# Dystopian/Post Apocalyptic- To Read List **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 7, 2013, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dystopian-post-apocalyptic-to-read-list/655088 "2013-04-07T18:58:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![happycamper\_5](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/cab0a1/32.png) [@happycamper\_5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/happycamper_5)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dystopian-post-apocalyptic-to-read-list/655088/21 "2013-04-08T01:57:11Z")
I know you said that you’ve read many of the older books, but just in case it slipped under your radar (because I don’t often see it mentioned in threads like this), I highly recommend _The Death of Grass_ by John Christopher. For newer novels, Marcel Theroux’s _Far North_ was an interesting read - entertaining and lonely, which is what I prefer in a dystopian/PA novel. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dystopian-post-apocalyptic-to-read-list/655088/22 "2013-04-08T02:04:06Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > Haven’t read much new stuff lately, but I’d just like to toss out my favorite PA novel, _Emergence_, by David Palmer, in case anybody’s missed it. Are you aware Palmer finally wrote the sequel? _Tracking_ was serialized in Analog magazine in 2008. It was supposed to then be published in book form but the publisher went bankrupt and nobody else has picked up the rights yet. ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_Hartwick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@Dave\_Hartwick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_Hartwick)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dystopian-post-apocalyptic-to-read-list/655088/23 "2013-04-08T02:36:22Z")
My father in law recommended _Without Warning_ and its sequel _After America_ by John Birmingham. I read a bit and seemed to be fun, action-packed type books. North America basically gets rubbed out by a cosmic eraser and everybody scrambles to put the pieces back together. After a recommendation here for a good zombie novel, I gave my step-son _Day By Day Armageddon_ by J.L. Bourne. He seems to have loved it (while never admitting that he actually liked such a lame gift as a book). He also liked _World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War_ and _The Zombie Survival Guide_ by Max Brooks, which I suppose you’ve probably already read, Lucky Mike. I found both readable but thought the first one was written in something like a monotone-- especially compared to Studs Turkel’s _The Good War_, to which _Z_ owed an obvious debt, and _Guide_ was just OK. Maybe an odd recommendation, but I’ve always been fond of Poul Anderson’s _Brainwave_, where life on Earth is thrown out of completely joint by a sudden, apocalyptic, sharp… increase in IQ. ---
**Author:** ![turner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/22d042/32.png) [@turner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/turner)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dystopian-post-apocalyptic-to-read-list/655088/24 "2013-04-08T02:38:25Z")
Soft apocalypse by Will McIntosh > **[Soft Apocalypse: McIntosh, Will: 9781597802765: Amazon.com: Books](https://www.amazon.com/Soft-Apocalypse-Will-McIntosh/dp/159780276X)** > > Soft Apocalypse \[McIntosh, Will\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. Soft Apocalypse ---
**Author:** ![Battle\_Pope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Battle\_Pope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Battle_Pope)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dystopian-post-apocalyptic-to-read-list/655088/25 "2013-04-08T02:51:39Z")
I’m a fan of John Wyndham. _The Kraken Wakes_ and _The Day of the Triffids_ may fit the bill. The _Triffids_ sequel _The Night of the Triffids_ by Simon Clark is OK too. ---
**Author:** ![Chinook1956](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ed655f/32.png) [@Chinook1956](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chinook1956)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dystopian-post-apocalyptic-to-read-list/655088/26 "2013-04-08T07:08:00Z")
Directive 51 and Daybreak Zero by John Barnes. There is a third novel in the series that I haven’t read yet - The Last President. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dystopian-post-apocalyptic-to-read-list/655088/27 "2013-04-08T12:36:03Z")
_The Last President_ keeps being delayed; it’s currently due in September. The 3rd\*\* John Birmingham\*\* book just came out in paperback, _The Angels of Vengeance_. Quite liked _Soft Apocalypse_ by **Wil McIntosh** as mentioned by **turner** above; _Hitchers_ is also very good but less apocalyptic… I’m not a **Harry Turtledove** fan, but I’ve enjoyed both his _Supervolcano_ books, _Eruption_ and _All all Down_ more than I expected. Yellowstone erupts and blankets several states with thick ash. No omniscient overview, it’s all told from the point of view of characters (often related) dealing with things as they unfold over time. **Brian Francis Slattery** just won the Philip K. Dick award with _Lost Everything_, which I’ve not read yet, but looks interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Renifer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71c47a/32.png) [@Renifer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renifer)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dystopian-post-apocalyptic-to-read-list/655088/28 "2013-04-08T15:33:47Z")
Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer. An asteroid hits the moon and knocks it closer to Earth. The results are catastrophic. Reading it, I felt like the events were really happening around me. For weeks afterward, every time I looked at the moon, I got chills. It gives a realistic portrayal of the teenaged protagonist chafing at the constraints imposed by the disaster (no electricity, dwindling food supplies, nuclear winter-like weather conditions, her friends dying). She doesn’t automatically shift into “put on a brave face” mode: she feels fear, sorrow for being separated by her loved one, anger for her lost future, and shame. She occasionally lashes out at her mother and her friends for the choices they make. You can understand her frustrations as her world grows narrower and her struggle to survive becomes more daunting. I might not be describing this character accurately: she’s not a brat. She’s not perfect, and that makes the story more compelling, that there are psychological as well as physical implications of the apocalyptic event. ---
**Author:** ![Zjestika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/8edcca/32.png) [@Zjestika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zjestika)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dystopian-post-apocalyptic-to-read-list/655088/29 "2013-04-08T17:29:38Z")
Life as We Knew It sounds a little like [Age of Miracles](http://www.amazon.com/Age-Miracles-Karen-Thompson-Walker/dp/0812982940/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1365441954&sr=1-1&keywords=age+of+miracles), a YA end-of-the-world novel about the planet slowing and the days growing longer. The protagonists sounds similar: teenage girls who just want to be teenagers. I liked Age of Miracles- I’ll have to look into Life as We Knew It. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dystopian-post-apocalyptic-to-read-list/655088/30 "2013-04-08T17:34:03Z")
Perhaps not quite exactly the kind of post-apocalyptic fiction you’re looking for, but check out S.M. Stirling’s [Emberverse](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emberverse) series. You won’t be sorry. ---
**Author:** ![psiekier](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psiekier/32/116_2.png) [@psiekier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psiekier)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dystopian-post-apocalyptic-to-read-list/655088/31 "2013-04-08T19:12:31Z")
How about [_Earth Abides_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Abides), by George R. Stewart? It’s pretty old, so maybe you’ve read it, but I searched through a lot of Half Price Books stores before I finally found a copy at an estate sale for 50 cents. > [@Baker](#): > > One that’s somewhat dated now, but still a classic, is _Alas, Babylon_ by Pat Frank. > > It was written in 1959, (I think), but it’s interesting that the conflict that brought on the nuclear war was not a US vs. Soviet thing, but a mid-Eastern blowup. > > The plot centers on a small community in Florida, and how they get by after the conflict. Racial issues of the day play a part in the story. The lack of electricity can be a killer too. One character’s mother dies because she’s diabetic, and even before she’s run out of insulin it can’t be chilled, and spoils. > > The story gets a lot of little details that some neglect, and the last line of the book is devastating. I loved this book, details and all. When then book reveals that some remnant of the US government _did_ survive, it’s simultaneously amusing and terrifying to find out that the president was a cabinet secretary (don’t remember what the position would have been called back then, but HUD Secretary, now) who survived because she was out inspecting some government-backed housing project while everybody else in the chain of succession was vapourized! > [@Hello\_Again](#): > > Perhaps you’ve resisted it’s siren lure but I’ll stand up and say _The Hunger Games_ is a pretty decent little dystopian novel – I wouldn’t bother with the sequels though. You can get it free from the Kindle Lending Library, if you’re a Prime member. You _have_ to read the other two to find out where it goes and how it ends, and to be inspired to see who they cast with Jennifer Lawrence in the movies! It might be hard to enjoy that third book, though … > [@Ethilrist](#): > > Haven’t read much new stuff lately, but I’d just like to toss out my favorite PA novel, _Emergence_, by David Palmer, in case anybody’s missed it. Oh, _ **P** _ost-_ **A** _pocalyptic novel! What this thread is about! I was wondering when Palmer wrote Powered Armour novel. I just finished _Old Man’s War_ by John Scalzi and looked back through _Starship Troopers_ again for some quotes for another message board. > [@happycamper\_5](#): > > I know you said that you’ve read many of the older books, but just in case it slipped under your radar (because I don’t often see it mentioned in threads like this), I highly recommend _The Death of Grass_ by John Christopher. How about Christopher’s Tripod books: _The White Mountains_, _The City of Gold and Lead_, and finally _The Pool of Fire_? I enjoyed reading those years ago, and really wished they would have collected the serialized comic adaption that appeared in _Boy’s Life_ magazine when I was a scout. Those might not qualify, as the apocalyptic destruction is the result of an