Well, Father was a very poor driver.
Just finished The Sunrise Lands the other night. I like how it deals with the first post-Change generation instead of using the characters from the first (second if you count the Island in the Stream of Time series) trilogy again. There’s a scene I found funny when one of the younger soldiers in Boise can’t pronounce “electronics”.
While not quite what the OP had in mind, everyone shoiuld read Stephen King’s masterpiece The Stand
Always looking for an excuse to mention my favorite post-Apocalyptic music video, You Got Lucky by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
Earth Abides, by George Stewart, and The Purple Cloud, by M.P. Shiel
The Purple Cloud (1901) is the granddaddy of the last-man-on-Earth genre, and answers the question, “What if the last man on Earth were a complete jackass?” I didn’t like it much for that reason.
I highly recommend Earth Abides, though.
Don’t remember the title, but the Vonnegut story in which all the world’s water is gradually chemically converted into “Ice-9,” whose sluggish viscosity renders it incompatible with the earth’s existing lifeforms, freaked me out when I read it way back when.
And sci-fi writer Alice Sheldon, A.K.A. Racoona Sheldon, A.K.A. James Tiptree, Jr., wrote a number of stories which fall into these categories, but the best known of them is probably “The Screwfly Solution,” which was adapted for TV by a Showtime horror-anthology series last year.
For a very early forerunner of the genre, there’s Boccaccio’s The Decameron, which uses the Black Plague and the breakdown of society in 14th-C. Italy as a framing device for a small group of survivors sitting out the Plague in a remote hamlet, where they tell bawdy, funny stories to each other. It’s been made into several films already, the latest version being Virgin Territory (2007, Hayden Christensen, Tim Roth, Mischa Barton), which according to IMDB will be released next month… in Russia. (I hope the odd release schedule doesn’t bode ill for the film; I’ve been looking forward to this one for a long time.)
Star-Man’s Son, by Andre Norton.
If we’re including Black Plague in the PA genre, then try the movie Flesh+Blood, starring Rutger Hauer and Jennifer Jason Leigh.
Cat’s Cradle, and Ice-9 didn’t just make the oceans viscous, it froze them solid.
A massively over-rated book, IMO, but I’ve never seen the appeal of Vonnegut.
If we’re talking music, the very best is “Talking WWIII Blues” by Dylan. It deals with just about every after the war stereotype, one verse each. Plus it contains the two classic lines
“Them old dreams are only in your head”
and
“You can be in my dream if I can be in yours.”
plus
“I drove down 42nd Street.
In my Cadillac
Great car to drive
After a war.”
Mary Shelley had him beat by about 60 years. I agree it’s not a great book, though.
I know it’s been mentioned, but my very favorite is Earth Abides. I’ve re-read it several times. I don’t think it could be made in to a movie without absolutely ruining it, but it would make a great mini-series.
I’ve always enjoyed Ariel, by Steven R. Boyett. If you read this one, cut the author a little slack; he was only 21.
I’ve enjoyed a lot of the books in this thread but not " A Canticle for Leibowitz" and “Davy”. I never finished Davy.
I really enjoyed that book as well, but there was one nit that really annoyed me; he occasionally used “tremblor” instead of “temblor”.
Heh, I can relate. Tremblor sounds like it should be the right word to describe something shaking. Temblor sounds like something you drink out of.
But definitely annoying, since the mistake was probably a proofreading error. I’m noticing way more of those in the last ten years or so.
A warning: there is a sequel to Canticle, published posthumously. It’s called something like “Saint Leibowitz and the wild horse woman” (white horse?) Avoid it at all costs. The only good part was a few pages the editor added at the end, and when an editor’s contribution is better, beware. Very disappointing.
Am I the only one who has read D. Keith Mano’s “the Bridge” ?
No one has mentioned The Death of Grass (published in the US as No Blade of Grass). A bit hard to find, but a good read. Similar in style to John Wyndham’s stuff.
Speaking of Wyndham, Day of the Triffids is a post-apocalyptic book of sorts, and an excellent read - much better than a plot description might suggest.
I had forgotten that Mary Shelley kicked things off for this genre. Has anyone read The Last Man? Is it any good?
And as far as post-apocalyptic songs go, there’s Everyday Is Like Sunday by Morrissey.
Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 novel It Can’t Happen Here tells the story of how a fascist dictatorship takes over America. Full text available here.