This article discuss several novels about what happens to industrial civilization after the oil runs out.
In that genre, I recommend World Made by Hand, by James Howard Kunstler.
It does have some cyborgs though.
WARDAY by Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka.
It is dated (writen in 1984) but if you grew up in that era as I did, you can totally relate.
Not quite post-apocolyptic, but post limited nuclear exchange between the US and the USSR. It is told in a first perosn narative by the 2 writers as if they were touring the country and conducting interviews and writting about it. An interesting take on the genre
The awakening water http://www.amazon.com/Awakening-Water-G-R-Crosher/dp/0803804717
I read it as a teen looking for sci fi but it is more of a social commentary about society rebuilding itself after a disaster.
This may be a strange recommendation, since it’s really a young adult/kid’s novel, but I fondly remember the book The Girl Who Owned a City, by O.T. Nelson. It’s about a virus that kills off anyone over the age of 12, which leaves kids fending for themselves and struggling to figure out how to find food and maintain safe shelter from gangs. The protagonists are Lisa and her kid brother Todd. Lisa wants to build society back up and has to convince the other kids in her neighborhood to figure out a longtime food solution, organize education so they can learn about medicine and technology, and find a way to defend against the bullies who just want to steal what they need. There’s a sorta Lord of the Flies vibe here but it’s more about the practicalities of surviving in a world without adults, and how kids would learn how to drive, cook, treat injuries, and so on.
(On the downside for me is that there’s a pretty strong Ayn Rand vibe to Lisa’s mindset. I’m sure others wouldn’t be as tight-assed as I am about that sorta thing!)
I always thought it’d make a great film or even TV series.
George R. Stewart’s The Earth Abides (1949) is a favorite.
Jeff Carlson’s The Plague Year; I can’t really recommend it but it fits the criteria.
An early example more interesting as an artifact than actual pleasure reading would be Richard Jefferies’ After London (1885).
Emergence by David Palmer
Dies The Fire by Steve Stirling (it’s not magic, it’s alien space bats!)
Also seconding Lucifer’s Hammer and Alas Babylon. Riddley Walker and The Road both blow chunks.
I think Stephen King’s The Stand would qualify, with the caveat that there is a supernatural element, but it’s worth it to read the day-to-day breakdown of civilization that King writes about. It is a very good story for that aspect - you’re right there with all the characters as they try to figure out what the hell is going on, and how to live after everyone else dies.
I thought of that as well, but that series doesn’t meet this requirement in the OP: "but the laws of physics and biology stay the same. "
Seconding “Earth Abides.” Wonderful book.
By the way, I know you said ‘story’, but I thoroughly enjoyed the non-fiction book “The World Without Us”, by Alan Weisman. It goes through various human structures, from simple things like barns to complex hydro-electric facilities, and outlines how long it would take them to break down. Fascinating.
The Postman is, for my money, the best one of these. While it does have augmented soldiers they could have been left out without changing the point.
After the world ends in a short and massive war attempts at rebuilding are destroyed by survivalists.
The story is about the responsibility to work towards rebuilding. It hit me hard and is one of my favorites.
The classic ones have already been mentioned, so I’ll just point out that there were quite a few post-apocalyptic short stories in the 1950s. It was a decade after the atom bomb, we were at the outset of the Cold War, with tensions high, and it was the golden age of the Short SF/Fantasy Story With the Twist Ending. Look at collections of stories from the period (like Robert Sheckley’s) and you’ll find quite a few that don’t have zombies (which didn’t become a feature of apocalypses until after Night of the Living Dead made them a credible threat), cyborgs, or magic.
Another vote for *Lucifer’s Hammer *by Niven and Pournelle.
I was also going to recommend the *Dies the Fire *trilogy until I saw the stipulation regarding the laws of physics. On the other hand, I would have thought them worth a try if you like “a good read” that is not too “arty”. The laws of physics are different but consistently different and the series does hit the “takes place in a ruined future with regular humans facing non-supernatural, non-supertechnological forces? Bonus points if the story is focused on problems inherent in human society and makes external/environmental threats secondary” criteria. (But note that the sequels starting with *The Sunrise Lands *don’t meet the non-supernatural, non-supertechnological criteria.)
Along with the already mentioned stories, *No Blade of Grass *is a cozy catastrophe story where a family needs to evacuate London and reach the family farm/ homestead after a plant plague kills off all species of grass. This includes cultivated grain.
Food riots, petty warlords, and that very British horror of the social structure unraveling. Good story.
I read this a few years ago on recommendation of someone on the SDMB, and was blown away. It’s a prodigious feat of imagination - everything happens “realistically” from start to finish - there are no unnecessary externalities driving the plot at all - just an extraordinary extrapolation of what might happen if most of mankind died, moving logically from step to step over the decades. And moving too. Highly recommended.
As far as The Road is concerned, I would be surprised if Cormac McCarthy didn’t win the Nobel Prize for Literature with that book as the backbone of his output. It’s one of the most affecting things I’ve ever read, in an unparalleled prose style that conveys so much with so little.
Things We Didn’t See Coming by Steve Amsterdam might appeal to people who thought The Road was a bit too bleak. It’s an episodic novel following the life of a young boy as he grows up in the wake of massive catastrophe.
Eternity Road by Jack McDevitt is pretty good, although set quite some time after the collapse; it’s a while since I read it so I don’t remember if the ending is weak, as one of the Amazon reviews says.
They’ve already been mentioned, but A Canticle for Leibowitz and The Postman are the first two I thought of.