alien invasion and occupation, which pushes the genre too much into science fiction. > [@Dave\_Hartwick](#): > > After a recommendation here for a good zombie novel, I gave my step-son _Day By Day Armageddon_ by J.L. Bourne. He seems to have loved it (while never admitting that he actually liked such a lame gift as a book). He also liked _World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War_ and _The Zombie Survival Guide_ by Max Brooks, which I suppose you’ve probably already read, Lucky Mike. I found both readable but thought the first one was written in something like a monotone-- especially compared to Studs Turkel’s _The Good War_, to which _Z_ owed an obvious debt, and _Guide_ was just OK. Darn it! I was going to suggest **Lucky Mike** read _World War Z_ before Brad Pitt has a chance to ruin it. Oh, [you think I’m kidding?](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcwTxRuq-uk) ---
**Author:** ![cinnamontictacs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cinnamontictacs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cinnamontictacs)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dystopian-post-apocalyptic-to-read-list/655088/32 "2013-04-08T21:55:57Z")
Okay so I am new and havent read the rest of the thread so may be repeating myself but I’ll just write a list of my favourites as I’m a total apocalypse nerd The Death of Grass by John Christopher A Canticle For Leibowitz - can’t remember the author off the top of my head but this is an incredible book The Day of the Triffids, The Kraken Wakes and The Chrysalids by John Wyndam Earth Abides by George R Stewart World War Z The Stand by Stephen King The Passage by Justin Cronin 1984 obviously The First and Last Men by Olaf Stapledon There are probably more but those are what immediately spring to mind! ---
**Author:** ![cinnamontictacs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cinnamontictacs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cinnamontictacs)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dystopian-post-apocalyptic-to-read-list/655088/33 "2013-04-08T22:00:21Z")
I also have an anthology of apocalyptic short stories called Wastelands, pretty sure I bought it on Amazon. Also just saw you were looking for modern stuff, my apologies! Most of the best science fiction was written in the fifties imo but now I’ll be interested to hear what other people suggest. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dystopian-post-apocalyptic-to-read-list/655088/34 "2013-04-08T23:39:38Z")
“Scarlet Plague” by Jack London (which as an added bonus has the apocalyptic plague indicated in the title occurring this year) [http://london.sonoma.edu/Writings/Scarlet/](http://london.sonoma.edu/Writings/Scarlet/) ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dystopian-post-apocalyptic-to-read-list/655088/35 "2013-04-08T23:50:40Z")
_Wolf and Iron_ by Gordon R. Dickson. ---
**Author:** ![ataraxy22](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ataraxy22/32/307_2.png) [@ataraxy22](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ataraxy22)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dystopian-post-apocalyptic-to-read-list/655088/36 "2013-04-09T00:02:41Z")
Dust, by Charles Pellagrino Blood Music by Greg Bear Hammer of God also Greg Bear When Worlds Collide (a classic in the genre) Empty World, by John Christopher ---
**Author:** ![Glazer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a88e57/32.png) [@Glazer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Glazer)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dystopian-post-apocalyptic-to-read-list/655088/37 "2013-04-09T01:53:35Z")
Seed; Rob Ziegler ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_Not\_Appearing\_In\_This\_Film](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a8b319/32.png) [@Sir\_Not\_Appearing\_In\_This\_Film](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Not_Appearing_In_This_Film)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dystopian-post-apocalyptic-to-read-list/655088/38 "2013-04-09T02:49:51Z")
Really enjoyed **The Passage** and **The Twelve** by Justin Cronin. Looking forward to the third installment. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dystopian-post-apocalyptic-to-read-list/655088/39 "2013-04-09T21:11:04Z")
I’ll nominate the [**Chaos Walking**](http://amzn.com/B0067NY79O) series by Patrick Ness. First book is [**The Knife of Never Letting Go**](http://amzn.com/B0044UHVR2). It takes place on an alien world where a virus has killed all the women and made the men into psychic beacons, constantly broadcasting their every thought to everyone nearby. Depending on your point of view, it’s more science fiction than post-apocalyptic, but the writing is fantastic. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dystopian-post-apocalyptic-to-read-list/655088/40 "2013-04-09T21:58:11Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > Haven’t read much new stuff lately, but I’d just like to toss out my favorite PA novel, _Emergence_, by David Palmer, in case anybody’s missed it. I liked that one. And older one that you may have missed that I like is _Hiero’s Journey_. Although it’s _really_ post apocalyptic, long after the war that destroyed civilization. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dystopian-post-apocalyptic-to-read-list/655088.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dystopian-post-apocalyptic-to-read-list/655088.md?page=3)