# Most realistic WWIII/post-apocalyptic novels? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 3, 2011, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-wwiii-post-apocalyptic-novels/584151 "2011-06-03T00:33:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2011, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-wwiii-post-apocalyptic-novels/584151/61 "2011-06-11T18:51:32Z")
> [@Uncle\_Jocko](#): > > **Warday** by Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka. A fascinating book I’ve read several times, it describes the aftermath of a “limited” nuclear exchange between the US and the Soviet Union (it was written in 1984). It follows two men who travel across the United States to report on the effects of the war (military installations and areas with missile silos are radioactive wastelands, for example, while California and the Pacific Coast remained relatively untouched … and therefore have essentially walled themselves off from the rest of the country). > > I find the book very realistic in its depictions of how things could have happened. The United States is now seen as an international pariah for participating in the exchange, and the Red Cross is acting as a resentful overseer of much of the country. The economic effects on housing and food an transportation are also included. I think the book is out of print now, but I highly recommend it, if you can find a copy. I ordered this a week or so ago and it came yesterday. Looking forward to cracking it open. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2011, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-wwiii-post-apocalyptic-novels/584151/62 "2011-06-11T20:33:32Z")
Looking forward to discussing it with you, if you like. 🙂 I think part of what really struck me about the book is the contrasts between how small the nuclear exchange was, and how much damage it did, and how people are still just living their lives and getting on with things. ETA: I’m re-reading “Lucifer’s Hammer” now thanks to this thread. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-wwiii-post-apocalyptic-novels/584151/63 "2011-06-12T06:42:54Z")
> [@JayDeeX](#): > > How realistic is this portrayal of the aftermath of a nuclear war ? I don’t know but the book and the film both make you hope it never happens. It would have been more believable if the aftermath had been a bio warfare situation, rather than nuclear. An Australian aquaintance once noted that it had more to do with the pysch undertones in Australia of the time, than anything to do with nuclear warfare. A national mental snapshot if you will. Declan ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-wwiii-post-apocalyptic-novels/584151/64 "2011-06-13T18:29:28Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > Looking forward to discussing it with you, if you like. 🙂 I’m nearly finished, about 40 pages left. I’ve enjoyed it, hence the pace at which I’ve read it. It’s not perfect but still I found it rather rivetting. I’ll put my comments in a spoiler in case there are people who want to read it. I doubt anything I’ve written would ruin the book but anyway: I felt the less is more approach was much more effective. The young kids giving their accounts of life post-war in Kansas were better imho than most of the adult accounts given and I felt nearly all the official documents given were unnecessary and hard to slog through. Some of the voices seemed real, others less so. I thought the post-war situation was really interesting, with only a few flaws. It’s interesting to a read the book as a satire of American fears in the mid-'80s. I dunno if I’m reading into it wrong but it suggests that there was a fear of Japanese technological domination and (what else is new?) a fear of Hispanic migration. There’s also a vaguely anti-California vibe to proceedings. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-wwiii-post-apocalyptic-novels/584151/65 "2011-06-13T20:54:30Z")
I wouldn’t argue with any of your spoilered ideas. The “less is more” approach is a good way to put it - there was a lot left unspoken in the book that you had to figure out on your own. I would say that came from the first conceit of the book - that it is written in a future where the limited nuclear war has happened, and the narrator assumes his audience knows the same things he does. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-wwiii-post-apocalyptic-novels/584151/66 "2011-06-13T21:08:57Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > I wouldn’t argue with any of your spoilered ideas. The “less is more” approach is a good way to put it - there was a lot left unspoken in the book that you had to figure out on your own. I would say that came from the first conceit of the book - that it is written in a future where the limited nuclear war has happened, and the narrator assumes his audience knows the same things he does. The technique is something I’ve only ever read before in Phillip Roth’s The Plot Against America, placing a narrator with the author’s own name in the alternate history. In both instances I found myself wondering, what, if anything the authors said was true of their own lives. A quick googling suggests they did draw on their own real lives up to the fictional point. Another vague gripe, I think it was way too soon for new technologies to be present. It’s implied that the British and Japanese have all these amazing technologies. Ok, they weren’t directly hit but they would still have suffered in some way during such a conflict. It’s funny how some of the technologies they describe fit in with technologies we have now. There’s allusions to flatscreen tellies, digital cameras, and the author getting a hard-on over some Apple tech. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![SunSandSuffering](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@SunSandSuffering](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SunSandSuffering)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-wwiii-post-apocalyptic-novels/584151/67 "2011-06-14T12:05:10Z")
[When the Wind Blows](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090315/) anyone? ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-wwiii-post-apocalyptic-novels/584151/68 "2011-06-14T13:35:35Z")
> [@SunSandSuffering](#): > > [When the Wind Blows](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090315/) anyone? I’ve seen it and loved it. Very, very sad. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2011, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-wwiii-post-apocalyptic-novels/584151/69 "2011-06-14T14:35:07Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > and, of course, the classic _On the Beach_ by Nevil Shute, about the slow dwindling of humanity as postwar radiation covers the globe. Excellent book. Just out in paperback is Steven Amsterdam’s [Things We Didn’t See Coming](http://www.amazon.com/Things-We-Didnt-See-Coming/dp/0307473600/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1308061350&sr=8-1), which I liked. It’s episodes in (possibly) one person’s life as the collapse comes, and society mutates and eventually re-emerges. Somewhat similar in form is [Soft Apocalypse](http://www.amazon.com/Soft-Apocalypse-Will-McIntosh/dp/159780276X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1308061540&sr=8-1) by Will McIntosh, also just out in softcover. [The Committed Men](http://www.amazon.co.uk/committed-men-M-John-Harrison/dp/009107570X/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1308061761&sr=8-5) by M.John Harrison was also mentioned; I re-read it a few years ago and felt it still held up well. Another interesting British one is [The Death of Grass](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Death-Grass-Penguin-Modern-Classics/dp/0141190175/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1308061895&sr=8-1) by John Christopher. Grasses and grains all start dying off, and food rapidly becomes scarce… The characters are much more realistic in their actions than the ones in _The Day of the Triffids_, a much more famous Britich catastrophe book of the same time. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-wwiii-post-apocalyptic-novels/584151/70 "2011-06-15T01:35:02Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > Even if the _entire_ earth was not completely rendered uninhabitable by nuclear war, scenarios like those in _The Road_ would still play out in various parts of the world. There would be massive famine and disease, and people would prey upon each other for food and supplies and eventually turn to cannibalism. In the short term maybe, but IIRC in the story the event happened years previously. Why’s he still wandering around the nullwastes of Pennsylvania (or wherever)? For the cannibalism as portrayed to make sense then the “prey” have to be getting food from somewhere. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a fantastically written book but I don’t think, and I don’t think he cared to put, his characters in a realistic, natural setting. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-wwiii-post-apocalyptic-novels/584151/71 "2011-06-15T01:45:40Z")
Carol Amen’s short story _The Last Testament_, which was adapted into the movie [_Testament_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086429/). To this day it remains the only movie ever to upset my wife so much she walked out of it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-realistic-wwiii-post-apocalyptic-novels/584151.md?page=3)