vegetation.